The Wayfarer's End: Bonaventure and Aquinas on Divine Rewards in Scripture and Sacred Doctrine 0813232910, 9780813232911

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  THE WAYFARER’S   END

Shawn M. Colberg

  THE WAYFARER’S END E Bonaventure & Aquinas on Divine Rewards in Scripture & Sacred Doctrine

     The Catholic University of America Press Washington, D.C.

Copyright © 2020 The Catholic University of America Press All rights reserved The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984. ∞ Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress ISBN 978-0-8132-3291-1

For Kristin, Mary Clare, and Catherine With love and gratitude L

Contents Con t e n ts

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1 The Significance of Reward  4 Reward Texts  6 Rewards and Gifts  7 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and Thomas Aquinas  10 Sacra Pagina et Sacra Doctrina 12 Foundational Themes in Bonaventure and Aquinas  16 Method 27

1. Bonaventure and Reward in the Systematic Works

29

Predestination, Grace, and Reward in the Breviloquium and CS 31 Grace and Reward in the Itinerarium and Lignum vitae 59 Conclusion 74

2. Thomas and Reward in the Systematic Works

77

Grace, Human Action, and Reward in the Summa theologiae 79 Gifts and Rewards: Operative and Cooperative Effects of Divine Action  107 The Possibility of Rewards  120 Rewards in Other Parts of the ST 121 Conclusion 136

3. Bonaventure and Aquinas on Reward in the Scripture Commentaries Expositing Scripture  139 Reward Texts  144 Bonaventure: Passages from Luke  144

138

VIII  Contents Thomas: Passages from Matthew  159 Bonaventure: Passages from John  177 Thomas: Passages from John  182 Conclusion 193

4. Rewards and Christian Perfection in the Mendicant Controversies

198

Spiritual Perfection  202 The Merit of the Mendicant Lifestyle  208 Reward as Means and Ends  223 Reward Texts  225 Absent Themes  227 Conclusion 229

5. Bonaventure and Thomas in Relief

230

Human Agency in the Plan of Human Salvation  231 Acceptatio versus Ordinatio 232 The Timing of Divine Rewards  234 The Nature of Divine Rewards  237 The Effects of Divine Rewards  238 Conclusion 240 Appendix: Aquinas and Reward in the Pauline Commentary

245

Passages from Romans  249 Passages from 1 and 2 Corinthians  255 Passages from Galatians  267 Passages from Other Pauline Letters  269 Thomas, Rewards, and Paul  277 Bibliography 281 Scripture Index

303

General Index

307

Acknowledgments

Ack now le dgm e n ts

I am deeply indebted to many people for the fruits of this study. Foremost, I could never have written, revised, or persevered in this project without the constant support of Kristin Colberg, my colleague and spouse. Our conversations about theology in general, and this project in particular, provided many of its best insights, and Kristin’s multiple readings of the manuscript improved its arguments and style. No less, Kristin has given selflessly as a spouse and mother to help me realize the goals of this book. I thank her for enlivening my vocation and sharing her love so generously. I am grateful to my teachers and colleagues for their wisdom and practical advice on this project. Joseph Wawrykow gave steady encouragement and advice from the original conception of the project to its final revisions; I have learned more about Saint Thomas from him than anyone else. The same can be said about Thomas Prügl concerning Saint Bonaventure; he generously provided regular feedback over the maturation of the manuscript, including opportunities to teach and present parts of its content. Exemplar teachers, scholars, and friends who shaped the book’s horizon and content include John Cavadini, Brian Daley, SJ, and Cyril O’Regan; they shared countless conversations and insights about the project and its claims. Corey Barnes, Scott Moringiello, and Daria Spezzano—friends and colleagues—provided invaluable moral and technical support at critical moments in the study’s production; it has been good to write and learn with them. My work was also shaped by the kindness and expertise of J. Matthew Ashley, David Burrell, CSC, Mary Catherine Hilkert, Robert Krieg, and Randall Zachman. I also wish to recognize my early teachers who shaped my theological training and love for ecumenism that set the groundwork for the book, including Bruce Marshall, Robert Jenson, George Lindbeck, and Anna Williams. I thank my colleagues in the Department of Theology at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, as well as the School of Theology-Seminary ix

X  Acknowledgments

at Saint John’s University, for their active support of the book and a place dedicated “to the pursuit of wisdom.” Heartfelt thanks goes to John Martino, acquisitions editor at the Catholic University of America Press, for his careful reading and strategic advice in the revision of the manuscript. The manuscript is also greatly improved for the comments of its anonymous reviewers, and I am indebted to Amy Quinn for invaluable copy-editing work that improved the style and accuracy of the study. I have learned much during this process from my daughters, Mary Clare and Catherine. Their unstinting optimism, constant eagerness to see their father succeed, generosity with time, and daily joy have made this project— as well as evenings apart from them—meaningful. I am so very proud of them. I thank my parents, Mike and Karin Colberg, for their examples of unconditional love, as well as confidence in my work even when I lacked it. I am grateful for my brother, Shane, my in-laws, Kathleen and Dennis Bell, and the Fregoso family for reassurance during challenging moments and delight during happy ones. I thank Lucinda Mareck, OSB, and Brent Sundve for friendship and the daily prayers that underlie this work. Several other teachers, friends, and colleagues contributed to this project in incalculable ways, including Christopher Wells, Caleb Congrove, Damon McGraw, Rita George Tvrtković, Msgr. Michael Heintz, Joseph Mueller, SJ, Daniel Hofrenning, Karen Cherewatuk, Richard Durocher, the monks of Saint John’s Abbey, the sisters of Saint Benedict’s Monastery, and the staff at Koinonia Retreat Center. The work of theology unfolds in community— ecclesial and otherwise—and whatever good exists in this book is fruit of God’s presence and action therein.                  IOGD                  Collegeville, Minn.

  THE WAYFARER’S   END

Introduction

I N T RODUC T ION

I am amazed that men would rather trust in their own weakness than in the strength of God’s promise. “But I am uncertain,” someone might say, “of God’s will toward me.” What then? Are you certain of your own will toward yourself, and do you not fear, “Wherefore, he that thinks himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall”? Therefore, since both wills are uncertain, why does not man commit his faith, hope, and love to the stronger rather than the weaker?        Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints Christian accounts of salvation necessarily include two indispensable parties: the Triune God, who creates and saves humankind, and human beings, who desire and seek eternal life with God. In nearly every account, God plays a leading role by providing human beings those things that they need to rise from sin and eventually enjoy eternal life. Human beings, by nature, play a supporting role that varies in the degree to which they can respond to God’s action and pursue the end to which they are called. God is the primary actor, and human beings remain secondary. Christian accounts of salvation, however, diverge over the kind of secondary role that human beings play, and they vary in the extent to which human beings retain an active and contingent part in approaching their salvation. Properly parsing divine and human action constitutes a critical problematic for historical and systematic agreement on this fundamental Christian doctrine. The history of Christian reflection on the nature of divine and human action arises fundamentally from scripture, which reveals God’s acEpigraph is from St. Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints, in Four Anti-Pelagian Writings, trans. John A. Mourant and William J. Collinge, The Fathers of the Church 86 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1992), 43.

1

2  Introduction

tion in salvation history and its effects on human beings. Early Christian thought grapples with understanding the significance of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection as well as his divine and human natures—all of which impinge on the proper understanding of Christian salvation. With Augustine and the Pelagian controversies, occidental theology increasingly focuses on questions of divine grace, the process of justification, and the possibility of human merit. High scholastic thought in the West further systematizes and scrutinizes these questions, which stand out as central dogmatic challenges within the Protestant and Catholic reformations and linger into modern and present-day concerns with nature and grace, Christian life, and the universal call to holiness. At the heart of these sometimes church-divisive questions remains the disputed role of human agency in the movement to eternal life with God. Understanding the role of human agency in salvation has taken on greater urgency over the last century as Christian thinkers have engaged the topic with an eye toward dialogue and rapprochement, particularly among the Roman Catholic Church and the churches of the Reformation. The Joint Declaration on Justification, originally crafted and signed by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church, represents perhaps the most significant and official advance in theological agreement on this subject, though it pertains narrowly to the question of human conversion from a state of sin into a state of grace.1 Numerous historical and systematic 1. The most significant positive statement in the 1999 declaration is: “Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works” (3.15). In this core proclamation, one can observe the careful parsing of divine and human agency and its relationship to central theological topics including Christ’s saving work, the action of the Holy Spirit, justification, faith, love, merit, good works, the interior renewal of the person, and divine acceptance. Importantly, the World Methodist Council gave approval to the JDDJ in 2006 and in 2017, the 500th Anniversary year of the Lutheran Reformation, the World Communion of Reformed Churches and the Anglican Communion added their approvals to the declaration. For a text of the statement, see The Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church, Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 2000). For an introduction to the declaration itself, see William G. Rusch, ed., Justification and the Future of the Ecumenical Movement: The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2003). Avery Dulles critiques the document in “Justification: The Joint Declaration,” Josephinum Journal of Theology 9, no. 1 (2002): 108–19. See also H. George Anderson, T. Austin Murphy, and Joseph A. Burgess, eds., Justification by Faith, Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VII, (Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg, 1985), which engages questions of divine and human agency as they related to justification

  Introduction  3

studies have examined questions of divine and human agency in Christian salvation, including examinations and comparisons of seminal figures such as Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Scotus, Luther, and Calvin; moreover, historical studies of topics like grace, justification, predestination, and merit have advanced ecumenical dialogue and understanding.2 The present volume contributes to this work by examining and comparing the role of divine rewards in the theologies of Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas Aquinas. It argues that both thinkers share a common understanding of God as a rewarder and human beings as playing meaningful roles in the economy of salvation. Moreover, it contends that Thomas and Bonaventure develop integrative theological frameworks that allow them to interpret and systematize scriptural treatments of divine rewards alongside other scriptural themes such as grace, predestination, and Christian and sanctification. Alister McGrath’s Justitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) introduces the controversial history of teachings on justification. 2. For pertinent studies of Augustine, see J. Patout Burns’s The Development of Augustine’s Doctrine of Operative Grace (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1980) and Gerald Bonner’s Freedom and Necessity: St. Augustine’s Teaching on Divine Power and Human Freedom (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007). For Aquinas see Joseph Wawrykow’s God’s Grace and Human Action: “Merit” in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995); Henri Bouillard’s Conversion et grace chez S. Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Aubier, editions montaigne, 1944); Bernard Lonergan’s Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. Frederick Crowe and Robert Doran (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000); and Daria Spezzano’s The Glory of God’s Grace (Ave Maria, Fla.: Sapientia Press, 2015). For Aquinas as compared to Luther, see Otto Hermann Pesch’s study, Die Theologie der Rechtfertigung bei Martin Luther und Thomas von Aquin (Mainz: Matthias-Grunewald-Verlag, 1967), and Stephen Pfurtner’s Luther and Aquinas on Salvation, trans. Edward Quinn (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964). For a comparison of Aquinas and Scotus, see Charles Raith’s Aquinas and Calvin on Romans: God’s Grace and Our Participation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). For Scotus, see Werner Dettloff ’s Die Entwicklung der Akzeptations—und Verdienstlehre von Duns Scotus bis Luther: mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Franziskanertheologen (Münster: Westfalen, Ascendorff, 1963) and Berndt Hamm’s Promissio, pactum, ordinatio (Tübingen: Mohr, 1977). See also Heiko E. Oberman’s The Harvest of Late Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963) and Paul Vignaux’s Justification et prédestination aux XIVe siècle; Duns Scot, Pierre d’Auriole, Guillaume d’Occam, Grégoire de Rimini, (Paris: E. Leroux, 1934). For Luther, see Bengt Hägglund’s Theologie und philosophie bei Luther und in der occamistichen tradition (Lund: Gleerup, 1955) and Jared Wicks’s Man Yearning for Grace: Luther’s Early Spiritual Teaching (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1968). Likewise, for Calvin, see Quinirius Breen’s John Calvin: A Study in French Humanism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1968) and Francois Wendel’s Calvin: The Origin and Development of His Religious Thought, trans. P. Maret (New York: Harper and Row, 1963).

4  Introduction

dis­cipleship. To that end, the study investigates the context and conditions under which Bonaventure and Thomas understand God to reward human actions as meaningful, worthy of reward, and consequential for progress in human salvation. Offering a comparative exposition of human agency in Thomas and Bonaventure contributes to theological conversations today. These high scholastic thinkers understood their work as deeply biblical, grounded in concrete practices of the Christian life, and integrated into larger theological commitments. This study draws their magisterial treatments of grace and human action into conversation with the scriptural foundations of their claims, and it contextualizes their regard for human action into a larger system of the God’s saving work. The study resists the historical urge to simplify these dynamic systems into glib accounts of medieval understandings of merit, nature, or grace for the sake of handy comparisons with later thinkers. Above all, the study demarcates and explores those ways in which persons play active and commendable roles in their own salvation according to Bonaventure and Thomas.

The Significance of Reward The concept of reward offers a valuable and relatively unexplored vantage point for studying the roles of divine and human action in Bonaventure and Thomas. Divine reward refers to God’s recompense for human efforts or actions that consequently effect a person’s progress (or lack thereof) toward full communion with God. The theological notion of reward has deep scriptural roots in both the Old and New Testaments.3 While passages are diverse in content and context, it is possible to surmise a basic principle that, according to scripture, God chooses to recompense certain human efforts at certain points. Rewards can be positive or negative, and they can also be temporal (interim) or eternal (final). For example, scripture reveals positive temporal rewards—God provides Abraham with many descendants; Christ heals someone who approaches in faith—and negative—Moses cannot enter the promised land; the rich young man goes away sad when Christ advises him to sell his possessions. Scripture is even more explicit with eternal re3. See Joseph A. Burgess, “Rewards but in a Very Different Sense,” in Justification by Faith, Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VII, ed. H. George Anderson, T. Austin Murphy, and Joseph A. Brugess, 94–110 (Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg Publishing, 1985).

  Introduction  5

wards. New Testament parables such as the sheep and the goats, the talents, and the wise and foolish bridesmaids, signify eternal rewards and punishments tied to specific human dispositions and acts. The variety and timing of rewards often differ, thereby complicating any simplistic systemization of divine rewards and punishments; indeed, the diversity of examples makes it difficult to codify even a rough scriptural scheme of divine recompense. Moreover, that scripture presents rewards in the context of ethical choices, divine commands, and systems of human and divine justice further obscures any obvious or singular definition of God considered as “rewarder.”4 If it can be said that God does in fact reward persons, then the critical questions for understanding the relation between divine and human agency, and indeed the journey to union with God, become what does God give as a reward and when and under what circumstances does God give it? God’s reward, often understood in the language of grace, may contain manifold meanings: it could be created or uncreated; it may unfold with or without human cooperation; and the effects may be intrinsic or extrinsic for the recipient. The timing of the reward also proves telling; it might be given to a lapsed sinner, a justified person (that is, a person in a state of grace), someone who has fallen subsequent to being justified, or someone far advanced in the pursuit of union with God. Mapping the timing, nature, and effects of divine rewards identifies those moments at which human actions and efforts— as precursors to reward—are consequential for progress on the journey. Scholarship in many places has already explored the conceptual place of merit in relation to justification and sanctification. Reward approaches these topics from a related but distinct vista. Focusing on reward shifts theological emphasis to God’s role as a rewarder so that God is approached as the primary and free agent who invites appropriate human responses to salvation. Moreover, a focus on reward suggests that God’s responses to human efforts need not follow the strict requirements that inhere in certain conceptions of merit.5 Merit often describes the relation of human action to divine re4. Acknowledging the wide and complex spectrum of scriptural rewards, P. E. Davies writes: “The operation of [biblical] reward ranges from the natural compensation man to man, to God’s recognition of obedience and service, from a happy outcome in this life to a gracious recompense in the life to come.” See P. E. Davies, “Reward,” in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, ed. George A. Buttrick, 71–74 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962). 5. Justice is relevant to rewards or recompense when rewards are correlated to measurable human

6  Introduction

wards, but they are not synonymous. Using the larger framework of rewards permits a robust appreciation of merit, yet it frees Thomas and Bonaventure to speak more generally of God’s responses to human action, particularly in places where language of merit is absent from the biblical or practical accounts at hand.

Reward Texts A straightforward scan of the Latin Vulgate demonstrates the relative infrequency of the term meritum or the verb mereor; indeed, meritum arises only three times, all within the Book of Sirach.6 It is not a specific term that either Bonaventure or Thomas would have encountered in the biblical text, except in the gloss. Latin terms denoting “reward” or “recompense,” however, occur with far greater frequency, which suggests their preeminence as categories for examining human agency.7 Further implicit references abound. effort or action. Viewed as payments, the nature and circumstances of rewards may seem subject to the terms of justice; in such a case, a reward—as payment—may only be seen as appropriate if it justly compensates the laborer for her efforts. From this perspective, rewards are part and parcel of a system of exchange that can underappreciate the gratuity and superabundance of God’s saving action in the economy. Rewards and payments, however, are not necessarily synonymous. Divine rewards may have less to do with payments and more to do with God’s sapiential ordering of creation and the economy of salvation. If, in fact, God establishes that particular human efforts or acts justly deserve reward according to a certain type of justice and equity, then any person who accomplishes those acts has a rightful, and even just, claim to God’s rewards. Bonaventure and Thomas are concerned to portray divine rewards as just even if they are not calibrated to a customary economy of exchange. Doing so requires both thinkers to address the commensurability between rewards and human efforts. If the owner of the lost dog rewarded the person who found it with a million dollars, the reward would likely seem incommensurate with the effort according to most notions of justice. Yet most divine rewards are excessive when correlated to human acts, reflecting the ontological difference between God and humankind as well as God’s unbounded love for human beings. 6. Sir. 10:31, 16:15, and 38:17. For an overview of the biblical distinction between reward (as praemium or merces) and merit (as meritum), see Jerome Quinn’s “The Scriptures on Merit,” in Justification by Faith, Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VII, ed. H. George Anderson, T. Austin Murphy, and Joseph A. Burgess, 82–93 (Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg, 1985). While Quinn openly admits the scant use of meritum in the Latin scriptures, he suggests that its use in Sirach speaks to the biblical definition of “merit,” broadly taken. He writes: “In the Latin Sir. 10:31, 38:17, secundum meritum corresponds to what a human being considers kata tēn axian (LXX Sir. 10:28; 38:17). The extant Hebrew suggests produce, fruit, or progeny. In Sir. 16:15, secundum meritum operum suorum renders LXX 16:14 kata ta erga autou (cf. 16:12). Here God is repaying men for their works (thus the Hebrew)” (83). 7. The following terms are illustrative: (1) praemio/praemium = to reward/a reward; (2) pretium =

  Introduction  7

Scriptural discussions of reward, more often than not, make use of figurative language that cannot be easily counted, categorized, or quantified. That “God has a treasury, keeps books, hires and fires, pays wages, harvests crops, herds animals, hands down sentences, gives rewards, prizes, and crowns in athletic contests, bestows inheritances and the like” underscores a biblical commitment to the notion that God values and recompenses various human efforts.8 Even these basic observations suggest regular biblical language that emphasizes divine rewards rather than merit.9 The scriptural appreciation of reward includes the notion of merit, but it assigns value—reward-worthy value—to a thematically wider field of human efforts. Bonaventure and Thomas appreciate the scriptural affirmation of reward, and their attempts to integrate scriptural texts pertaining to divine rewards—hereafter called “reward texts”—further demonstrate the scriptural foundations of their work as well as their commitment to teach scriptural insights as doctrine.

Rewards and Gifts The notion of “gift” shares common traits with “reward” while also differing in significant ways. A reward is simultaneously gratuitous and necessary. It is gratuitous in the sense that God freely chooses to reward certain actions under certain conditions, but those conditions nevertheless oblige God—in a loose sense—to respond to certain human acts. Someone who publishes a reward for a lost dog, for instance, designs and offers the reward freely, but its execution becomes necessary upon someone finding and returning the dog. A gift, on the other hand, is something that is completely gratuitous and need not depend on any prior act or ordered system; it stands value/price; (3) merces = payment, wages, or reward; (4) munero = to pay; and (5) remunero/remuneratio = to repay/repayment, recompense, reward, or retribution. Praemium and pretium together occur fifty-two times; merces occurs twenty-five times; and munera occurs seventy-nine times. Other terms related to reward include the verbs compensare, reponere, referre gratium, solvere, exsolvere, persolvere, and pendere, and the substantives manupretium, stipendium, and solutio. Not included in this illustration are the patently negative terms related to reward, such as poena. 8. Quinn, “The Scriptures on Merit,” 84. 9. In The Westminster Theological Wordbook of the Bible, Paul Reddit suggests that the Hebrew sakar, soahd, gamal, peri, and paal and the Greek mithos and apodidomi are frequent terms that refer to “wages” and “reward.” See “Reward, Recompense,” in The Westminster Theological Wordbook of the Bible, ed. Donald E. Gowan, 438–39 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003).

8  Introduction

outside an economy of exchange.10 For example, a dog owner may freely decide to donate money to a local animal shelter or adopt a stray animal. Gift language often functions to secure God’s utter freedom in the economy of salvation. Scripture and theological accounts of Christian life are replete with examples of divine gifts—something given by God without provocation or even in spite of negative provocation. In these instances, human agency recedes or disappears altogether into the background. God simply gives and effects a change in the recipient. The close approximation between gift and grace (gratia) is noteworthy; the most basic sense of grace is an undeserved gift or “unmerited favor” from God. This study necessarily discriminates between those things qualifying as divine rewards versus divine gifts.11 Doing so brings instances of reward into relief and highlights distinctive moments involving human agency without denying God’s primary agency or the utter gratuity of critical moments in human salvation. Distinguishing between gifts and rewards complexifies accounts of salvation by observing different expressions of divine agency fitted to different moments in the movement to union with God. The distinction between a reward and a gift, however clear in theory, is sometimes blurred or eliminated altogether. It is not uncommon to encounter scholarship that renders biblical instances of reward as gifts or vice versa. More common, though, is the impulse to classify reward texts as something other than recompense. The recategorization is often hermeneutical; reward is eliminated as a viable option on interpretive or theological grounds so that many reward texts are simply classed as “gift texts” while others are set aside as aberrant. For instance, it is possible, though not necessary, to use Luther’s 10. In the case of someone finding a lost dog, the owner does not hire someone according to just wages to find his missing dog; rather, he responds to the efforts of the person who finds his dog by offering the finder something related to (but not necessarily commensurate with) her commendable and valuable efforts. The reward both motivates and recompenses the person who finds and virtuously returns the dog. Even if the owner commissioned someone to find his dog or made a public promise of reward, he nevertheless sets the terms of the task so that, from an outside perspective, the reward may or may not seem commensurate to the task. Indeed, the outside perspective may fail to account for the owner’s love of the dog, concern for the person looking for the dog, or interest in finding the dog under certain conditions (e.g., quickly or humanely). 11. An expanded and accessible treatment of the biblical roots of grace may be found in Stephen Duffy’s The Dynamics of Grace (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1993), especially 17–42. For a comprehensive account of the language of grace in the Christian scriptures, see also Edward Schillebeeckx’s Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord, trans. John Bowden (New York: Seabury Press, 1980).

  Introduction  9

law-gospel distinction to eliminate the notion of reward and categorize most scriptural references to rewards under the heading “gospel,” which connotes pure gift, or as instances of “law,” which reveal human inability to fulfill God’s precepts or counsels.12 Sometimes these reclassifications are ad hoc interpretive choices where the exegete cites the specific context, narrative, or larger intent of a writer to categorize rewards as gifts. Someone might, for instance, argue that Christ’s healing of those who approach him in faith is simply an undeserved gift bearing no relation to human action other than the person’s request; in this instance, the interpreter may cite something like literary convention or historical custom to classify Christ’s response as a gift. Sometimes a reward will seem too marvelous or incommensurate with a given human effort to fit within typical definitions of reward. The interpreter might argue that the divine act is really a gift that either (1) seems like a reward because of proximate human action, or (2) is clothed in the language of reward as an inadequate (but at hand) mode of expression. For example, according to the entry on “Reward” in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, H. W. Hoehner argues: “Although salvation is based on grace (unmerited favour), it might appear that rewards imply merit. But on the contrary, rewards from God are not payment for services but gracious gifts from a generous God. They are independent of human achievement.”13 Hoehner’s final assertion cuts against the definition of reward maintained here. Indeed, rewards may be excessive or unrelated to a strict view of merit, but the biblical 12. Luther’s early teaching on “commands and promises” exemplifies the way that rewards could be discounted through a particular hermeneutic. In Freedom of a Christian, he writes: “Here we must point out that the entire Scripture of God is divided into two parts: commands and promises. Although the commands teach things that are good, the things taught are not done as soon as they are thought, for the commandments show us what we ought to do but do not give us the power to do it. They are intended to teach man to know himself, that through them he may recognize his inability to do good and may despair of his own ability” (57). Taken from Martin Luther, Freedom of a Christian, in Martin Luther, Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger, 42–85 (New York: Anchor Books, 1962). Luther sometimes formally aligns commandments and law with the Old Testament, and the promises and gospel with the New Testament, but not always. In “The Concept of Reward in the Teaching of Jesus,” The Expository Times 89, no. 9 (1978): 269–73, James McDonald argues that the modern investigator faces certain obstacles that obscure Jesus’ powerful (and paradoxical) use of reward. One such obstacle “arises from the subconscious desire to make the ‘reward’ sayings conform to a particular theological position, such as the Pauline or the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone or more recent forms of biblical or kerygmatic theology” (271). 13. H. W. Hoehner, “Reward,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, 738 (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2000), emphasis mine.

10  Introduction

witness too often couples rewards with human actions to make the divine act, in every case, “independent” of the human one. Scriptural rewards and gifts vary, and their variance seems intended to demonstrate different kinds of divine action in relation to human action or inaction. This study contends that Thomas’s and Bonaventure’s understandings of human agency are in fact deeply biblical because, rather than collapsing instances of divine gifts and rewards into a single and unwarranted meta-category, they distinguish between these divine responses and develop accounts that integrate this variance into a coherent picture of human salvation.

Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and Thomas Aquinas Thomas and Bonaventure are seminal figures of high medieval thought whose works shape the development of Christian life and thought thereafter. Yet with Bonaventure, few studies provide an explicit or comprehensive treatment of his views on grace, human action, and divine rewards, leaving a notable lacuna in the study of his thought.14 And while scholars have explored Thomas’s positions on grace and merit, these studies are largely confined to the systematic works that focus on theological development between the Scriptum and Summa theologiae.15 This study explores the larger 14. The most pertinent studies, although somewhat dated, include Bernard Marthaler’s Original Justice and Sanctifying Grace in the Writings of Saint Bonaventure (Rome: Miscellanea francescana, 1965); Jean P. Rezette’s “Grace et similitude de Dieu chez Saint Bonaventure,” Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses 32, no. 1 (1956): 46–64; William Thompson’s “The Doctrine of Free Choice in Saint Bonaventure,” Franciscan Studies 18, (1958): 1–8; and Georgius Bozitkovic’s “S. Bonaventurae doctrina de gratia et libero arbitrio,” (Dissertatio Inaguralis, Balneis Marianis: Typographia Egerland, 1919). Recent scholarship with partial relation to the present study includes Charles Carpenter’s Theology as the Road to Holiness in Saint Bonaventure (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1999); Ilia Delio’s Simply Bonaventure (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 2001); Wayne Hellman’s Divine and Created Order in Bonaventure’s Theology, trans. Jay M. Hammond (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2001); and Thomas J. Herbst’s The Road to Union: Johannine Dimensions of Bonaventure’s Christology (Grottaferrata: Frati editori di Quarracchi, 2005). 15. See Bouillard’s Conversion and Lonergan’s Grace and Freedom for foundational treatment of the experience of conversion and justification. See Wawrykow’s God’s Grace for a similarly influential discussion of the category of merit within the magisterial treatments of grace. An important exception is Raith’s Aquinas and Calvin on Romans, which offers a comparative exploration based largely on the Romans commentaries. Lacking overall is scholarship that puts the systematic and biblical works into conversation so that one can see Thomas’s appropriation of scriptural insights into the magisterial treatments of divine and human agency.

  Introduction  11

dynamic movement of human persons to life with God, which stretches beyond the categories of justification or merit. It aims to further understand Bonaventure and Thomas in themselves for the way in which each figure treats divine and human action from scriptural and theological perspectives. It contributes new scholarship on Bonaventure with a sustained exposition of his understanding of divine and human action across the genres of his works. With Thomas, it draws on important studies of grace and merit in the systematic works to explore the ways in which Thomas’s commitments are anchored in his exegesis of scripture and extend into other systematic loci. The study also offers the first sustained comparison between Thomas and Bonaventure on these topics. Such a comparison is long overdue, particularly because of their enduring influences on questions of divine and human agency taken up in the later middle ages and Catholic Reformation.16 Bonaventure and Thomas have often been read in oppositional ways or as representing divergent “schools” on topics like grace or merit.17 While this study does not diminish important lines of difference, it does not take them as its point of departure. Rather, it approaches the central insights of both thinkers in themselves and then through comparison. It demonstrates that Thomas’s and Bonaventure’s distinctive modes of depicting the movement to eternal life with God are rooted in shared theological commitments, which, when properly understood, render their positions as complementary rather 16. Along with Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure’s work falls in the early life of the Friars Minor, and it informs Franciscan theology in subsequent centuries. His place as spiritual master in the Latin mystical tradition is undisputed, and his magisterial and scriptural presentations of grace, human actions, and rewards come to the fore in his popular and widely-circulated mystical opuscula. Though dated and limited in scope, Colman J. Majchrzak’s dissertation, “A Brief History of Bonaventurism” (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1957), surveys thinkers indebted to Bonaventure, including late medieval and Reformation theologians. Marianne Schlosser’s “Bonaventure: Life and Works,” in A Companion to Bonaventure, ed. Jay M. Hammond, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and Jared Goff, 9–60 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), includes discussions of Bonaventure’s reception and use by later Franciscans. Thomas’s work was less influential immediately following his death than was Bonaventure’s, but within a century and following his canonization, it became definitive for later Dominican theologians, including Dominican and Thomist thinkers active at the Council of Trent. See Jean Pierre Torrell, “The Person and His Work,” vol. 1 of Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 297–326, for the period immediately following Thomas’s death; see also Romanus Cessario’s A Short History of Thomism (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003). 17. See as an example McGrath’s discussions of the “early Franciscan,” “late Franciscan,” and “Dominican” schools in Justitia, 160–66.

12  Introduction

than oppositional. To understand Bonaventure and Thomas on divine rewards is to observe the development of high scholastic thought at a pivotal and influential time in the history of Christianity, and to study them in comparison brings the relative strengths and historical trajectories of their positions into greater relief.

Sacra Pagina et Sacra Doctrina The work of scriptural commentary and constructive theology are hardly discrete tasks for Bonaventure and Thomas. Where modern Christian thinkers might cleave biblical exegesis from the construction of doctrine, Thomas and Bonaventure view these tasks as integral dimensions of the same discourse. In the first words of the Breviloquium’s prologue, Bonaventure quotes Eph. 3:14–19 and observes: “[Paul], the great teacher of the Gentiles and preacher of truth, filled with the Holy Spirit as a chosen and holy vessel, opens in these words the source, procedure, and purpose of sacred Scripture, which is called theology (theologia).”18 Scripture’s order and purpose are not merely the content of sacred doctrine; Bonaventure presents the text itself as synonymous with theology inasmuch as it is God’s self-disclosure to humankind. Its revelation is only accessible, knowable, and salutary when received by those infused with the gift of faith.19 Scripture, approached from the disposition of faith, reveals knowledge of God as believable, as “credibile,” as the object of faith. In the Breviloquium’s first chapter, Bonaventure adds: “Sacred Scripture or theology is a science that imparts to us wayfarers as much information (notitiam) of the First Principle as is needed to be saved.”20 18. Breviloquium, Prologue:1. Translations are mine and taken from Breviloquium, vol. 5 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1893). I am indebted to the useful translation found in Breviloquium, trans. Dominic V. Monti, vol. 9 of Works of Bonaventure (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2005). For a discussion of the theological method animating the Breviloquium, see Emmanuel Falque’s Saint Bonaventure et l’entrée de Dieu in théologie (Paris: J. Vrin, 2000), especially 34–35. 19. Bonaventure writes: “And so, as the Apostle clearly intimates in the first part of the text, with which we began, it is by means of faith that the knowledge of Sacred Scripture is given to us according to the measure of the Blessed Trinity’s inflowing” (Breviloquium, Prologue:2). 20. Breviloquium, I:1, 2. See also 3 Sent., 38.1.2, resp., where Bonaventure writes: “There is a science which consists in a purely speculative understanding founded on the principles of human reason, acquired from a knowledge of creatures. But there is another, which consists in an understanding inclined by the affections . . . not acquired in any way from creatures; this is the science of Sacred Scripture

  Introduction  13

Scripture reveals knowledge of God, which facilitates the wayfarer’s return to God; believers may also deduce further knowledge from its content. This deductive work not only builds up knowledge of God; it also elucidates that knowledge as intelligible so that the theological expression of scripture is credibile ut intelligibile.21 The scientific dimension of theology purposes to bring understanding (intellectum) to the knowledge of God encountered through faith in sacred scripture.22 Bonaventure stresses the soteriological and divinizing ratio of scripture; it guides wayfarers into union with God. He writes: “Finally, the purpose or fruit of sacred Scripture is not simply any [particular] thing but the fullness of eternal happiness. . . . This, then, must also be the goal and the intention with which the holy Scripture is studied, taught, and even heard.”23 Sacra doctrina interprets and exposits sacra pagina for the sake of helping wayfarers attain eternal happiness, and it culminates in expressing the way to union with God. Bonaventure summarizes the theology of his Breviloquium thus: “That is why, in giving the reasons for everything contained in this little work or tract I have attempted to derive each reason from the First Principle in order to demonstrate that the truth of sacred Scripture is from God, that it treats of God, is according to God, and has God as its end. It will be seen, therefore, that this science has true unity and order, and that it is not improperly called theology.”24 Any attempt to understand Bonaventure’s theology of divine and human action, particularwhich no one can have unless faith is infused within.” Translations of Bonaventure’s Sentence Commentary are mine and taken from Bonaventure, Commentaria in quatuor libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi, vols. 1–4 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1882–89). 21. Dominic Monti echoes this position: “If Scripture presents the credibile—God’s selfcommunication—as something to which we must respond to in faith (credible ut credibile), the work of the theologian is to present it in a way that is intelligible (credibile ut intelligibile). . . . [Bonaventure] believed that it was his task as a theologian to attempt to help people understand their faith experience” (introduction to Breviloquium, xlvi). 22. Bonaventure writes: “From this, it is evident that theology, though admittedly broad and varied in content, is nevertheless a single science. Its subject, as that from which all things come, is God; as that through which all things exists, Christ; as that for which all things are done, the work of reparation; as that by which all things are united, the one bond of love which connects heaven and earth; as that with which the whole content of the canonical books are concerned, the body of faith as such; as that with which all the books of commentators are concerned, the body of faith as intelligible” (Breviloquium, I:1, 4). 23. Breviloquium, Prologue:1, 5. 24. Breviloquium, Prologue:6, 6.

14  Introduction

ly as it pertains to eternal life, must necessarily probe the way in which his magisterial work in the Sentence Commentary and the Breviloquium reciprocally uses and informs his treatment of scripture. Failure to observe and appreciate this dynamic risks misunderstanding Bonaventure’s theological commitments, especially as they treat the topic of divine and human action in the movement to eternal life for wayfarers. Thomas establishes the rationale for sacra doctrina as a science distinct from other modes of knowledge in the first question of the Summa theologiae.25 Like Bonaventure, he maintains a tight correlation between sacred scripture and sacred doctrine itself, with the former as the primary and intrinsic source of any theological discourse. As divine revelation, scripture provides the content of theology and is known by the natural light of intelligence through faith.26 Likewise underscoring the soteriological purpose of divine revelation, Thomas writes: “For that reason it was necessary for the salvation of human beings that certain truths (nota) which would exceed human reason should be made known to them by divine revelation.”27 As we shall later see, Thomas regards scripture as an expression of divine revelation, and in this sense, it is nearly indistinguishable from sacred doctrine: “Therefore it was necessary that, beyond the discipline of philosophy which investigates through reason, there needed to be had a sacred doctrine [investigated] through revelation.”28 Thomas’s position on theology as a subaltern science indicates that all theological scientia depends on God’s self-disclosure (doctrina sacra credit principia revelata sibi a Deo).29 Inasmuch as sacred doctrine deduces its position, in the form of argument, from revelation, one can dis25. For an expansive discussion see M. D. Chenu’s La théologie comme science au XIIIe siècle, 3rd ed. (Paris: Librarie philosophiquie Vrin, 1999). 26. See ST I:1, 2 c. Perhaps, most famously, in I:1, 2 ad. 2, Thomas uses the words sacred doctrine and scripture synonymously: “super quam fundatur sacra Scriptura seu doctrina.” Translations of the Summa theologiae (ST) are mine and are taken from Summa theologiae, ed. Instituti studiorum medievalium Ottaviensis, 5 vols. (Ottawa: Commissio Piana, 1953). I am grateful for translation help found in Summa theologica, trans. the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 5 vols. (New York: Benziger, 1947). 27. ST I:1, 1 c. 28. ST I:1, 1 c. 29. ST I:1, 2 c. Thomas likens divine revelation to a higher science and theology, as that which deduces its principles from a higher science, to a subaltern science that exposits divine revelation. He concludes: “And from this mode, sacred doctrine is a science because it proceeds from the principles set down by the light of a higher science, which is namely the science of God and the blessed ones.”

  Introduction  15

tinguish between revelation itself and its understanding (intellectum), but only as facets of the singular whole, which is God’s salutary self-disclosure. Thomas and Bonaventure both allow for the deductive exploration of scripture using the tools of inter-textual scriptural interpretation as well as the canons and creeds, doctors of the church, and human reason, yet these are not authoritative or reliable in the same way as the content of scripture itself.30 Proper exposition of scripture and proper construction of doctrine are part and parcel of the same discourse; they deduce the central truths of salvation for the purpose of greater understanding and for the sake of salvation.31 Scripture by nature is intended to teach, and sacra doctrina is the lively work of elucidating that which is embedded in the biblical text. The present study follows the close correspondence between scriptural exegesis and sacred doctrine observed by Bonaventure and Thomas. It probes their efforts to interpret and order the elaborate scriptural skein of divine and human actions into a lucid account of human salvation that is credibile ut intelligibile. Putting the magisterial and scriptural works into dialogue thus treats Bonaventure and Thomas in their authentic historical context: they are trained as regent masters whose daily work followed the magisterial 30. Here one may note the important taxonomy of authorities that Thomas establishes in ST I:1, 8 ad. 2; important for our purposes is his conclusion: “But [sacred doctrine] properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as arguments taken from necessity. . . . For our faith is supported by the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books, but not on the revelations—if any were made—to other doctors.” Bonaventure also allows for the use of non-scriptural warrants, as long as their authority is not thought of as equal to scripture and as long as they are ordered to the word of expositing the divine revelation. At the end of the prologue to the Breviloquium he sets down three rules for interpreting scripture (adopted largely from Robert Grosseteste’s De cessatione legalium), and he then writes: “However, this teaching [sacred doctrine] has been transmitted, both in the writings of the saints and in those of the doctors, in such a diffused manner that those who come to learn about sacred Scripture are not able to read or hear about it for a long time” (Prologue:6, 5). 31. In his essay, “Sacred Scripture and Sacred Doctrine,” Christopher Baglow summarizes: “In Thomas’s view, Scripture is as incorporative of mature and developed instruction as any later doctrine formulation or theological understanding; in fact, it even includes theological argumentation. The two are more than coextensive for Thomas; they are perichoretic, so that the elaboration of one includes and manifests the other” (2). See Baglow, “Sacred Scripture and Sacred Doctrine in Saint Thomas Aquinas,” in Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction, ed. Thomas Weinandy, Daniel Keating, and John Yocum, 1–27 (London: T&T Clark, 2004). Recent scholarship has argued, for instance, that a biblical backbone may be observed in the order of the Summa theologiae’s construction. Baglow concludes: “In many cases, Thomas’ theological topics are initiated into his own text because he first finds them in the text of Sacred Scripture. Here we see that Scripture is not simply the source of Thomas’s theological conclusions; it is first and foremost the source of many of the specific issues he is thinking about” (14).

16  Introduction

tasks of lectionem, disputationem, et praedicationem within a life committed to serving their orders and mendicant charisms across medieval Europe.32 The interplay between lecturing, disputing, and preaching anchors the correspondence between sacra pagina and sacra doctrina. Beyond this important context, both Bonaventure and Thomas see scripture as fundamentally soteriological; it guides wayfarers to God through knowledge that exceeds what human reason could grasp without it. The intentional dialogue thus sought between their work in sacra pagina and sacra doctrina is contextually appropriate, true to their methodology, and utterly pertinent to the theological questions at hand.

Foundational Themes in Bonaventure and Aquinas Bonaventure and Thomas make use of several motifs and theological presuppositions in their treatments of divine rewards. These themes organize their discussions and lend comparative footholds to this study. An overview of six key methodological themes helps the reader to move directly into discussions of divine and human action in the succeeding chapters.

Journey The motif of journey provides Thomas and Bonaventure with a rich canvas on which to plot divine and human action. We have already observed Bonaventure’s willingness to describe human beings as wayfarers on the way, in via, to full union with God in the opening lines of the Breviloquium. His mystical opuscula regularly take up the journey motif as an explicit organizational device. Thomas also affirms this language; discussing the way in which charity can be said to increase in a person, he writes: I respond saying that the charity of the wayfarer is able to increase. For we are called to be wayfarers (viatores) because we are tending toward God who is the ultimate 32. Peter the Chanter’s description of the master’s responsibilities summarizes Thomas’s regular tasks at Paris and beyond. Peter writes: “In tribus igitur consistit exercitum sacrae scripturae, circa lectionem, disputationem et praedicationem” (Verbum abbreviatum, ch. 1, Patrologia Latina, ed. JacquesPaul Migne, Vol. 205, 25). Admittedly, by the time that Bonaventure was incepted into the consortium of masters, his time as a formal master of theology was at an end, so that he could serve as Minister General; nevertheless, his magisterial works are still fruits of this threefold work and inform his writings as Minister General.

  Introduction  17 end of our beatitude. In this way we progress insofar as we get closer to God who is approached not by the passions of the body but by the affections of the soul. Yet this approach is effected by charity, because it unites the soul to God. And for that reason, it is essential for the charity of the wayfarer to increase: for if it were not possible to increase, progress on the way would cease.33

Being a wayfarer implies being on a journey, and progress, here glossed as “the affections of the soul (affectibus mentis),” is required to reach the end; indeed, that is why Thomas insists that charity—as an effect of grace—must continue to increase as the wayfarer approaches God as terminus of the journey. Both Thomas and Bonaventure consistently plot human action along the arc of a journey from a state of sin toward full union with God. The language of journey conforms to the concrete life of the believer whose relationship with God ordinarily develops over time, and it provides both writers with a conceptual map on which to schematize moments of progression and regression. This study compares Thomas’s and Bonaventure’s viewpoints by noting points on the journey when the wayfarer receives rewards, punishments, gifts, and other kinds of experiences. Because the contexts and genres of Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s mature theological works are not identical, the journey template facilitates comparisons of their positions—without deforming them—on a common motif explicitly adopted in their texts.

Facienti quod in se est This phrase is part of a larger maxim: “ facienti quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam”—to one who does what is in oneself, God will not deny grace. Twelfth-century theologians increasingly deployed this saying to parse the roles of God and human beings in the moment of conversion.34 In light 33. ST II-II:24, 4 c. Thomas’s allusions to a journey and the status of wayfarers are diffused throughout his text. He often juxtaposes the notion of “wayfarer” (viator) with “comprehensor.” While on earth, the wayfarer remains a pilgrim who seeks the visio Dei in faith; he requires grace, including perseverance, in order to reach his end. The terminus of the journey is God, and when a person shares eternal life with God, he becomes a comprehensor, no longer needing infusions of grace. Sight replaces faith; the object of hope is attained; and charity remains as a fruit of comprehension. 34. See Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 84–85nn47–49. See Heiko E. Oberman, “Facientibus quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam: Robert Holcot, OP and the Beginnings of Luther’s Theology,” Harvard Theological Review 55, no. 4 (1962): 317–42, for a presentation of the facienti’s use in late medieval theology.

18  Introduction

of Christ’s saving action, God makes grace generally available—perhaps in something like a concursus generalis or an open call—to human beings, and individuals actuate the process of conversion by exercising their free will. When the sinner demonstrates a kind of committed desire for repentance and conversion—doing what is in herself—God responds with graces that facilitate the next steps of the conversion. Interestingly, Augustine’s late anti-Massilian works engage a version of this same question, which later comes to influence Thomas’s approach to the facienti.35 The question put to Augustine asks who initiates the work of justification, and it stems from a concern that assigning the agency to God alone detaches human beings from the critical starting point of Christian salvation. This same allergy motivates the medieval interest in the facienti; it is an effort to balance or at least retain a consequential role for human agency in the moment of conversion. A theologian’s answer to the question of the facienti is decisive because it informs whether conversion is a gift or a reward. By Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s time, the facienti was firmly established in the sentence commentary tradition and used in medieval presentations of grace, the preparation for grace, and the possibility of congruent merit of the first grace. Because conversion is a pivotal moment on the journey to union with God, and because Bonaventure and Thomas both confront the maxim, this study probes and compares their uses of the slogan.

Bonaventure and Reductio Reductio holds an integral place in Bonaventure’s theological method and metaphysics by informing the way in which one can know something to be true, and it also gives pattern to his vision of human salvation.36 Bonaven35. Late in his career (c. 427), Augustine receives inquiries from Prosper of Aquitaine and a bishop named Hilary concerning the initium of conversion, with the suggestion that human beings can initiate their faith and God then supplements this initial movement. In response, Augustine composes a work that has come to modern readers as two separate treatises: On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance (c. 428). See Augustine, Four Anti-Pelagian Writings, trans. John A. Mourant and William Colligne, The Fathers of the Church 86 (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1992). 36. See my “Reductio as Pattern and Journey in Bonaventure,” Nova et Vetera 12, no. 3 (2014): 675–700, for a focused treatment of the concept of reductio. In his foundational study of Bonaventure, Jacques Guy Bougerol outlines four points of general orientation to Bonaventure’s theology, and the first of these is the concept of reductio, which functions, at minimum, in two distinctive ways. Bougerol

  Introduction  19

ture’s Sentence Commentary and Breviloquium aptly illustrate the methodological role of reductio as a technique to prove theological assertions. He draws on reductive arguments to demonstrate that points of doctrine can be traced back to an authoritative source from which they gain reliability.37 In a basic sense, Bonaventure reduces hosts of theological ideas back to God as first principle, supreme good, and the substance by which all else exists. For example, in the prologue to the Breviloquium, he writes: “Because theology is, indeed, discourse about God and about the First Principle, as the highest science and doctrine it should resolve everything in God as its first and supreme principle.”38 This same sense is underscored in the proemium to the Sentence Commentary where Bonaventure affirms that God is the reductive subject matter of theology: “For the subject, to which all things are reduced as to their principle, is God Himself.”39 The conceptual practice of reductio thus provides Bonaventure with a tool to ground theological claims in the reliability of divine revelation and its particular affirmation of God as first principle. begins with reductio and then includes the themes of “proportion,” “necessary reasons,” and “arguments from piety.” See Introduction to the Works of Bonaventure, trans. Jose de Vinck (Paterson, N.J.: Saint Anthony Guild Press, 1964), especially 75–81. 37. Bougerol explains: “In each case there is some reality which cannot subsist of itself and is not sufficient to itself, but which must be distinguished from the substance to which it is bound, because it is not this substance, and yet depends upon it” (Introduction, 76). 38. Breviloquium, Prologue:6, 6. Bonaventure’s reductive technique is typified and reinforced in the Breviloquium by his consistent use of the phrase “Ratio autem ad intelligentiam praedictorum haec est” or “the reason for this should be understood as follows.” The phrase typically falls in the second section of a given chapter in the Breviloquium, and it almost invariably indicates that Bonaventure will relate the preceding assertion to God’s nature as first principle. Monti notes a distinction, originally posited by Jean Gerson, having to do with the difference between inductive and deductive methods in Bonaventure’s theology; Monti writes: “The Breviloquium, in contrast, is grounded in theological metaphysics. It begins with the mystery of the Trinity, and from there proceeds to “reduce” or “retrace” the various beliefs proposed in the Catholic tradition to the foundational mystery of the self-diffusive First Principle in order to demonstrate how they all logically flow from it” (introduction to the Breviloquium, xxxvii). He contrasts the Breviloquium with the “inductive” method found in the Itinerarium; no less reductive, the Itinerarium leads the reader from lesser forms of being to the primordial source. 39. 1 Sent., Proem.1, resp. Prior to reaching this conclusion, Bonaventure outlines a threefold way in which God is the reductive of all intellectual inquiry; he writes: “It ought to be said, that the ‘subject’ in any science or doctrine is able to be accepted in a threefold way. In one way a ‘subject’ in a science is called [that] to which all things are reduced as to their root principle; in another way, [that] to which all things are reduced just as to their integral whole; in a third manner, [that] to which all things are reduced just as to their universal whole.”

20  Introduction

Bonaventure’s De reductione artium ad theologiam sets the practice of reductio front and center. The essential concepts of every branch of secular knowledge reduce analogically to the fullness of knowledge contained in the eternal Word. For Bonaventure, the Word of the Father expresses the truth contained in the divine essence, providing in its expression a mediated knowledge of the first principle and that which proceeds from it. This wisdom, expressed eternally in the Son, is further manifested in the economy through the Incarnation.40 All the arts reveal divine wisdom as expressed in creation and salvation through the Word, and when properly examined, the arts lead the student back to the fullness of divine wisdom.41 Reduction accordingly serves as a cognitive exercise that illumines the divine truth in all things, connecting all that can be known to God and God’s providential direction of the cosmos.42 The practice further cultivates an affective di40. Bonaventure argues: “Therefore all natural philosophy, through the habitude of proportion, presupposes the Word of God as begotten and incarnate, also as the Alpha and the Omega, that is, begotten in the beginning before all time, and incarnate in the fullness of time” (De reductione, 20). Translations are my own and taken from De reductione artium ad theologiam, vol. 5 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1893). I am indebted to the useful translation found in On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology, trans. Zachary Hayes, vol. 1 of Works of Saint Bonaventure (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1996). Speaking of the Word as containing the rationes aeternae and making them manifest in the Incarnation, Bonaventure writes: “By similar reasoning, therefore, we come to the conclusion that the highest and noblest perfection cannot exist in this world unless that nature in which the seminal principles are present, and that nature in which the intellectual principles are present, and that nature in which the ideal principles are present are simultaneously brought together in the unity of one person, as was done in the incarnation of the Son of God” (De reductione, 20). 41. In his introduction to the text, Hayes writes: “This may be a helpful way to look at the argument of the De reductione. The divine wisdom lies hidden in every form of secular knowledge. We need but to find the key to discover and unfold the appropriate analogies to allow that which is hidden to shine forth. As a result, each of the arts and sciences is made to bear on: (1) the eternal generation of the Word and his humanity; (2) the Christian order of life; and (3) the union of the soul with God” (Hayes, introduction to On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology, 22). 42. Hayes writes: “The general flow of the argument throughout the De reductione will be to highlight the analogical relations between the insights of the arts and these [three] concerns of the biblical tradition. In essence, this is the logic of the reduction” (Hayes, introduction to On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology, 12). Bougerol adds: “This reduction is not merely a technique—it is the soul of the return to God; and since all knowledge depends on principles, and principles are born within us under the regulating and motivating action of divine ideas, the certitudes which seem most capable of being self-sufficient are necessarily linked, by means of first principles, with the eternal reasons and their divine foundation” (Bougerol, Introduction, 76).

  Introduction  21

mension that progressively enkindles the practitioner’s desire for union with God. Bonaventure summarizes the De reductione’s project thus: And so it is evident how the manifold wisdom of God, which is clearly revealed in sacred Scripture, lies hidden in all knowledge and in all nature. It is clear also how all divisions of knowledge are servants of theology, and it is for this reason that theology makes use of illustrations and terms pertaining to every branch of knowledge. It is likewise clear how wide the illuminative way may be, and how divine reality itself lies hidden within everything which is perceived or known. And this is the fruit of all sciences, that in all, faith may be strengthened, God may be honored, character may be formed, and consolation may be derived from union of the Spouse with the beloved.43

Bonaventure connects the practice of reductio in all branches of human knowledge to the doxological practice of glorifying God and, perhaps most importantly, to the progressive movement into a spousal union between God and the wayfarer. The De reductione sets that union in the language of charity where God unites God’s self, as known, with human beings, as loved.44 The idea of reductio becomes particularly consequential for Bonaventure’s treatment of rewards. The notion that all things can be traced back to a certain fontal source illumines the origin, nature, and direction of human life. Human beings come forth from God who is the first principle of creation and so return to God as the consummation of their existence. It leverages a basic pattern of exitus-reditus for construing human existence and the direction of human action so that the theme of reductio indicates the way to union with God, suggesting a journey of return to God as first principle.45 At the heart of human existence lies its connection to God as first principle, which orients human beings to God as their final end and marks out a journey of return, or reduction, back to the Father. The wayfarer’s return unfolds 43. De reductione, 26. 44. Bonaventure describes it as “a union which takes place through charity: a charity without which all knowledge is vain because no one comes to the Son except through the Holy Spirit who teaches us ‘all the truth, who is blessed forever, Amen’” (De reductione, 26). 45. Ilia Delio argues that the intellectual notion of reductio informs God’s will for human beings and their path to union with God. She writes: “The movement of reductio is integral to the spiritual journey which is based on the notion of the human person as image of God. As image, the human person is God-oriented and cannot find rest anywhere except in God” (Delio, Simply Bonaventure, 160).

22  Introduction

accordingly through gradated steps on the journey.46 The Incarnation, the gift of the Spirit, the grace provided by the church, and contingent human actions facilitate the steps within this movement to comprise a journey ordered and effected by God as first principle. It comes as no surprise, then, that Bonaventure’s mystical works direct the reader toward an ascending return to God as origin and final end. His systematic work of his own design, the Breviloquium, uses the theme of reductio to order the entire work and direct readers on a journey to God.

Bonaventure and Exemplarism Exemplarity informs Bonaventure’s sense of human agency in profound ways, and it has Christ at its center. As the wisdom of the Father, the Word occupies a distinctive place in Bonaventure’s doctrine of a dynamic and self-diffusing Trinity. As begotten, the Son expresses the rationes aeternae of the innascible Father, and containing these fecund reasons, he not only reflects the wisdom of the Trinity in the Godhead; he also communicates it in the economy through the divine act of creation.47 All that comes forth from God through the Word shares a fundamental likeness to its creator, and as such, created things reflect back on the Son and to the Father.48 Ewert Cousins writes: “Thus the Son is the link between the divinity and creation; for all of created reality is the expression of him and refers back to him, by way of exemplarism, that is by way of being grounded in him as in its eternal Exemplar.”49 Bonaventure makes this same point in the Collationes in 46. Summarizing Bonaventure’s theological method, Wayne Hellman writes: “The thrust of Bonaventure’s theology concerns itself with the reductio (not as much with the origo). Salvation is nothing other than the ordering of all things back to their final end, God” (Hellman, Divine and Created Order, 20). 47. See Leonard J. Bowman’s “The Cosmic Exemplarism of Bonaventure,” Journal of Religion 55, no. 2 (1975): 181–98. 48. Cousins writes: “When the Father generates the Son, he produces in the Son the archetypes or rationes aeternae of all he can create. When God decrees to create ad extra in space and time, this creative energy flows from the Trinitarian fecundity and expresses itself according to the archetypes in the Son”; see Cousin’s introduction to Bonaventure, ed. Ewert Cousins, 1–48 (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1978), 26. 49. Cousins, Bonaventure, 26. In Collationes in hexaëmeron, I:13, Bonaventure underscores this point: “From all eternity the Father begets a Son similar to Himself and expresses Himself and likeness similar to Himself, and in so doing He expresses what He can do, and most of all, what He wills to do, and He expresses everything in Him, that is, in the Son or in that very Center, which so to speak is His

  Introduction  23

hexaëmeron: “Our intent, then, is to show that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and that He Himself is the center point of all understanding.”50 As eternal and incarnate Word, the Son expresses the content of divine knowledge and wisdom, himself becoming the hermeneutic for all understanding.51 Reflecting the Word in a variety of ways, creation offers sources for reduction in the general return of all things into God.52 Bonaventure tellingly refers to these ways of reduction as “books” or “libers,” noting particularly the books of scripture, nature, the soul, and Jesus himself.53 Bonaventure Art.” Translations of the Collationes in hexaëmeron are taken from Collations on the Six Days, trans. Jose de Vinck, vol. 5 of Works of Saint Bonaventure (Paterson, N.J.: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1970). Alongside the doctrine of creation or emanation through the Word, Bonaventure integrates an Augustinian sense of the Platonic ideas as eternal forms in the divine mind and, as such, the divine mind is the formal exemplar of all that emanates from it, including created things. In his introduction to Bonaventure’s thought, Christopher Cullen writes of Bonaventure’s metaphysics: “It is Augustine, Bonaventure thinks, who saw that both Plato and Aristotle must be right in different ways—that form must be transcendent and immanent, both present in the concrete singular and yet beyond any passing things. Augustine is the one who corrects Plato by positing the forms as ideas in the mind of God. As divine ideas, the forms find their ‘home’ and can thus serve as exemplars for the things that come to be” (72). Cullen suggests that Bonaventure’s appreciation of Augustine on this point leads him to identify God as the exemplar cause of all that exists. See Cullen’s Bonaventure (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 50. Collationes in hexaëmeron, I:11. 51. In the Lignum vitae, Bonaventure speaks of Jesus as an “Inscribed Book” who, when properly read, leads back to union with the Father. He writes: “And this wisdom is written in Christ Jesus just as in the book of life, in which God the Father has hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; and so, the only-begotten Son of God, as the uncreated Word, is the book of wisdom and the light in the mind of the supreme Craftsman that is full of living and eternal principles, as the inspired Word in the angelic intellects and the blessed, as the incarnate Word in rational minds united to flesh. Thus the manifold wisdom of God shines forth throughout the entire kingdom from him and in him, as in a mirror containing the beauty of all species and lights as in a book in which all things are written according to the deep secrets of God” (Lignum vitae, 46). The incarnate Word expresses the eternal reasons—as deep secrets—of the Father to humankind, and he illumines human understanding so that it may know divine wisdom. Translations are mine and taken from Lignum vitae, vol. 8 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1898); the citations refer to internal paragraph numbers. 52. In Collationes in hexaëmeron, II:12, Bonaventure addresses the “manifold wisdom” of the Word as dispersed under many signs constituting many books; he writes: “And so this wisdom is called manifold because there are many ways of expressing it. Hence it was necessary that wisdom be shown under many figures, many sacraments, many signs, in order also that it be hidden to the proud and revealed to the humble. These veils cover Christ, hiding wisdom from the wise and impure.” 53. George Tavard reviews Bonaventure’s presentation of “books” as means of reduction into God. He writes: “One of the viewpoints from which St. Bonaventure envisages many of his ideas is symbolically expressed in the word liber. The metaphor of the ‘book’ is inded [sic] too frequent not to cover a

24  Introduction

regularly deploys the language of vestige, image, and similitude to describe how all things bear likeness to God.54 The books of scripture, Christ, nature, and the soul illumine the wayfarer’s mind with knowledge of these vestiges, images, and similitudes, which, in turn, draw her back to God. Successful reading directs and advances an exemplarity by which the reader can grow in resemblance to the Trinity through the Son.55 In the Itinerarium he writes: “In relation to our position in creation, the universe is a ladder by which we can ascend into God. Some created things are vestiges, others images; some are material, others spiritual; some are temporal, others everlasting; some are outside us, others within us. This means to be ‘led (deduci) in the path of God.’”56 Human beings begin the journey as images, and through their reductio into God, they become similitudes or very close likenesses with God. They journey reductively in a kind of vertical ascent, but the movement unfolds through the ongoing and horizontal movement into God’s presence in the created order and through grace. The horizontal order promotes increasing exemplarity that aims at similitudinem, making full union with typically Bonaventurian conception: man attains to God through reading Him in a book.” See Tavard, Transiency and Permanence: The Nature of Theology According to St. Bonaventure (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute Publications, 1954), 31. Tavard unpacks the books of scripture, creation, and the soul in part one of his book. Thomas Herbst provides an example of the convergence of Christ, scripture, and exemplarism in “The Passion as Paradoxical Exemplarism in Bonaventure’s Commentary on the Gospel of John,” Antonianum 78, no. 2 (2003): 209–48. 54. Early in the Breviloquium, he references books and reduction: “From what has been said we can gather that the created world is a kind of book reflecting, representing, and describing its Maker, the Trinity, at three different levels of expression, namely, as a vestige, as an image, and as a likeness. . . . Through these successive levels, as if they were steps, the human intellect is designed to ascend gradually to the supreme Principle, which is God” (II.12.1). Bonaventure uses similar language in 1 Sent., 3.1.2 and 2.1.1.ad 5; 2 Sent., 16.2.3; Collationes in hexaëmeron, II.20–27 and III.3–9; and the Itinerarium, 1.2. 55. Bonaventure writes in Collationes in hexaëmeron, I:17: “Hence the Word expresses the Father and the things He made, and principally leads us to union with the Father who brings all things together; and in this regard [Christ] is the Tree of Life, for by this means we return to the very fountain of life and are revived in it.” Bonaventure appreciates the presence and doxological character of the Trinity’s vestigia in created things. Saint Francis sets the tone for this kind of appreciation in works like “The Canticle of the Sun,” which praise God’s presence in and through the created cosmos. These same prepositions, “in” and “through,” are the methodological ordering of the Itinerarium, which traces God’s presence in and through vestiges and images of God. See Delio’s “The Canticle of Brother Sun: A Song of Christ Mysticism,” Franciscan Studies 52 (1992): 1–22. 56. Itinerarium, I:2. Translations are mine and are taken from Itinerarium mentis in Deum, vol. 5 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1893); citations refer to internal paragraph numbers.

  Introduction  25

God possible.57 A vital measure of progress on the journey, particularly for Bonaventure, will be the extent to which human beings attain likeness with the Word as their exemplar and means to full union with God.

Thomas and Perfection Both Thomas and Bonaventure use the language of perfectus/perfectione to name progress on the journey as well as its completion. The language is particularly prominent in Thomas’s works where it signifies the completion of a thing or its full and proper actualization; thus, in ST I, q. 4, Thomas speaks of God as transcendently perfect—a God fully in act. In the case of a human being, a person may be called perfect when she reaches the end that God desires for her—eternal union. Thomas also allows that she may be called perfect, in a sense, when she perfects some discrete dimension of her nature in order to achieve its ultimate end—for example, perfection in the power or virtue of faith, patience, or mercy. Perfection is understood by Thomas as both a means and an end for the journey. As a means, interim perfection is mark of progress, which makes further progress possible. Critically related to perfection is the work and effects of grace; Thomas’s famous maxim that “Grace does not remove nature but perfects it” underscores this relationship.58 Grace capacitates and motivates the wayfarer so that she can fully leverage the powers of her nature to know and love God as object of the journey. Moreover, grace may elevate human nature, perfecting it beyond its natural powers so that human beings may operate in ways that surpass human nature itself.59 Without such capacita57. Hellman suggests that Bonaventure’s exemplarism unfolds in both a “horizontal” and “vertical” relationship with God; he writes: “Each created nature is arranged in its inner constitution according to the exemplar of the horizontal order in the inner-Trinitarian life of the one God. . . . The reductio of the human person to God (vertical order) is thereby effected by a conformity (conformitas), which is the horizontal order, not in the faintness of the vestigium or imago, but in the stronger way of similitudo” (Hellman, Divine and Created Order, 26). 58. ST I:1, 8 ad. 2: “Gratia non tollit naturam sed perficit.” 59. Joseph Wawrykow explains: “There is, in fact, a huge gap between the human and the God who is the human’s end, the gap that separates what is not God from God. Through grace and the theological virtues, God has bridged the gap by raising the person to God’s own level. . . . The perfecting that grace and then glory brings is in keeping with that nature, although, again, bringing that nature to a perfection that is simply impossible for it on its own” (98). See Wawrykow, “Nature and Grace,” in The Westminster Handbook to Thomas Aquinas, ed. Joseph Wawrykow, 97–99 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005). See also C. O’Neill’s “L’homme ouvert à Dieu (Capax Dei),” in L’anthropologie de Saint Thomas, ed. Norbert A. Luyten, 54–74 (Fribourg: Editions universitaires, 1974).

26  Introduction

tion, wayfarers would fail to advance on the journey. As an end of the journey, perfection also connotes interim and final rewards as marks of progress. A person’s interim state on the journey differs from her final state, yet both can be perfect in a sense. Commenting on Phil. 3:12–14, Thomas writes: But adherence to the journey is twofold: one by the necessity of salvation, to which all are bound, namely, that a person never place his heart in anything that is against God, but that he habitually refer his whole life to God. . . . The other is by supererogation, when a person adheres to God above the common way which is done when he removes his heart from temporal things, and so he approaches more closely to the heavenly homeland because the smaller cupidity becomes, the more charity grows. Therefore what [Paul says here] is understood to concern the perfection of the heavenly homeland.60

Thomas distinguishes between interim and final perfection using the language of the journey. Paul presses toward the heavenly homeland so that the incomplete perfection of which he speaks anticipates final perfection. Interim perfection on the way includes removing obstacles to love, but final perfection depends on supererogatory works, works beyond nature, which make the final reward of heaven accessible. Paul calls this perfection a “prize,” which indicates that union or final perfection is received on account of human action. Thomas appreciates the language of perfection, and it provides critical language in his depiction of the journey.

Thomas and Charity Much of the journey and its perfection has to do with charity. Caritas is the lynchpin connecting human action to divine rewards. At one level human salvation is nothing other than an effect of divine love—of God loving persons enough to draw them into eternal union. At another level, charity determines whether any human act is deserving of a divine reward. In the treatise on charity in the Summa theologiae, Thomas describes charity as friendship (amicitia) with God, but its overarching meaning is full and perfect love of God that orders love of God’s creation, particularly other human beings.61 Love of God 60. Super epistolas S. Pauli (SEP), Phillipians, 126. Translation is mine and taken from: S. Thomae Aquinatis, Super epistolas S. Pauli lectura, 8th ed., ed. Raphaelis Cai, 2 vols. (Rome: Marietti, 1953). 61. Brian Davies describes Thomas’s approach to love: “Aquinas’s main idea here is that charity amounts first of all to a full and proper love of God, and then, based on this, to a full and proper love of what we ought to love in the realm of creatures. And in agreement with what we have seen him to

  Introduction  27

constitutes the telos of the journey as well as the central means of progress. The foundational effect of grace is to communicate God’s love to the recipient and capacitate her to freely respond to God and others in love. For this reason, Thomas refers at several points in the Summa theologiae to charity as the form, root, and mother of all virtues, and he frequently measures progress on the journey according to its growth.62 For example, commenting on Paul’s description of persons as “saints” in Eph. 1:3–6, Thomas writes: “‘Saints in his sight,’ that is, as we look upon God, because [the beatific] vision is the whole reward according to Augustine. And God will do this, not by our merits, but by God’s charity, or in our charity by which he formally sanctifies us.”63 Thomas does not hesitate to link charity to rewards first because of God’s love for the wayfarer and then by the freely expressed love of the wayfarer, which makes the lover deiform and worthy of reward.64 As our study probes the place of human action and divine rewards in Thomas’s theology, charity will serve as a tool by which to mark interim and final perfection on the journey.

Method Dealing first with Saint Bonaventure and then Saint Thomas, the study exposits their doctrines of rewards and traces these into their presentations of related theological loci. To that end, the study begins by analyzing Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s formal accounts of grace, justification, and think about the New Law, Aquinas takes charity to be ‘instilled within our hearts’ since it derives from God working directly in us by grace so as to make us God-like in our thinking and acting.” See Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 240. 62. See especially ST II-II:23, 8 c, as well as ST I-II:62, 2 c; ST I-II:62, 4 c; and ST I-II:114, 4 c, and ad. 1. 63. SEP, Eph., 1:1. 64. In ST II-II:24, 9 c, Thomas makes an important argument that charity can increase by degrees from beginning, to progress, to perfection. He compares this growth with the natural development of a person who progresses from an infant, to a rational person to, at puberty, someone who can choose to generate life. Following the analogy, Thomas writes: “And also the diverse degrees of charity are distinguished according to the different pursuits to which a person is led by the increase of charity. For first it is necessary for a person to principally move away from sin and resist concupiscence, which move the person in opposition to charity. And this pertains to beginners, in whom charity must be nurtured or promoted lest it be corrupted. Second, a person’s main pursuit is to aim at progress in the good, and this is the pursuit of the proficient, who strive to strengthen their charity by adding to it. Third, a person is to strive mainly at union with God and enjoyment of God: this pertains to the perfect who desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ” (ST II-II:24, 9 c).

28  Introduction

sanctification—outlining the ways in which God is portrayed as a rewarder and human beings as meaningful agents for progress on the journey. The study then maps these treatments onto related discussions of reward in other parts of their corpuses including (1) references to reward in other theological loci (such as treatments of the virtues, sacraments, and the Christian life), (2) biblical commentaries on reward texts, and (3) polemical writings related to Christian life and perfection. The sequence appreciates that the magisterial discussions of divine and human action deserve priority for the ways that they reflect the author’s intentional ordering and presentation. It also understands that other genres, especially the scriptural commentaries, inform the magisterial accounts in vital ways while further providing generic space for Thomas and Bonaventure to apply their systematic insights to concrete or pastoral questions. Finally, Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s defenses of mendicant life illustrate the ways in which they use their systematic and scriptural insights on reward in the course of polemical arguments. The study aims to present Thomas and Bonaventure in their complexity and breadth. Readers will discover two thinkers who appreciate that God invites and rewards human beings as authentic, free, and consequential participants in their salvation. Both Bonaventure and Thomas observe Augustine’s admonition that human beings ought not to put their trust in themselves to navigate the journey. At the same time, they esteem human action as integral to its success and so heed Paul’s warning to the Galatians: “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:7–9).65 A natural tension exists between God’s transcendent, infallible, and gracious ordering of the economy of salvation and the rational, free, and contingent nature of humanity. What becomes patent is that God acts as the primary agent in human salvation even as God uses contingent human beings to accomplish God’s intentions for creation. This study shows to the reader that Thomas and Bonaventure navigate that tension to arrive at scripture’s vision of the wayfarer’s end. 65. All scriptural quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

Bonaventure and Reward

1

B ON AV E N T U R E A N D R E WA R D I N T H E S Y S T E M AT IC WOR K S

Saint Bonaventure’s theology offers a stunning synthesis of speculative and spiritual inquiry, and its overall breadth is extensive.1 Having trained under a series of influential masters at Paris, including Alexander of Hales and John of la Rochelle, he attained the rank of magister at Paris, teaching there from 1253–57.2 His magisterial works include a complete commentary on the Lombard’s Sententiae; biblical commentaries on Ecclesiastes, Luke, and John; disputed questions, including On Evangelical Perfection, On Christ’s Knowledge, and On the Mystery of the Trinity; and the Breviloquium. During the same period he also began a life-long defense of the mendicant orders, including their distinctive charisms and prerogatives.3 His career 1. Ewert Cousins reports that Bonaventure’s writings, as contained in the critical Quaracchi edition, cover nine folio volumes with each averaging over seven hundred double-columned pages. See Cousin’s introduction to Bougerol’s Introduction to Bonaventure and Marianne Schlosser’s “Bonaventure: Life and Works,” which both review Bonaventure’s biography and aggregate several studies of Bonaventure’s chronology. An overview of Bonaventure’s life and career is found in John F. Quinn’s “Bonaventure, St.,” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph Strayer, 2:313–19 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983). See Cullen’s Bonaventure for a general overview of Bonaventure’s theology as organized under the Breviloquium’s headings. 2. Bonaventure was admitted to his final exams in 1253/54 but not formally incepted into the consortium of masters until 1257; he continued to work at the university until his inception in the April of 1257, after which he undertook the work of Minister General, the office to which he was elected earlier in February 1257. See Hammond’s “Dating Bonaventure’s Inception as Regent Master,” Franciscan Studies 67 (2009): 179–226. 3. For Bonaventure’s disputed questions, see Quaestiones disputatae de perfectione evangelica, Quaestiones disputatae de scientia Christi, and Quaestiones disputatae de mysterio Trinitas, all in vol. 5 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1893). For more detail

29

30  Bonaventure and Reward

as magister was truncated by the call to serve as Minister General of the Franciscan Order (1257–74). In that office, Bonaventure produced a series of enduring spiritual works for which he is perhaps most well-known. These include The Life of St. Francis (Legenda maior), The Soul’s Journey into God (Itinerarium mentis in Deum), The Tree of Life (Lignum vitae), and the Triple Way (De triplici via).4 Bonaventure used these works, which grew out of his magisterial training and integrate elements of mystical theology, to form his brother friars in their spiritual progress and movement toward God as their ultimate end. Near the end of his life, Bonaventure found himself again called on to defend mendicant life and also to speak to the rise of “heterodox Aristotelianism” in the universities.5 To that end, Bonaventure produced works such as Defense of the Poor (Apologia pauperum), and the sermon collations On the Ten Commandments (Collationes de decem praeceptis), On the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Collationes de septem donis Spiritus Sancti), and On the Six Days of Creation (Collationes in hexaëmeron).6 Bonaventure’s most extensive treatments of grace, human action, and divine rewards are found in his two major systematic works, the Commentarius in quatuor libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi (CS) (pubon the context and dating of Bonaventure’s works, see Pietro Maranesi, “The Opera Omnia of Saint Bonaventure: History and Present Situation,” in A Companion to Bonaventure, ed. Jay M. Hammond, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and Jared Goff, 61–80 (Leiden: Brill, 2014); and Ignatius Brady, “The Opera Omnia of St. Bonaventure Revisited,” in Thomas and Bonaventure: A Septicentenary Commemoration, ed. George F. McLean, 295–305 (Washington, D.C.: American Catholic Philosophical Association, 1974). The years 1252–57 saw the initial and concerted effort by the secular masters at Paris to reduce the ascendancy and influence of the mendicant orders, particularly in the university but also in their larger apostolic ministry in the environs of Paris. Led by the secular master William of St. Amour, who composed two important anti-mendicant works, the Liber de AntiChristo (1254) and Tractatus de periculis novissimorum temporum (1256), the masters sought to reduce the number magisterial chairs held by the Dominicans (2) and Franciscans (1). But on a larger scale, William’s works argued that the lifestyle of the mendicant was contrary to the gospel. As a result of the controversy, neither Bonaventure nor Thomas were allowed to incept as masters until 1257, long after Bonaventure had formally qualified, and after he had been elected Minister General of the Minors. See Decima L. Douie’s “St. Bonaventura’s Part in the Conflict Between Seculars and Mendicants at Paris,” vol. 2 of S. Bonaventura 1274–1974, ed. Jacques Guy Bougerol, 585–612 (Rome: Collegio S. Bonaventura Grottaferrata, 1974). 4. See Legenda maior, Itinerarium mentis in Deum, Lignum vitae, and De triplici via, all in vol. 8 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1898). 5. See Schlosser, “Bonaventure,” 49–52. 6. See Apologia pauperum, Collationes de decem praeceptis, Collationes de septem donis Spiritus Sancti, and Collationes in hexaëmeron, all in vol. 8 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1898).

  Bonaventure and Reward  31

lished 1254–57) and the Breviloquium (1257).7 Although the two works do not differ greatly in their theological content, they do in their breath and organization. The CS entertains a wider set of theological questions, occasioned by both the Lombard’s text and Bonaventure’s own concerns, while the Breviloquium follows its own deliberate order and succinct presentation of theological topics.8 This study consults both works but follows the organization of the Breviloquium to establish Bonaventure’s doctrine of predestination, grace, and divine rewards. The exitus-reditus schema worked out in the systematic works further underpins Bonaventure’s mystical opuscula. After consulting the Breviloquium and CS, the chapter turns to the Itinerarium mentis in Deum’s and Lignum vitae’s uses of rewards to depict a journey to union with God. We will see that these works especially illustrate and elucidate the decisive role of divine rewards in human being’s journey to union with God.

Predestination, Grace, and Reward in the Breviloquium and CS The Brevilioquium represents Bonaventure’s magisterial synthesis, organization, and “summary of the truth of theology.”9 He begins with a pro7. Bougerol notes that the dating of the CS is not settled. The Quaracchi editors set the dating of the work prior to 1250, but following more recent scholarship, Bougerol prefers the period of 1255–57; see Bougerol, Introduction, 220n2. Bonaventure did not write the CS in sequential order but likely began with book IV and then moved in order through books I, II, and III. This would suggest, for example, that his commentary on book II of the Sentences was written within just one or two years of the Breviloquium; see Bougerol, Introduction, 101. As to the dating of the Breviloquium, Bougerol argues for 1257 as a near-certain year for its composition; it followed Bonaventure’s disputed questions de scientia Christi and de mysterio Trinitas, which share certain nearly identical passages; see Bougerol, Introduction, 108. See also John Quinn’s “Chronology of St. Bonaventure 1217–1257,” Franciscan Studies 32 (1972): 168–86. 8. The CS entertains a wider set of theological questions that are not only occasioned by the Lombard’s text but also by Bonaventure’s desire to address discrete concerns or ideas. The Quaracchi edition of the CS includes the cursory notes that Bonaventure made on the text as a bachelor of the sentences sometime between 1250 and 1252; these are included as “dubia circa litteram magistri,” and they offer extended discussions of points where Bonaventure wishes to clarify or indemnify a position in the Sententiae. The Breviloquium’s citation of authorities, including scripture, is abbreviated when compared with the CS or Thomas’s work in the Summa theologiae. 9. In prefacing the work, Bonaventure explains that he wishes to simplify and properly order the doctrine of sacred scripture, he writes: “This teaching [the practice of theology] has been transmitted,

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logue that professes sacred scripture to be indispensably fundamental to theology, and he then orders his treatment of theology into seven principal books, which together comprise seventy-two concise chapters. Beginning with Book I on “The Trinity of God,” Bonaventure establishes a set of basic principles about divine nature to which he can reduce the content of the remaining six books. The first three books—On the Trinity, On Creation, and On the Corruption of Sin—exposit the exitus of creation from God, whereas the last four books—On the Incarnation, On Grace, On the Sacramental Remedy, and On the Final Repose—indicate the way of return to God.10 At the center of the Breviloquium’s exitus-reditus movement stands Book IV, “On the Incarnation of the Word,” whose saving work makes return possible. Book V, “On the Grace of the Holy Spirit,” follows and provides discussions of grace and merit that flow from the Incarnation. It is the natural and most direct source of Bonaventure’s thought on reward, even as the doctrine of reward has roots in Bonaventure’s presentation of divine nature, and particularly, the way in which God predestines human beings (Book I). We will follow the sequence of Bonaventure’s presentation, beginning with his treatment of predestination (Book I), moving through grace and merit as means of return (Book V), and culminating in the recompenses offered in final judgment (Book VII).

Divine Predestination Bonaventure devotes the final two chapters (8 and 9) of the Breviloquium’s first book to divine predestination and providence, thereby completing his treatment of the “Trinity of God.” Chapter 8, “God’s Wisdom, Predestiboth in the writings of the saints and in those of the doctors, in such a diffuse manner that those who come to learn about Sacred Scripture are not able to read or hear about it for a long time. In fact, beginning theologians often dread Sacred Scripture itself, feeling it to be as confusing, disordered, and uncharted as some impenetrable forest. That is why my colleagues have asked me, from my own modest knowledge, to draw up some concise summary of the truth of theology. Yielding to their requests, I have agreed to compose what might be called a brief discourse [Breviloquium]. In it I will summarize not all the truths of our faith, but some things that are more opportune to hold” (Breviloquium, Prologue:6.5). 10. Monti remarks, “Thus the Breviloquium’s structure reflects the Neo-Platonic framework of exitus (a ‘going out’) and reditus (a return) according to which all things emanate from the ultimate good over the course of time and return to their source in the fullness of time” (Monti, introduction to the Breviloquium, xlviii).

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nation, and Foreknowledge,” arranges predestination under divine wisdom and foreknowledge: “Concerning God’s wisdom, the following should be held, namely, that divine Wisdom clearly knows all things, good and evil, past, present and future, actual and possible.”11 Divine wisdom represents a first and organizing (reductive) principle for the way in which God predestines human beings. God knows all things as their principle so that predestination follows from God’s omniscience; Bonaventure writes: “Yet insofar as [divine wisdom] is the reason for knowing all that is predestined and reprobated, it is called the Book of Life. It is the Book of Life in respect to all things returning [to God].”12 When speaking of divine knowledge as utterly simple, he reasons that God knows things “distinctly” so that “God knows the good as worthy of approbation and the evil as worthy of reprobation.”13 The reference tacitly suggests that God knows the elect by their works, which establishes a relationship between predestination and merit. Two very significant inferences may already be drawn concerning Bonaventure’s doctrine of predestination. First, the decision to align predestination with knowledge and prior to the exercise of providence (chapter 9) suggests that predestination is a consequence of God knowing as opposed to willing something. Second, Bonaventure includes allusions to predestination as moments of “approbation,” which imply that God predestines based on knowing something about those whom God approves. For example, Bonaventure writes: “insofar as it knows the things that should be rewarded, [divine wisdom] is called predestination.”14 He seems to suggest that divine knowledge of future human actions determines predestination. These inferences contribute to Alister McGrath’s summarization of Bonaventure’s position as something of a minority report among high scholastic medieval theologians where “the information supplied by the intellect relates to the foreseen of the use of the grace granted to the individual in question.”15 According to McGrath, Bonaventure first assigns predestination 11. Breviloquium, I:8.1. 12. Breviloquium, I:8.2. 13. Breviloquium, I:8.4. 14. Breviloquium, I:8.1. 15. McGrath, Justitia, 134. In the larger context, McGrath writes: “The minority opinion, according to which there is some basis in the man for both predestination and reprobation. This opinion is particularly associated with the early Franciscan school, such as Alexander of Hales and Bonaventure. Predestination is understood as the act of intellect, rather than will: the divine will must be informed

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to the divine intellect as an effect of wisdom. Second, as an act of the intellect, predestination includes a choice to call or elect some persons as opposed to others. Third, the divine choice to reward pertains to something in the recipients, in this case, the foreknown or future good use of graces. Fourth, with this foreknowledge, God predestines those whom God foreknows will be successful. Outlining the sequence of this opinion is important, because Bonaventure may hold to its first parts without being subject to McGrath’s conclusions. Bonaventure may locate predestination in the divine mind and even conclude that God therefore chooses certain human beings without concluding that God chooses them based on merits or foreknowledge.16 In any case, Bonaventure’s teaching on predestination deserves closer examination in order to determine the criteria—if they can be known—by which God predestines and the conceptual sequence that follows it. The order in which predestination relates to gifts of grace, human action, and subsequent reward is critically important because it clarifies whether predestination itself is a gift or reward—a determination that would profoundly shape the journey. Bonaventure addresses the nature of predestination in 1 Sent., 40–41, and he treats twelve questions between the two distinctions. For this inquiry three points are of central importance: (1) Is predestination tied principally to divine wisdom? (2) Does God predestine based on anything in human beings? and (3) Do merits in any sense determine predestination? Bonaventure addresses the first point in 40.1.2, “Whether predestination is in the knowledge or will of God.” He responds that predestination has its origin, as cause, in the divine intellect. Predestination is known not only according to its origin but also according to its effects; he writes: “It should be said that since predestination signifies the divine essence as the cause of grace and glory, and this is according to the ordered distribution of grace and glory insofar as it is from itself, it not only suggests divine knowledge but also will by the intellect before the decision to accept or reject, and the information supplied by the intellect relates to the foreseen of the use of the grace granted to the individual in question.” McGrath argues that Scotus perceives this connection between divine intellect and will in Bonaventure and seeks to revise it in his own work by reclassifying predestination and providence as an effect of the will. 16. This position may indicate familiarity and use of Augustine’s anti-Massilian works. According to the Quaracchi editors, 1 Sent., 40–41, references On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance, and in 1 Sent., 40.1.2, Bonaventure references both works, the former by name.

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and power.”17 Bonaventure’s treatment of predestination is flexible enough to speak of it as the cause of grace and glory. Yet because grace and glory are effects of God’s will or God’s desire for the predestined, it can be said that predestination is also from the divine will. The distinction allows Bonaventure to speak of predestination as something arising from both divine knowing and divine willing. Bonaventure thus ties predestination to the divine intellect but not so that it prohibits language of God willing grace and glory for the predestined. The challenge arises in properly ordering these different definitions of the cause of predestination. Bonaventure determines that predestination takes effect through the use of the free will by human beings who in turn merit glory. By predestination, God causes the will to act but to act freely. He writes: “It should be said that predestination neither implies the necessity of salvation nor the necessity of the free will, because predestination is not the cause of salvation unless merit is included, and so being saved by the free will.”18 In making the argument that predestination does not enforce necessity or bind the free will, predestination cannot be called the cause of salvation except by including merit under the human will’s contingent operation. In one sense, Bonaventure simply reinforces that predestination unfolds through the wayfarer’s free and meritorious work. In another sense, the phrase comes close to suggesting that merit may be prior, in some sense, to predestination, which makes it a cause. Bonaventure further distinguishes: “For understanding the objection it should be noted that predestination implies two things: both the ratio of foreknowledge and the ratio of causality.”19 As cause of salvation, predestination unfolds through the free will so that it is not by necessity; but as foreknowledge, predestination is known infallibly and so is necessary in the order of logic.20 Bonaventure affirms that grace is an effect of predestination while arguing that predestination cannot be called the cause of salvation. He writes: “It ought to be said that predestination is a cause of grace just as it calls [predestination] a total cause, but not the only cause of salvation, since that would 17. 1 Sent., 40.1.2, resp. 18. 1 Sent., 40.2.1, resp. 19. 1 Sent., 40.2.1, resp. 20. Bonaventure writes: “And because divine foreknowledge imposes no necessary sequence but only a sequence, it is similarly not the case that predestination imposes necessity” (1 Sent., 40.2.1, resp).

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exclude cooperating and disposing. ‘For those who listen to Christ are not saved against their wills.’”21 Predestination may be understood as cause as long it does not exclude the free will’s contingent response to grace. Merit may be called a cause of salvation in addition to predestination because both conduce to that end. If merit causes salvation, Bonaventure inquires whether it may be said to cause predestination; he outlines two arguments against the proposition. In one, he argues that predestination and reprobation are eternal whereas merit is temporal, and so it is impossible for meritorious action to cause predestination.22 In a second argument, he reasserts that, “Likewise, grace is the effect of predestination, but the first grace precedes all merit and is that cause of all merit; therefore, the first grace cannot fall under merit and it is a grace itself, because it is given without merits so that it cannot be predestination.”23 Merit cannot possibly qualify—in the order of logic—as a cause of predestination. This seems to answer the question at hand, except that Bonaventure still suggests that predestination can be understood under three headings: propositum aeternum, temporalis gratificatio, and aeterna glorificatio.24 Understanding predestination as an eternal destining can never fall under merit whereas eternal glory always falls under merit. The relationship of predestination to merit is more difficult to parse in the intermediate stage—being graced temporally. Bonaventure reasons that being graced temporally is neither totally under nor totally outside of merit because human beings can merit in three ways: congruently, digni, and condignly. He identifies congruent merit as that accomplished by the sinner: “Congruent merit is when a sinner does what is himself and on his own behalf . . . but every sinner is unworthy of every good.”25 Bonaventure also addresses condign merit; he writes: “Condign merit is when a just person works on his own behalf, because grace is ordered to this by condignity.”26 Human 21. 1 Sent., 40, dub. 7. 22. Bonaventure writes: “But predestination and reprobation are eternal whereas merits are temporal; therefore temporal, is the cause of the eternal which is impossible” (1 Sent., 41.1.1, sc). 23. 1 Sent., 41.1.1, sc. 24. See 1 Sent., 41.1.1, resp. Bonaventure names eternal propositum, temporal obduracy, and eternal punishment as parallel terms for reprobation. 25. 1 Sent., 41.1.1, resp. Note the use of the facienti. It is not central to Bonaventure’s argument, but he uses the saw to explain how congruent merit may be possible, particularly in a state of sin. 26. 1 Sent., 41.1.1, resp. Later in this passage, Bonaventure uses the term promereri when speaking of meriting the first grace. The term relates to a wider discussion, particularly as the term came to be

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beings can merit under different conditions—as sinners or as just persons. A sinner may merit congruently the first grace by doing what is within himself. Once in a state of grace, a person, as just, may merit condignly by cooperating with the grace God has given. Thus, if predestination refers to the person making progress through his efforts to enter into and progress in a state of grace, predestination may be said to fall under merit. The lingering question, which Bonaventure does not answer, is whether God predestines knowing of these merits or whether merits are simply a consequence of predestination. He provides a partial answer: “When it is asked whether predestination and reprobation fall under merit, it should be responded to the question that, simply speaking, insofar as the principle [source] is signified, neither fall under merit.”27 Predestination does not fall under merit because it is the principle of merit. Bonaventure proscribes merit’s determination of predestination, but then, why qualify the decision in any sense? He does not indicate why he leaves linguistic and conceptual room to say that predestination falls under merit when speaking of the interim and final parts of the journey except that he wants to allow for merit in determining eternal glory. Bonaventure identifies the divine will as the reason and the ultimate cause of predestination and reprobation. Predestination does not depend on any cause other than God’s simple and divine nature, though Bonaventure does not clarify how divine foreknowledge informs such willing. If God elects some from the massa damnata, God’s motivations are largely inscrutable, though Bonaventure is quick to point out that the theologian can and should seek to find “fitting and decent” explanations for what is known of predestination and reprobation. He gives the following examples: “Wherefore if it is asked, why does God wish to make it rain? It should be responded, on account of our benefit. Similarly, if it is asked, why does God used in Trent’s “Decree on Justification.” Oberman argues that the Franciscan use of this term, and its injection into the Decree, casts doubt on whether first conversion can be reckoned as a gift according to Trent. See his article “Tridentine Decree on Justification in light of Late Medieval Theology,” Journal for Theology and the Church 3 (1967): 28–54. See also Edward Schillebeeckx’s response to Oberman in “The Tridentine Decree on Justification: A New View,” in Concilium 5: Moral Problems and Christian Personalism, ed. Franz Bockle, 176–79 (New York: Paulist Press, 1965), and Hanns Ruckert’s “Promereri. Eine Studie zum tridentinischen Rechtfertigungsdekret als Antwort an H. A. Oberman,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 61 (1964): 251–82. 27. 1 Sent., 4.1.1, resp.

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give rewards to some? It should be responded, on account of God’s glory.”28 In the Breviloquium’s final section on providence, he adds: “But if a person should ask why the gift of grace is given more lavishly to one sinner than to another, one then ought to impose silence on human loquaciousness and exclaim with the Apostle [how inscrutable are God’s judgment and how unsearchable God’s ways].”29 Human merit is an indispensable and ordered effect of God’s wisdom, but it does not determine the eternal origin of predestination. Nevertheless, even Bonaventure’s suggestion that first grace is allotted to some more lavishly than others is interesting. It may suggest that all are provisioned with the first grace even as some have more, or have it more efficaciously, than others. In his conclusion to the chapter on divine providence in the Breviloquium, for instance, Bonaventure writes: Similarly grace does no injury to anyone when it prevenes and sustains, and for that reason grace does not act unjustly, nor does it act according to strict justice when one considers what is due us by merit, because merit does not suffice for this grace; but, the divine will acts gratuitously and mercifully, and, in a certain mode, justly, insofar as it condescends from God’s goodness. When therefore [God’s will] condemns and reproves, it operates according to justice, but when it predestines, it acts according to grace and mercy which do not exclude justice. Because all people, belonging to the “mass of perdition,” ought to be damned, and for that reason, more are reprobated than elected so that it might be shown that salvation is according to a special grace, but condemnation is according to common justice.30

Stressing that divine predestination depends on God’s mercy flowing from God’s goodness, Bonaventure forecloses any possibility in which merit can cause predestination. In fact, no merit is sufficient for grace under the con28. 1 Sent., 4.1.2, resp. Bonaventure’s reference to rain refers to an earlier question about why God might make it rain in winter. Later in the same response, Bonaventure adds: “For if it is asked, ‘why does God wish to justify some,’ it should be responded in order to show God’s mercy. And if it is asked, ‘why does God not justify all persons by consent of God’s will,’ it should be said that this is in order to show God’s justice.” 29. Breviloquium, I:9.7. Bonaventure then quotes Rom. 11:33–36, echoing Augustine in On the Predestination of Saints: “Oh the depth of the riches of wisdom and of the foreknowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and so earned a reward? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” 30. Breviloquium, I:9.7, emphasis mine.

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ditions of strict justice even if the divine will’s execution of predestination leaves conceptual space for human free choice and consequent rewards. McGrath’s thesis arguably can be drawn from Bonaventure’s texts.31 Bonaventure does locate the origin of predestination in the divine mind, which in turn is executed through the divine will. While the divine intellect elects the predestined to grace, there is no indication that this choice relies on anything outside of the divine mind. In fact, Bonaventure suggests that one must simply refer to divine goodness and mercy when seeking the reason for predestination. He allows for speaking of merit as a cause of predestination only in the scope of speaking about a person’s justification, progress in grace, and final glory; in other words, a person can merit these rewards as part of the gratuitously predestined journey. Merit may be evidence of having been chosen and graced. Even in this arena, Bonaventure consistently reminds his readers that when speaking of predestination as the reason for grace or God’s decision to call some to eternal life, merit can in no way be called a cause. The latter half of McGrath’s thesis for Bonaventure—that God chooses to predestine based on foreknowledge of one’s use of grace—cannot be sustained reliably from the magisterial texts. In some ways, the location of predestination in the divine mind as opposed to the will is a distinction without a difference inasmuch as its origin remains eternal and solely of God. Bonaventure’s position—as outlined in the CS—does not represent the kind of minority report that McGrath originally indicates. Overall, predestination reflects divine wisdom, and it infallibly prepares and disposes wayfarers for the journey to union with God through the provision of grace.32

31. McGrath does not provide any references to either Bonaventure’s or Alexander’s works; it is difficult to evaluate his position on the early Franciscan school and predestination. He does reference the Lombard’s Sententiae, Book 1, dd. 40–41, as the locus for their commentaries on this topic; see McGrath, Justitia, 437n58. 32. The passage echoes Augustine’s maxim in On the Predestination of the Saints (19) that predestination is the “preparation” for the gift, while grace is the “gift itself.” Bonaventure may be suggesting that grace is the gift (thereby deemphasizing the causality of predestination). The complication is that Bonaventure has already noted justifying grace as a potential reward.

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Grace and Rewards Bonaventure identifies grace as an uncreated gift that is the Spirit himself.33 This graced indwelling, however, has created effects in the soul. He writes: “At the same time, that grace is a gift through which the soul is perfected and made the bride of Christ, the daughter of the eternal Father, and the temple of the Holy Spirit; because it is done through no other mode than the dignifying condescension and the condescending dignity of the eternal Majesty through his gift of grace.”34 Grace is the action by which God conforms human persons—in nature and image—to God. Grace perfects the soul, uniting it to Christ as bride and making the recipient an adopted child of the Father.35 Bonaventure classifies this grace, “which perfects the soul,” as sanctifying grace.36 He writes: “Finally, grace is a gift that purifies, illumines, and perfects the soul; that vivifies, reforms, and strengthens it; that elevates it, likens it, and joins it to God, and thereby makes it acceptable to God, and 33. Bonaventure describes uncreated grace: “Considering grace as a divinely given gift, we must maintain the following points. First as a gift, grace is bestowed and infused directly by God. For truly, together with grace and in it, we receive the Holy Spirit, the uncreated gift, the ‘good and perfect gift coming down from the Father of lights’ through the Incarnate Word.” (Breviloquium, V:1.2). 34. Breviloquium, V:1.2. 35. Bonaventure reemphasizes these effects: “Now no one possesses God without being possessed by God in a special way. . . . And no one is loved in this way without being adopted as a child entitled to an eternal inheritance. Therefore, [sanctifying grace] makes the soul the temple of God, the bride of Christ, and the daughter of the eternal Father” (Breviloquium, V:1.5). See 2 Sent., 26.1.2, resp. for a parallel discussion. 36. Bernard Marthaler’s Original Justice and Sanctifying Grace in the Writings of Saint Bonaventure (Rome: Miscellanea francescana, 1965), 31–36, provides a concise overview of Bonaventure’s understanding of sanctifying grace. Particularly helpful is the distinction between sanctifying grace and gratuitous grace (gratia gratis data). Marthaler engages the question of whether gratuitous grace belongs naturally to human beings. This is consequential inasmuch as it creates the possibility that persons may merit first grace or conversion as a reward for their use of gratuitous grace. Marthaler writes: “The graces gratis datae were given man at the instant of creation. Saint Bonaventure often follows the more common Augustinian view in describing the overall rectitude which resulted from these graces. And often he quotes Saint Anselm, seeming to play up the importance of the will in this state of innocence. His master, Alexander of Hales, was one of the first to essay a synthesis of the two currents, and that the Seraphic Doctor follows his example is evidenced by the way Bonaventure—to cite just one example— explains Adam’s immortality” (Marthaler, Original Justice, 35–36). Marthaler is careful to indicate that both graces are supernatural and therefore above human nature, but the question remains as to when gratuitous grace is given to human beings and whether it is retained or lost in sin.

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therefore this is a gift in such a way that it is rightly called and ought to be named the grace which makes pleasing (gratia gratum faciens).”37 Bonaventure’s list regards sanctifying grace as healing, elevating, and perfecting the soul; it works from the Dionysian triad to steadily deify the wayfarer.38 Indeed, it is only by God’s gratuitous provision of sanctifying grace that human beings may hope to possess God as final end. This end so exceeds any natural human capacity for merit, Bonaventure explains, that “No one is in any way worthy to attain this highest good because it is completely above the limitations of [human] nature unless that nature is elevated above itself by God condescending to it.”39 The healing and elevation of human nature depends on God’s gratuitous condescension through sanctifying grace. This undeserved gift first traverses the ontological division between God and the recipient thus establishing a new kind of relationship between God and human beings. Bonaventure’s language of divine condescension emphasizes a second point—that God not only restores the relationship between God and human beings, but descends in God’s very self as exemplar to reform and perfect the divine image in human beings. The CS uses the language of God “possessing human beings” through sanctifying grace so that human beings may in turn possess God as their homeland (patria).40 Bonaventure expands on divine condescension, explaining: “It is therefore necessary that the rational spirit, in order to be worthy of eternal beatitude, participate in the divinizing influence [of grace]. For this divinizing influence, since it is from God and is according to God and is on account of God, therefore restores our image and conforms us to the highest beat37. Breviloquium, V:1.2. Much of the passage matches his comments in 2 Sent., 26.1.2, resp. 38. Grace accomplishes these goals through the three-fold action of purgation, illumination, and perfection; this Pseudo-Dionysian language already indicates something of the interim steps of the wayfarer’s journey. Human beings must be purged of sin, illumined with grace, and so conformed back to the divine archetype as part of the reductio. See John Reidl’s “Bonaventure’s Commentary on Dionysius’ Mystical Theology,” in Bonaventure and Aquinas, ed. Robert Shahan and Francis J. Kovach, 266– 76 (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976). See also the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius in Bougerol’s Introduction, 39–47, and Carpenter’s “The Fall of the Mind and Its Remedy by Hierarchization,” in Theology as Road, 39–58. 39. Breviloquium, V:1.3. 40. See 2 Sent., 27.1.3. Bonaventure distinguishes grace from glory by arguing that in the former, God possesses human beings, whereas in the latter, human beings possess God.

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itude.”41 Divinization follows as a principal effect of God’s condescension through grace, and this conformity to God unfolds in the human mind, and principally, the free will. Bonaventure writes: Finally, our mind is not conformed to the blessed Trinity according to uprightness of election except through strength of virtue, the splendor of truth, and the fervor of love; and strength of virtue purges, stabilizes, and elevates the soul; the splendor of truth illumines, reforms, and assimilates the soul to God; and the fervor of love perfects, vivifies, and unites the soul to God, and from all these things a person stands as pleasing and acceptable to God.42

The free will is progressively divinized through virtue, truth, and love, which parallel the actions of purgation, illumination, and perfection. Virtue cleanses, truth enlightens, and love perfects; the free will therefore works the hierarchy of purgation, illumination, and perfections through acting virtuously, contemplating truth, and loving God as highest good. This hierarchizing framework is significant because it identifies the place of human agency in Bonaventure’s journey. The will is initially acted upon by grace so that it may actively participate in its perfection. Bonaventure delineates a movement from grace received as a gift to grace received as a reward for free human action. Bonaventure stresses that “making the soul acceptable to God” (acceptum facere) most fittingly names grace.43 He stresses acceptum facere, in part, because it approximates to the language of sanctifying grace (gratia gratum faciens), which is the subject at hand. It also describes the perfected state of human nature as “acceptable”—meaning “able to be taken up.” If indeed God can accept and receive human nature—once perfected by grace—its acceptance can be reckoned a reward. The language of “acceptation” indicates that grace has bridged the ontological gap between God and the wayfarer. It figures prominently in Bonaventure’s discussion of human action and divine 41. Breviloquium, V:1.3. 42. Breviloquium, V:1.6. Earlier in the same chapter, Bonaventure writes: “It therefore restores the image of our mind to likeness with the blessed Trinity—not only in terms of its order of origin, but also in terms of its rectitude of choice and of its rest in enjoying God” (Breviloquium, I.1.3). 43. Bonaventure uses ten distinctive adjectives to name the transformation that underscores the overarching renovation that occurs among the elect; they include purification, illumination, perfection, vivification, reformation, strengthening, elevation, likening (assimilation), joining (uniting), and making acceptable; see 2 Sent., 26.1.2 for a near verbatim list.

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rewards, and he plants seeds for its prominence already in the initial exposition of grace. Grace perfects, but it does so in such a way that the human soul—as conformed to its exemplar—deserves acceptance by God according to its status as hierarchized and like (similitudine) unto God.44 Aware of the ontological distinction between grace and nature, Bonaventure classifies grace into three categories, which can be related to divine rewards: (1) divine concursus (concursus generalis), (2) gratuitous grace (gratia gratis data), and (3) sanctifying grace (gratia gratum faciens). Among these categories, only sanctifying grace—the grace that makes persons “acceptable”—is classified as a potential reward for human action, yet it is clear that human beings do not begin in a state of grace with the ability to earn rewards from God. Under concursus generalis, God creates and sustains the cosmos through a kind of grace that makes natural activities possible. Because God has created the cosmos from nothing, all things tend by nature to return to this origin; a kind of general grace maintains and sustains their existence; Bonaventure writes: “Therefore, this [human] creature does not have being from himself but has being entirely from another; thus the creature was made so that, through his own deficiency, he would always depend on his principle, and this first principle does not cease to support him through his own [divine] benevolence.”45 Divine concursus qualifies as grace in the sense that it graciously sustains things in being. As a second category, gratuitous grace connotes a kind of intermediate grace between divine concursus and sanctifying grace. Its principal purpose is to excite human nature and, in doing so, prepare it for reception of sanctifying grace. Bonaventure explains: “This is also because [the rational creature], in order to prepare himself for the gift of heavenly grace, since he is self-centered especially after the fall, requires the gift of another gratia gratis data through which the creature is able to do good moral acts . . . and our 44. An important parallel to this language is Bonaventure’s description of Francis as the vir hierarchus. This title connotes Francis’s reception of the gifts of sanctifying grace, the restructuring of his person “being raised up from the dust of an earthly life,” and his progressive growth in exemplarity with Jesus; see Legenda maior, Prologue:1. Quotations for the Legenda maior are taken from Bonaventure, The Life of Saint Francis, in Bonaventure, trans. Ewert Cousins, 179–327 (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1978). 45. Breviloquium, V:2.3. See a parallel passage in the CS in 1 Sent., 37.1.1.1, resp.

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self-centered spirit cannot rise to [these acts] unless it is prevened by God through another gratia gratis data.”46 Gratuitous grace arouses human nature from its self-centered disposition so that it turns to higher goods, and with the cooperation of the recipient, it disposes the recipient for sanctifying grace. Gratuitous grace plays a decisive role on the journey, particularly in terms of reward. The human will must move to accept sanctifying grace. This process, however, cannot begin without gratuitous grace and the free human action it arouses. Human beings do something in order to deserve sanctifying grace, and its infusion accordingly can be reckoned a reward in some sense.47 Further, having prepared for and received sanctifying grace, and having become acceptable in part, human beings may merit in a way that fits their nature. Bonaventure writes: The rational person depends on the gift of sanctifying grace through which God condescends to him, accepting the person in his own image and will, before any work that comes from him; because “the cause is more noble than the effect,” no one can make himself better or do a work that pleases God unless he himself is pleasing to God first; therefore God looks with favor (munera) on the person beforehand. For that reason, the root of all merit is founded in sanctifying grace which makes a person worthy of God; for this reason, no one can merit [sanctifying grace] condignly but only by congruent merit.48

This passage exemplifies the relationship between God’s munera and acceptatio. God graces the recipient with a God-conforming grace, which God subsequently recognizes as God’s own image and likeness. In turn, God accepts the work of the wayfarer as befitting an acceptable image of God. The work has reward-worthy value because it is accomplished by a hierarchized and increasingly perfected imago Dei. The metaphysics of exemplarity and similitude thus undergird a theology of acceptation. Bonaventure stipulates that the first infusion of sanctifying grace cannot be merited condignly because human beings have not yet received the grace that transforms their nature and makes their work acceptable. They can nevertheless merit sanctifying grace congruently with the 46. Breviloquium, V:2.3. 47. See Bonaventure’s use of the facienti in I Sent., 43.1.1 resp. 48. Breviloquium, V:2.3, emphasis mine.

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help of gratuitous grace disposing the recipient to action. Bonaventure does not define congruence here, but it implies deserving rewards in a proportional sense. The reward of sanctifying grace is premised on the prior action of gratuitous grace and a reciprocal (free) human response. After receiving sanctifying grace as a proportional reward, persons can now earn rewards as acceptable partners with God. Bonaventure entertains the question of whether human beings may merit the gift of the first grace in the CS, and he raises the question of the facienti quod in se est. He reasons that a person in a state of sin cannot merit a gift of grace; merit is repugnant to its nature as gift. He concludes: “It should be said that it is not possible to merit the preceding habit of grace through the consequent use of grace, neither as it pertains to congruent merit nor as it pertains to condign merit.”49 Bonaventure seemingly closes the possibility of meriting the first grace—here taken to mean the grace that causes conversion—inasmuch as a sinner cannot deserve what is properly a gift. The next question, however, affirms that a sinner can congruently merit the first instance of sanctifying grace according to the facienti. He writes: “And so the sinner, through good work in general, done out of love, merits the first grace congruently; for there is a certain congruity in himself, because he does what is in himself; nevertheless, this is not condign because the enemy of God is unworthy of bread.”50 When the sinner does what is in himself, and so does works of charity, he merits in a certain kind of way. The oscillation between these two positions on the first grace—a negation of condign merit and an approbation of congruent merit—is difficult to harmonize. Two clues clarify Bonaventure’s position. First, when Bonaventure proscribes meriting the first grace, he speaks of the “habit of grace,” and this might be taken to mean the supernatural and created habitus that reforms and transforms nature; it is the created effect of the Holy Spirit indwelling in the recipient. This habit cannot naturally be deserved under any circumstances, especially by a sinner, because it is supernatural and not condign with human nature. In that sense, the habitum gratiae as the 49. 2 Sent., 27.2.1, resp. 50. 2 Sent., 27.2.2, resp., emphasis mine. The Latin aptly conveys the use of the facienti: “Et sic peccator per bona opera in genere, facta extra caritatem, meretur de congruo primam gratiam; ibi enim est quaedam congruitas, quia facit quod in se est; non est tamen condignitas, quia inimicus Dei est indignus pane, quo vescitur.”

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principal effect of sanctifying grace cannot be viewed as a reward. Second, Bonaventure uses the language of “quaedam congruitas”—a certain kind of congruence. This does not necessarily imply congruent merit properly but a kind of likeness with congruent merit. In responding to gratuitous grace, human beings dispose themselves for sanctifying grace, which God provides in response to such preparation. There is a certain congruence fitted between human and divine action, but it cannot be said that such human action can accordingly “deserve” God’s response. The larger framework of acceptatio makes this possible. Because God accepts the wayfarer’s preparation—doing what is in oneself—as adequate, the preparation has a certain value. The ambiguity of quaedam congruitas leaves conceptual space for speaking about the value of human action in causing the provision of sanctifying grace; it leaves room to affirm the facienti in its basic sense. It denies that human beings properly merit the gift of grace, while promoting the value of human beings preparing themselves. As Bonaventure distinguishes among divine concursus, gratuitous grace, and sanctifying grace, he addresses the timing of grace, which pertains to the ideas of operation and cooperation. For example, when he argues that sanctifying grace transforms human beings so that they can merit glory, he writes: “Whence no one is able to merit [sanctifying grace], but [grace] itself merits to be increased by God on the journey (in via) so that, having been increased, it may merit to be perfected in the heavenly homeland and in everlasting glory by the same God who infuses, increases and perfects the grace according to the cooperation of our wills and according to God’s good favor and the plan of eternal predestination.”51 Some effects of grace precede human cooperation as gifts while others follow it as responses or rewards. Predestination and the first instance of sanctifying grace seem to precede commendable human action even as increases in sanctifying grace and the glory of eternal life follow from it. In the CS Bonaventure aligns operative grace with prevenient grace and cooperative with subsequent grace. He writes: Now first the grace of cooperation coincides with subsequent [grace]; second the grace of operation coincides with prevenient [grace]. For operating grace prevenes and moves the free will, because God heals and prepares the will through that infu51. Breviloquium, V:2.2.

  Bonaventure and Reward  47 sion. Cooperating grace or subsequent grace, however, is said to move the free will because the will, so informed by the gift of grace, moves itself.52

Once a person is conformed and capacitated by operative grace, she can effectively cooperate without further operative or prevening graces. This alignment suggests that grace heals and prepares in such a way that, following its infusion, the free will is able to cooperate and deserve the rewards of further graces and, ultimately, even final union. By classifying operative graces as prevenient, Bonaventure aligns operative grace with initial points on the journey; it converts, heals, and thus prepares the wayfarer to cooperate subsequently with grace. By restricting operative grace to something that prevenes human action, Bonaventure significantly widens the scope of human agency to cooperate freely with grace thereafter. Following the gift of operative grace, the wayfarer is free to cooperate and earn rewards—including perhaps her justification—in order to proceed along her journey toward God.

Justification Bonaventure considers justification to be an effect of grace, which leads the soul “to rise from sin.” He divides the dynamic interplay of divine and human action into four conceptual steps: “From this we may gather that four things run together in the justification of the ungodly, namely, the infusion of grace, the expulsion of guilt, contrition, and a movement of the free will.”53 The order of these steps is intriguing. By definition, justification is the process that restores one to a state of justice, yet this is principally accomplished in the second step—the expulsion of sin. Further, contrition occurs after this expulsion and the process culminates in the movement of the free will, which Bonaventure glosses as choosing to accept grace and detest sin. The roles of gratuitous and sanctifying grace further illumine the sequence of justification. Justification begins through gratuitous grace, which arouses the free will and to which the free will may or may not assent.54 With gratuitous grace having excited the will and the will having prepared 52. 2 Sent., 26.1.6, resp. 53. Breviloquium, V:3.1. Monti notes that the fourfold scheme became standard in the early thirteenth century with theologians like William of Auxerre and Alexander of Hales (179n25). 54. Bonaventure writes: “First ‘gratuitously given grace’ stirs up the free will, and the free will must either give or refuse consent to such arousal” (Breviloquium, V:3.5).

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itself for sanctifying grace, God responds by infusing grace into the soul: “And when [the free will] consents, it prepares itself for sanctifying grace, because this is to do what is in oneself, and so disposed, it is infused with sanctifying grace with which the free will is able to cooperate if it wishes and thereby merit or, on the contrary, through sin it thereby de-merits.”55 The action of the facienti precedes justification as an act deserving congruent reward—a reward preceding the remission of sins. God’s gift of sanctifying grace, which expels sin and makes the recipient acceptable to God, facilitates the will’s contrition (detestation of sin) and free movement toward God. The initial effects of sanctifying grace make the completion of justification a cooperative effect worthy of congruent reward on two counts: (1) it relies on the cooperative preparation by the wayfarer assenting to gratuitous grace, and (2) it relies on the free will’s further consent to accept the effects of sanctifying grace. Justification’s effects cannot be credited solely to human cooperation or to divine operation, and as such, it is both a gift and reward according to a quaedam congruitas.56 Bonaventure quotes Augustine’s saying that “the one who created you without you will not justify you without you” as an affirmation of this process that includes divine and human agency.57 He works to balance the priority of divine grace and election with the perceived need to preserve and recognize human free choice in justification. Doing so has practical consonance with the sacrament of baptism for adults, reconciliation as well as the graced growth in virtue—all of which imply that the wayfarer does what is in herself.

Habits The Breviloquium devotes significant attention to human habits. The discussion acts as connective tissue between the those on justification and merit. The habits illustrate how the sanctifying grace given to the justified “branches out” (ramificatione) into natural and meritorious human action: “God restores us in a manner that does not impair the established laws of 55. Breviloquium, V:3.5. 56. Bonaventure addresses this point: “God grants this grace to the free will in such a way that grace does not force it, but leaves it free to consent. Hence, if guilt is to be expelled, not only must grace be infused, but an adult’s free choice must also agree to that expulsion by detesting all its sins, an act we call contrition” (Breviloquium, V:3.4). 57. Breviloquium, V:3.6. Monti references Augustine’s Serm. 169, 11.16.

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nature.”58 Grace, either as uncreated indwelling or as created form, contains a fecundity that befits God’s nature as supremely good, and it diffuses itself, pouring itself into the habits of the wayfarer. Bonaventure categorizes these habits into three types: virtues, gifts, and beatitudes; he writes: “And therefore sanctifying grace branches out into the habits of virtue, by which the soul is rectified, into the habits of the gifts, by which it is advanced, and into the habits of the beatitudes, by which it is perfected.”59 Grace may work these hierarchizing effects in the soul simultaneously, yet in the order of logic, Bonaventure understands the wayfarer to be hierarchized in an ascending movement, beginning with the restoration of nature from sin. Fitting the virtues to the particular task of reforming the soul, he assigns the theological virtues to the “upper face” of the soul and the cardinal virtues to the “lower face.”60 The theological virtues, for example, reorder 58. Breviloquium, V:3.4. Bonaventure wishes to hold that sanctifying grace is itself singular in its essence, but its effects are manifold in the soul. The CS unpacks the relationship between sanctifying grace and habits in greater detail. In 2 Sent., 27.1.2, resp., Bonaventure observes that three opinions exist on whether sanctifying grace and its effects differ. The first two, which are incorrect, posit that (1) grace and its effects are synonymous and (2) that they differ only as to principium and principalia. Bonaventure favors the third opinion that sanctifying grace infuses a singular form in the soul whereby the person can perform a multiplicity of habitual acts according to that form. Using the analogy of light and color, he suggests that when light is poured into an object, the single form of light actualizes a variety of colors to appear in the object (according to the nature of the object); take for instance, light passing through a stained-glass window. Grace gives form (light) to colors that could not otherwise be seen. In the same way, the singular form of grace restores, illumines, and perfects the soul so that its natural effects can be witnessed in a variety of habitual acts. Bonaventure concludes: “Similarly, grace, by which the soul is said to be made pleasing to God, and from which the virtues are said to be from grace, does not differ except only in comparison, just as was posited with the example of light. Similarly, there is one grace from which all the virtues of the soul are said to be from grace. Therefore it should be conceded, as many reasons are shown, that the habitus of sanctifying and the habitus of the virtues are diverse” (2 Sent., 27.1.2, resp.). Bonaventure makes a brief reference to his light analogy at the end of Breviloquium, V:4.6. He writes: “For when we possess these other virtues without grace and charity, which is their life, they are formless; but when grace is poured upon them, they gain form: they are adorned and become acceptable to God. In the same way, colors are invisible without light; but when the light falls upon them, they become luminous, beautiful, and pleasing to the eye. Thus in terms of their cause, light and the various colors are but one, and one light is sufficient to make many colors visible.” The illumination of form by grace has the effect of making the thing “acceptable” to God. 59. Breviloquium, V:4.3. See also 3 Sent., 34.1.1.1. 60. These faces reflect the soul’s image of the Trinity and its natural powers respectively. Faith directs the soul’s belief, hope girds it for difficulty, and charity creates affectus for God as final end; these triune virtues operate in concert to reform the soul in its likeness to God. Bonaventure writes: “In this way, just as the image of creation consists in a trinity of powers with a unity of essence, so the image

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knowledge and love so that one can know, yearn for, and love God above all things: “Thus faith directs the soul in believing and assenting to what is supremely true, hope in setting out for and expecting what is most difficult, charity in desiring and loving what is supremely good.”61 As they are practiced, the virtues habitually conform and order the wayfarer so that she grows in conformity and acceptability with God her exemplar. Even as the virtues purge and reform the soul, the gifts illumine it.62 For example, they inform wayfarers against sin and so protect from concupiscence.63 Bonaventure explains, “because direction is necessary for progress, a combination of gifts must be made; and there are several gifts for understanding because the light of knowledge (cognitionis) vigorously helps for directing [our] feet of re-creation consists in a trinity of habits with a unity of grace” (Breviloquium, V:4.4). This image of the Trinity, however, operates according to intellect and will, and so prudence informs human reason, fortitude restrains the negative appetite (of the will), temperance the positive appetite, and justice coordinates the use of the soul’s powers. 61. Breviloquium, V:4.4. 62. See my “Reductio” and M. Hurley’s “Illumination according to St. Bonaventure,” Gregorianum 32, no. 3 (1951): 388–404. Delio describes Bonaventure’s doctrine of illumination: “Our knowledge of God does not come naturally from the created world, but is supported by a knowledge of God that is already present within the soul. Bonaventure holds that within the soul there is a changeless light which enables the soul to recall changeless truth. This changeless light is the eternal exemplar, and it is by means of this light that we judge all things, including our soul and its reflections. This changeless light is necessary for the soul to arrive at immutable and eternal truth, and it does so by exercising an influence on the human intellect. . . . Bonaventure uses the term ‘hierarch’ to desire the illumination of the soul in conformity to Christ through grace”; see Delio, “Theology, Spirituality, and Christ the Center: Bonaventure’s Synthesis,” in A Companion to Bonaventure, ed. Jay M. Hammond, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and Jared Goff, 361–401 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 377–78. In Transiency and Permanence, Tavard titles chapters 3 and 4 “The Book of Nature” and “The Book of the Soul,” where he treats of natural and moral illumination respectively, 56–79 and 80–102. See also Tavard’s “The Light of God in the Theology of Bonaventure,” Eastern Churches Quarterly 8 (1950): 407–17. 63. They promote progress in seven ways; they protect against vice, inform the rational powers of the soul, assist the virtues, help wayfarers to imitate Christ in suffering, make actions effective, advance in contemplation, and assist in facilitating action and contemplation. These seven overarching effects constitute the principal sections of the chapter, and in each instance, Bonaventure associates a particular outcome with a particular gift. In Breviloquium, 5.5, Bonaventure makes the following positive connections between gifts and outcomes, linking (1) fear with temperance/restoration of the flesh, (2) piety with true justice, (3) knowledge with prudence, (4) fortitude with steadfastness/patience, (5) counsel with hope, (6) understanding with faith, and (7) wisdom with charity. Each of these gifts unfolds through a virtue so that grace sanctifies and reforms through the powers of human nature. As antidotes to vice, particularly the seven deadly sins, Bonaventure specifies the effects of the gifts; fear counters pride, piety-envy, knowledge-anger, fortitude-sloth, counsel-avarice, understanding-gluttony, and wisdom-lust.

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on the right path.”64 The gifts facilitate contemplation and action ordered to progress along the right path (viam rectam). When the wayfarer contemplates God and acts appropriately she comes to the light of knowledge, which is only fully had in union with God. The sequence of this reductive journey, facilitated by the gifts, is contemplation → good deeds → union. Bonaventure’s presentation of the beatitudes integrates and completes his comments on grace and its effects on human habits.65 The order of the beatitudes is progressive so that they also demarcate stages of the journey. Perfection requires that human beings withdraw from evil, progress toward their end, and finally repose in this end. As such, poverty in spirit, meekness, and mourning help one to flee the sins of pride, anger, and concupiscence; justice and mercy help one to progress through habitual works of love for God and neighbor; and purity of heart and peace pertain to repose in the desired end. Bonaventure plots this sequential journey as removal from evil (purgation) → progress in good works (illumination) → repose in God (perfection). God’s restoration of human nature tends toward perfection: “For that reason, the gift of grace continuing out from that [principle] ought to branch out lavishly and abundantly into the habits of perfection which, since they approximate to the end, are rightly called by the name beatitude.”66 Grace conforms wayfarers to their final end so that, as they freely cooperate with grace, they already experience beatitude in their disposition and actions on the way as well as in union with God; beatitudes connote interim and final rewards particularly by way of conformity with the exemplar. Bonaventure uses the discussion of habits to stratify a number of human actions—depicted in scripture—onto the journey sequence. He enumerates 64. Breviloquium, V:5.9. 65. The exposition of the beatitudes is particularly dense. In the short course of eight paragraphs, Bonaventure overviews the roles of the seven virtues, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit, and five spiritual senses, all in relation to the seven beatitudes. Bonaventure’s fondness for symbolic numbers is in full view in this section; for example, the virtues, gifts of the Spirit, and beatitudes each number seven, which represents a perfect number. In Itinerarium, 2.10, Bonaventure provides an extended reflection on numbers, arguing that certain numbers possess a beauty that itself refers to qualities such as proportion in the mind of the exemplar. See Robert Karris’s “Bonaventure’s Theology by the Numbers” in Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, vol. 8, pt. 3 of Works of Saint Bonaventure, trans. Robert J. Karris, xxxix–xliv (Saint Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2004). 66. Breviloquium, V:6.2.

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the theological and cardinal virtues, the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, and the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount as reward-worthy actions, noting concretely that they have the power to purge, illumine, and perfect human nature. He explains: “From what was said, it is manifestly deduced that the habits of the virtues principally dispose for the work of the active life; the habits of the gifts dispose for the quiet of contemplation; and the habits of the beatitudes dispose for the perfection of both.”67 This organization stresses the double importance of active and contemplative agency. The wayfarer approaches God as final end by holding these two types of habitual action in integrated tension. Bonaventure describes the movement into final union with God as “nocturnal illumination.” A certain fervent desire, in the mode of a fire, makes our spirit not only ready for ascent but also, by a certain learned ignorance (ignorantia docta) it is carried into darkness and ecstasy so that the [soul] says with the bride “we will run after the fragrance of your ointments,” but also sings with the Prophet: “and night is my illumination in my delight.” No one knows this nocturnal and delightful illumination except the one who probes it, but no one probes it except through gratuitous grace (gratiam divinitus datam) and it is given to no one except those who train for it, and for that reason, we ought now to consider the training of merit.68

Directed by grace, the movement into final union with God is made possible by a desire that probes God’s revelation. Bonaventure’s reference to nocturnal illumination anticipates the goal of ascent presented in the Itinerarium and other mystical opuscula. The transitus to union is a darkness where one experiences delight, but in a way utterly different from the active and contemplative motions of the journey. It seems entirely affective. The last words of the chapter, however, remind the reader that, for Bonaventure, the reward of union with God presupposes that the wayfarer has trained for and earned this end.

Merit Bonaventure’s account of grace and reward offer a wide scope for human agency and merit. He divides human actions deserving reward into four categories: acts of faith, acts of love, obedience to divine law, and prayer. 67. Breviloquium, V:6.7. 68. Breviloquium, V:6.8.

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However, he notes that grace precedes each of these acts, explaining that “grace orders our mind to the worship owed to the First Principle; that is, that grace directs and regulates us toward meritorious and owed practices of faith, love, justice, and petition which are required by the supreme trust, goodness, justice, and mercy of the Blessed Trinity.”69 Rewards, which properly follow acts of faith, love, justice, and prayer, are possible only through cooperation with prior infusions of grace that direct and conform the recipient. Bonaventure further specifies that such cooperative actions merit rewards of increases in grace and final glory.70 The first two categories pertaining to merit—faith and love—represent familiar actions deserving reward. With faith, Bonaventure cites the articles of the Apostles’ Creed and suggests that the faithful who assent to these principles deserve reward. The creed asks persons to believe in things that are supernatural or hidden from human reason. Assent can only be given through the grace of infused faith—an effect of sanctifying grace—and further graces such as the “weight of scripture.”71 Conformed by grace, the believer nevertheless merits rewards by exercising her free will in belief. Bonaventure writes: “Finally, because the truth to which we are bound closely to believe by faith, and about which sacred Scripture principally deals, is not any kind of truth whatsoever but the divine truth either as it exists in its own proper nature or in its assumed nature—for the reward of our heavenly homeland and the merit of the journey consist in knowledge of this truth.”72 Wayfarers who actively assent to the articles of faith deserve rewards, particularly the wayfarer’s end of the heavenly homeland. In addition to intellectual assent, corresponding action by the will also deserve rewards. The will reaches out to God as its highest good and the principal object of its desire. Following the notion that love can be had 69. Breviloquium, V:7.3. 70. Bonaventure devotes three questions in the CS (2 Sent., 27.2.1–3) to whether one can merit increases in grace and final glory; he answers both questions affirmatively. Grace prepares wayfarers to earn glory as a reward, and so, as rewards ordered to that end, they may also earn increases in grace. He further distinguishes that these rewards can be seen as both congruent and condign, under differing criteria; see especially 27.2.3. 71. Bonaventure writes: “Therefore, in order to believe firmly in such a truth, the soul must be elevated by the light of truth and made firm by testimony. The first effect is worked through infused faith and the second by the weight of holy Scripture” (Breviloquium, V:7:5). 72. Breviloquium, V:7:6.

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through contemplation, Bonaventure argues that goodness is seen “above” in God, “within” in the person herself, “next to” the person in her neighbor, and “below” herself in her body. An order for love thus emerges wherein wayfarers ought to love (1) God, (2) themselves, (3) their neighbor, and (4) their bodies. Because of finite nature and sin, the will typically looks inward. Grace reorders the soul upward and outward so that it may move in these directions and so deserve reward. While Bonaventure elsewhere argues that wayfarers merit interim rewards through the proper use of their free wills, he focuses here on final rewards. Love reaches toward its final object, which is union, and this is experienced as a reward: “Hence charity is the weight of a properly ordered attraction and the bond of perfect union.”73 The language of weight (pondus) fittingly describes the way that love roots or anchors human desire in place so that it stretches to a focused end.74 The end, however, is all-encompassing for the wayfarer: Now this unity is inchoate on the journey, but it is consummated in eternal glory, just as the Lord prayed “that they may be one, just as we are one, and I in them and you in me, so that they may be consummated in one,” when the unity is consummated through the bonds of love, God will be all in all in a certain eternity and perfect in peace, and all things will be in one common love, ordered in communion and connected in order and bound indissolubly in communion.75

Unity unfolds on the journey through cooperative charity, which is consummated in final union. Peaceful repose is finally had in possession of God and as a reward for the wayfarer who seeks God as ultimate desire. Works of justice and prayer also deserve reward. Bonaventure carefully distinguishes between the justice of the old law and justice of the new, explaining that the “law of the gospels” displaces the Mosaic law without abrogating its moral precepts. Rather, the gospels significantly revise the instructions and incentives undergirding the moral law. While the law of Moses rightly describes the wayfarer’s journey, the law of the gospels enables the 73. Breviloquium, V:8:5. 74. Bonaventure writes: “Charity itself is the root, form, and end of the virtues, relating them all to the final end and binding them all to one another simultaneously and in an orderly fashion” (Breviloquium, V:8:5). 75. Breviloquium, V:8.5.

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wayfarer to follow the journey to its end. The first describes acts of justice; the second enables these. Moreover, what the old law demanded through fear, the new law exhorts and illumines through love.76 Those infused with sanctifying grace encounter the law of the gospel as a means to full union with God; its examples, promises of rewards, and counsels for perfection enumerate the proper actions for the journey. Bonaventure writes: “But for the perfect, those motivated by love, there are suited the plain teaching of examples, the generous promise of rewards, and the high perfection of the counsels. Hence the law of the Gospels contains all three.”77Bonaventure’s emphasis on rewards as part of the gospel’s good news is particularly important. It reinforces the notion that reward texts literally demand human action and promise divine rewards; they provide vital sign posts for the journey. The final category of prayer encompasses a different kind of rewardworthy action. Prayer petitions God for assistance, and at first glance, asking for help does not itself seem meritorious. However, Bonaventure relates prayer to reward both according to providence and according to its object. Given God’s providential ordering of free contingent action within the cosmos, it is fitting that God should generously reward those who freely petition for his graces.78 Likewise, God rewards those who pray for their right end. Bonaventure goes so far as to say that God ought to heed only those prayers that seek God’s honor and human salvation as their object. He ex76. See Breviloquium, V:9.1. Bonaventure reemphasizes these revisions in contrast to the law of Moses: “Those who live in a state of fear and imperfection must be frightened by judgments, guided through signs, and directed by precepts. Hence the Law of Moses—the law of fear—contains judicial, figurative, and moral precepts” (V:9.3). Bonaventure argues that the Decalogue fittingly exposits counsels for progress on the journey. He interprets the first three commandments (“glossed as submissive adoration, truthful oath-taking, and sacred observance of the Sabbath”) to represent Moses’s first tablet, which directs one’s knowledge and appetites to God. The seven remaining commandments represent the second tablet and direct the wayfarer toward the neighbor. Bonaventure concludes: “The order of the commandments corresponds to the damage done to justice, going from the greater to the lesser” (V:9.5). Even the Decalogue, as now understood in light of the gospel, thus promotes order and hierarchy in the soul. In light of grace, former commands now become potentially perfecting counsels. 77. Breviloquium, V:9.3, emphasis mine. 78. Bonaventure writes: “Although God is lavishly generous and far more ready to give than we are to receive, yet he wishes to receive prayers from us so that he might have occasion for increasing the Holy Spirit’s gift of grace” (Breviloquium, V:10.1). The desire that prayer expresses reinforces Bonaventure’s axiom that desire or affectus necessarily precedes the bestowal of sanctifying grace. The theme of affection and fervent desire is repeated in the prologues of both the Itinerarium and Lignum vitae. See Elizabeth A. Dreyer’s “Affectus in Saint Bonaventure’s Theology,” Franciscan Studies 42 (1982): 5–20.

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plains: “Finally, because God is just and merciful, God ought not to hear those petitions unless they are directed to his own honor and our salvation, those being directed to the reward of the heavenly homeland or the help needed on the journey.”79 To demonstrate how proper prayer fittingly falls into the categories of honor and salvation, Bonaventure takes the Lord’s Prayer—the pattern for all prayer—and elucidates seven petitions, which fall into the two categories.80 He explains that the action of prayer hierarchizes the soul by honoring God as highest good and ordering the wayfarer’s life toward union with God; insofar as the graced wayfarer freely undertakes such prayers, the objects of his petitions may be granted as rewards.

Final Judgment, Final Rewards Bonaventure completes the Breviloquium with Book VII, “On the Repose of the Final Judgment,” which includes discussions of the “Judgment in General” (1), “The Resurrection of Bodies” (5), and “The Glory of Paradise” (7). Bonaventure first affirms that God will judge all persons: “Of which the following summary ought to be held: that without doubt there will be a future universal judgment in which God the Father though our Lord Jesus Christ will judge the living and the dead, the good and the evil, rendering to each person according to the exigencies of their merit.”81 Inasmuch as God created human beings in God’s image as rational and free, God fittingly judges them according to the exercise of their reason and freedom.82 The infusion of sanctifying grace not only orders the soul to the exemplar; it also promotes the recipient’s freedom to believe in and love God. The exercise of this freedom forms the basis for judgment: “[Judgment] will bring about a just recompense of rewards, an open declaration of merits, and an irrevocable rendering of sentences, so that the fullness of [God’s] highest goodness may appear in the just recompense of rewards, the rectitude of truth may ap79. Breviloquium, V:10.4. 80. “Hallowed be your name” praises God’s honor, while “Your kingdom come” and “Your will be done” request final salvation. The remaining petitions (for daily bread, forgiveness of trespass, avoidance of temptation, and deliverance from evil) represent petitions for interim rewards on the journey; see Breviloquium, V:10.4. 81. Breviloquium, VII:1.1. 82. Bonaventure writes: “Furthermore, a creature that is rational is capable of being instructed; and a creature possessing free will is capable of ordered or disordered actions in terms of the law of justice” (Breviloquium, VII:1.2).

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pear in the open declaration of merits, and the loftiness of power may appear in the irrevocable rendering of sentences.”83 Bonaventure explains that judgment reveals something of God’s nature and, with specific regard to rewards, it manifests the fullness of divine goodness and the sharing of goodness with others. Rewards depend on the open declaration of merits where God compares the actual operations of the free will with those that were expected of it: “Again, an open declaration of merits requires simultaneously a manifestation of what the human free will ought to have done and what it failed to do, according to a variety of circumstances.”84 Bonaventure emphasizes human agency so that, if God grants eternal life to the person under judgment, she may be said to have earned this reward through her cooperative work. Bonaventure treats the resurrection of the body as concomitant with judgment because God’s rewards correspond fully to human nature. Human beings not only possess the divine image in their souls but also naturally possess a body and, as such, the irrevocable passing of judgment extends to both soul and body. God distinguishes the elect from the reprobate, in part, according to the dignity of the resurrected body: “For evil persons will rise with their deformities and punishments, the miseries and defects which they had in the present life. In good persons, however, ‘damaged parts will be taken away and their nature will be preserved.’”85 The good will arise in the prime of their life without physical corruption thereby bearing the marks of divine rewards in their bodies. Bonaventure does not entertain degrees in the resurrected body that would correspond to the former sanctity of a particular person. Rather, his emphasis on bodily and spiritual rewards stresses that the elect will be fully conformed to Christ the exemplar who now possesses a sublime, agile, and luminous resurrection body.86 83. Breviloquium, VII:1.2. 84. Breviloquium, VII:1.3. 85. Breviloquium, VII:5.1. 86. While these attributes are first indicated in Christ’s transfiguration, they endure in his resurrected body. The promise of a resurrection body conformed to Christ for those who merit rewards provide consolation to those who endure physical suffering or imperfection. Bonaventure writes: “Those who died in childhood are to be raised by divine power at an age corresponding to Christ at the resurrection, although not with the same physical stature. Those who are decrepit will be restored to the same age. Those who are giants or dwarfs shall be given proper stature. Thus all shall come forth, whole and perfect, ‘into a perfect man, in the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ’”

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The perfection of body and soul, as a final reward, is not complete until the wayfarer experiences the repose and nocturnal illumination anticipated in Book V. The Breviloquium ends with a chapter on “The Glory of Paradise.” The final chapter uses the language of a threefold reward: substantial, consubstantial, and accidental to unpack the nature of eternal glory. The elect are substantially rewarded with vision, enjoyment, and possession of God, and they are rewarded consubstantially with glorified bodies.87 In addition to these principal rewards, God provides accidental rewards to those holy women and men who have led particularly meritorious lives. God provides a crown of gold, and the luminosity of the crown varies according to the special merits that they accomplished. Bonaventure writes: “Accidental reward consists in a certain special and superadded adornment called the aureole; and according to the doctors of the Sentences, the aureole is owed for three general works, namely, martyrdom, preaching, and virginal continence.”88 Some differentiation will exist among the blessed in paradise, and Bonaventure’s position affirms that God varies final rewards, at least accidentally, according to human actions and related dispositions on the journey. Bonaventure adds that these rewards are fitting because human beings are created capax Dei: “God makes the rational spirit close to God, capable of God, capable, namely, according to the strength of the very image of the blessed Trinity which is all-together stamped on the human spirit.”89 Because God has given human beings the image of their exemplar, they have the special substantial capacity to become similitudes of the Trinity. The potential for similitude is made actual through (1) the preparation for sanctifying grace; (2) conformation through that grace; and (3) hierarchized works that deserve condign rewards. These steps fit into God’s larger and providential organization of the cosmos, which reflects the supreme goodness of divine nature. (Breviloquium, VII:5.4). For a study of medieval views on the transfigured body of Christ, see Aaron Canty’s Light and Glory: The Transfiguration of Christ in Early Franciscan and Dominican Theology (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010); see 175–95 for his discussion of Bonaventure. 87. Bonaventure differentiates grace from glory in the CS by the language of “possession.” In grace, God possesses the elect, but in glory, the wayfarers now possess God as comprehensors. See 2 Sent., 27.1.3. 88. Breviloquium, VII:7.1. 89. Breviloquium, VII:7.3.

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The Breviloquium concludes with a meditation exhorting readers to an ordered life of desire for God as highest good and ultimate end.90 Bonaventure exhorts and engages his readers through a lengthy series of “incentives” or promises of divine rewards: “For what do you love, my flesh? What do you desire, my soul? It is there, whatever you love, whatever you desire. If beauty delights you, ‘the just shall shine like the sun.’ If swiftness or strength or the free movements and uninhibited movements of the body? They shall be like the angels of God.”91 Bonaventure’s sequence of questions and promised rewards continues eleven more times. Each promise is tied to a passage from scripture. The linkage rhetorically and substantially reinforces Bonaventure’s view that interim and final rewards are indispensable components of Christian life revealed by God. The Breviloquium thus culminates its exposition of theology and the Christian life with an affirmation that scripture promises divine rewards for human actions. As credibile ut intelligibile, biblical reward texts speak to the wayfarer and demand a response. Moreover, they order the Christian life as a progressive movement to greater conformity or similitude between the wayfarer and God. The Breviloquium plots the format and rationale for the journey. Predestination and grace set the journey’s horizon and offer the condition of the possibility for its completion, but ample room is reserved for increasingly cooperative and reward-worthy human action. Even as Bonaventure’s “brief comments” on the nature of Christian doctrine provide the conceptual framework for human salvation, his mystical works distill the journey into an even finer map.

Grace and Reward in the Itinerarium and Lignum vitae Bonaventure’s mystical opuscula comprise a variety of his most widely circulated and enduring works. The loose genre includes texts produced during his tenure as Minister General of the Friars Minor, especially from 90. Bonaventure’s meditation resembles the style of Anselm’s Proslogion; it quotes the Proslogion at length in VII:7 to preface the meditation, which ends the Breviloquium. See Bougerol, Introduction, 78–81, for Bonaventure’s appropriation of Anselm as an authority. 91. Breviloquium, VII:7.7.

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its early years as he endeavored to stabilize and focus the order’s identity.92 The diversity of these works, even as a subset of Bonaventure’s larger corpus, is remarkable. While they generally commend a contemplative journey as a means of approaching union with God, their subject matter varies.93 They encompass a variety of libri including the soul, nature, Jesus, scripture, and St. Francis of Assisi. From among the mystical works, Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum and Lignum vitae commend themselves to this study for several reasons. For one, both works stress the role of grace and its reformation of the soul as part of a gradated journey to union with God. Furthermore, within that movement, they feature the promises of interim and final rewards for the wayfarer. Particularly with the Lignum vitae (LV), Bonaventure explicitly deploys scripture—including explicit reward texts—as premise for the journey itself and its final rewards. A word about the context of the Itinerarium and LV further demonstrates their utility for the present study. In 1257, Bonaventure was elected the seventh Minister General of the Franciscan Order, and his succession to the position came during a fraught period for the order. Internal disagreement about the nature of the order, particularly the extent to which followers should observe Francis’s lifestyle and last testament, threatened to divide the friars as they came to grips with the order’s continued growth and institutionalization. Further, external pressures on the order, particularly over the rights and roles of the mendicants, threatened its charisms and ultimately its continuation.94 Bonaventure’s predecessor John of Parma resigned in part for his alleged tolerance of friars promoting Joachim of Fiore’s 92. See Rosalind B. Brooke’s “St. Bonaventure as Minister General” in S. Bonaventura Francescano, ed. Cesare Vasoli, 75–105 (Todi, Italy: Centro di studi sulla spiritualita medievale, 1974), and Schlosser, “Bonaventure,” 26–44. 93. Works belonging to this category include: Soliloquium de quatuor mentalibus (1259), De triplici via (1259), Itinerarium mentis in Deum (1259), Lignum vitae (1260), Legenda maior, (1263), and De perfectione vitae ad sorores, (1259). See Bonaventure’s Soliloquium de quatuor mentalibus exercitas, vol. 8 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1898), and De perfectione vitae ad sorores, vol. 8 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1898). 94. See Ignatius Brady’s “The Writings of Saint Bonaventure regarding the Franciscan Order,” in San Bonaventura maestro di vita francescana e di Sapienza cristiana, ed. Alfonso Pompei, 1:89–112 (Rome: Pontificia facolta teologica San Bonaventura, 1976). See also John R. H. Moorman’s A History of the Franciscan Order from Its Origins to the Year 1517 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).

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millennialism; so, a relatively young Bonaventure assumed his role under heavy pressures. A central task that fell to Bonaventure as Minister General was properly presenting the image and example of Francis to the order, and in doing so, to present models of spiritual practice and development that continued the spirit of the founder while properly forming the friars; his Legenda maior and Legenda minor (both 1261) represent the most explicit fruits of this task. Bonaventure shows similar concern for these goals in the Itinerarium and LV. The Itinerarium was composed in 1259 and the LV followed sometime in the next year (1259–60).95 Both offer guides to friars for progress in their spiritual life. To be sure, Francis looms in the background as a model for spiritual ascent, but the works feature other libri for contemplation of ultimate union with God.96 The manuscript tradition for both works attest to their popularity.97 The works occupy a special place within the early life of the Franciscan order even as they extend the magisterial insights of the CS and Breviloquium in specific and concrete expressions designed to assist wayfarers on the journey.

Prologue Signposts: The End, Beginning, and Middle of the Journey The Itinerarium and the LV unfold as journeys aiming for ecstatic union with God. In both, the wayfarer begins in a particular place or state, and by following the signposts of the works, she may arrive at a new and desired end.98 The prologues of both works introduce the major transition points of 95. See Brady’s “The Opera Omnia of St. Bonaventura Revisited” and Quinn’s “Chronology of St. Bonaventure.” 96. When introducing the Itinerarium, Bonaventure recounts that he recently visited Mt. Alverno where Francis received his stigmata from the six-winged seraph. Bonaventure uses Francis’s experience to structure the Itinerarium so that readers follow the seraph’s wings toward spiritual ascent and union. Similarly, in the LV, Bonaventure’s emphasis on cruciformity points primarily to union with Christ, but the implicit image of the human being who attains this similitude is Francis. 97. See Bougerol, Introduction, 8–9, 123–24, and 159–60. Cousins provides useful background to both works including information on their manuscript traditions; see Cousins, Bonaventure, 8–37. The Quaracchi edition of the Lignum vitae (VIII:xli–1) lists 175 extant manuscripts in its introduction to the text. Arthur Holder reports that at least 138 extant manuscripts exist for the Itinerarium with at least 95 coming before the end of the fourteenth century; see Holder, Christian Spirituality and the Classics (New York: Routledge, 2010), 118. 98. See my “Reductio as Pattern and Journey” for its comparative study of the reductive nature of

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the journey. Rather than presenting the movement from beginning to end, they first introduce the end goal, followed by the point of departure, and then the middle steps which advance the wayfarer. Accordingly, the prologues introduce union with God as the end, desire for union as the beginning, and ascending contemplation of the liber at hand as the middle way. Both the Itinerarium and the LV establish union with God as the end and ordering principle of the wayfarer’s journey. This contemplative journey culminates in peaceful union with God; its climax is transitus into God where the wayfarer finds rest in the heavenly homeland. This passing over follows immediately upon the soul’s ecstatic movement into the arms of Christ. For example, in the Itinerarium’s prologue Bonaventure writes: The six wings of the Seraph can rightly be understood to symbolize the six levels of illumination by which, as if by certain steps or stages, the soul can pass over to peace through ecstatic elevations of Christian wisdom. There is no other path but through the burning love of the Crucified, a love which so transformed Paul into Christ when he “was carried up to the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:2) that he could say: “With Christ I am nailed to the cross. I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).99

The goal of the journey is achieved through an ecstatic ascent that leads to peaceful repose in God. The doorway to this transitus is Christ, and the journey so conforms the soul to Christ that the wayfarer can eventually say, “with Christ I am nailed to the cross.” These are the very words with which Bonaventure begins the LV. Having quoted the phrase, he explains: “The true worshipper of God and disciple of Christ, who desires to conform to the Savior of all, crucified for him, should, above all, strive with an earnest endeavor of soul to carry about continuously both in his soul and flesh the cross of Christ until he can truly feel in himself what the Apostle said the Itinerarium and the Lignum vitae. Studies of any length or depth on the LV are scarce; however, several treatments of the nature of “journey” in the Itinerarium are available; see Ambrose Nguyen Van Si’s “The Journey-Symbols in St. Bonaventure’s Itinerarium,” Greyfriars Review 9, no. 3 (1995): 309–30; Cousin’s “Bonaventure and Dante: the Role of Christ in the Spiritual Journey,” in Itinerarium: The Idea of Journey, ed. Leonard J. Bowman, 113–31 (Salzburg: Institut fur Anglistik un Amerikanistik, 1983); and McGinn’s “Ascension and Introversion in the ‘Itinerarium Mentis in Deum,’” in S. Bonaventura 1274–1974, ed. Jacques Guy Bougerol, 3:535–52 (Rome: Collegio S. Bonaventura Grottaferrata, 1974). Tavard’s Transiency and Permanence, particularly chapter 12, “Transitus,” also treats the notion of journey. 99. Itinerarium, Prologue:3.

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above.”100 Bonaventure’s language of exemplarity comes to the fore; the wayfarer ought to bear in her soul and body the marks of Christ crucified. The journey aims at ecstatic union and ultimate peace with God through Christ, but along the way, the wayfarer grows in cruciformity. Passing over is only possible through a certain likeness to Christ. This final movement into God is a movement into a bright darkness where one experiences the profound peace of possessing the object of all desire and action. “Possession,” recall, is the term that Bonaventure uses in the CS to distinguish between the life of grace and the life of glory. These journeys therefore present cruciform and peaceful union with God as the ultimate goal to be sought by wayfarers. Having established the terminus of the journey, the prologues demarcate the beginning and middle stages that make ecstatic union possible. Bonaventure emphasizes that each wayfarer must begin the journey with fervent desire or affectus for union with God, which subordinates all other habits to that of focused desire.101 The Itinerarium, for example, stresses the need for desire at the outset: “For no one is disposed in any way for divine contemplation which leads to mental ecstasy unless, as with Daniel, he is a ‘man of desires’ (vir desideriorum). Yet desires are enkindled in two ways, namely, through the outcry of prayer, which makes one call out by the groaning of the heart, and through the flash of insight by which the mind converts itself most directly and intently to the rays of light.”102 Strong desire for union with God advances the wayfarer on the journey, yet this affection is merited and nourished by prayer and faith—well-established categories of merit in Breviloquium V. Wayfarers must groan and long for the object, which, in turn, enflames their affection, illumines their minds, and orders their vir100. LV, Prologue:1. See Elizabeth Dreyer’s “A Condescending God: Bonaventure’s Theology of the Cross,” in The Cross in the Christian Tradition from Paul to Bonaventure, ed. Elizabeth Dreyer, 192–210 (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2000), and Thomas A. Nairn’s “Fixed with Christ to the Cross: Dying in the Franciscan Tradition,” in Dying as a Franciscan: Approaching Our Transitus to Eternal Life, Accompanying Others on the Way to Theirs, ed. Daria Mitchell, 15–29 (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2011). 101. See Dreyer’s “Affectus,” 5–20, on the relationship of affectus to journey. 102. Itinerarium, Prologue:3. Bonaventure uses similar language in the LV: “Moreover, an affection and feeling of this kind [a desire for cruciformity] is merited to be experienced in a vital way only by one who, not unmindful of the Lord’s passion nor ungrateful, contemplates . . . with such vividness of memory, such sharpness of intellect, and such charity of will that he can truly say with the bride: ‘A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he will linger between my breasts’” (Prologue:1).

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tues.103 Affectus acts as the condition for the possibility of union, but it also motivates the hierarchization of the soul, which, in turn, norms the powers and habits of the soul. Contemplation constitutes a third common theme in the prologues as well as the middle part of the journey that connects desire with union. Union is gained through disciplined focus and meditation on God’s presence principally in the economy, and the cosmos includes several libri worthy of contemplation. In the Itinerarium, the wayfarer looks to God’s presence through and in the created order as she raises her eyes to God’s nature itself. In the LV, the wayfarer ascends to union through gazing on progressive stages of Christ’s origin, passion, and glorification. Contemplation of any image requires that one fix one’s eyes on an object as a means of seeing and knowing deeper realities “through” and “in” the image. The picture— whether material or immaterial—that one contemplates signifies things or realities beyond what can be seen in its sensible attributes. Focusing on the object keeps one from distractions that may lead the gaze away from the realities conveyed by the image. The Itinerarium and LV do not confine contemplation to a single or final object; rather, they invite the wayfarer to meditate on an ascending series of images (the inversion of God’s condescension in the economy) where each contemplated reality disposes and excites her to contemplate the next. Meditating on the Itinerarium and the LV, the soul itself is profoundly illumined and conformed by the upward movement previously delineated in the Breviloquium. The movement is perfective so that the wayfarer experiences “progressively final” rewards until she can finally say “with Christ I am nailed to the cross.” Even as the primary form of human action on the journey is therefore contemplative, her active life follows as the 103. At the end of the LV, he writes: “No one can avoid this error [the sin of Adam] unless he prefers faith to reason, devotion to investigation, simplicity to curiosity, and finally the sacred cross of Christ to all carnal feeling or wisdom of the flesh” (Prologue:5). Proper desire for union flows from faith and branches out as devotion and simplicity. Habits as seemingly good as reason or investigation, without hierarchization, threaten to distract from the desired end. Similarly, in the Itinerarium Bonaventure writes: “First, therefore I invite the reader to groans of prayer through Christ crucified . . . so that he not believe that reading is sufficient without unction, speculation without devotion, investigation without wonder, observation without joy, work without piety, knowledge without love, understanding without humility, endeavor without divine grace, reflection as a mirror without divinely inspired wisdom” (Prologue:4). Groans of prayer exemplify proper desire, and the resulting affectus prioritizes unction, devotion, wonder, joy, piety, love, humility, grace, and wisdom as tools for gaining union.

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natural corollary to this illumination. As an effect of sanctifying grace, contemplation “branches out” into the virtues, gifts, and beatitudes of the active life. It originates in the interior of a person but its effects radiate to the active life so that the conformation is whole, preparing the wayfarer for a reward that pertains to both body and soul. The Breviloquium and CS indicate that grace and the wayfarer’s cooperative and meritorious response facilitate forward movement from desire to union. The Itinerarium and LV further unpack the ways in which the wayfarer is (1) disposed and sustained by grace, (2) urged to respond to the objects of contemplation, and (3) rewarded for progressing and completing the journey. With the Itinerarium, Bonaventure proposes a six-winged ascent through contemplation of the cosmos, which in turn leads to contemplation of God’s nature and, finally, transitus into union and repose. The six wings unfold three “stages” where the wayfarer contemplates God, (1) through and in his vestiges, (2) through and in the image of the soul, and (3) through and in divine nature.104 The wayfarer’s object of contemplation in the Itinerarium is divine nature as found in sense objects (vestiges), the mind itself (images), and then God (the archetype). Creation acts as a ladder of divine contemplation leading the soul toward union.105 The movement resonates with the reductive pattern of arguments in the Breviloquium where Bonaventure always reasons back to God as first principle and ultimate good. The object of contemplation in the LV is decidedly more concrete. Bonaventure asks wayfarers to envision “a tree whose roots are watered by an 104. The wayfarer begins by looking “through” the object of contemplation so that qualities of the object signify deeper realities about God’s nature; the gaze passes through the image to apprehension of divine attributes. Always the second part of the three stages, the wayfarer may look “in” the object because it contains something of the exemplar. The “in” refers not to attributes of divine nature as much as it reveals the interior life of the Trinity as object of contemplation. 105. In the Itinerarium, Bonaventure outlines these stages of ascent thus: “By praying in this way, we receive light to discern the steps of ascent into God. In relation to our position in creation, the universe itself is a ladder by which we can ascend into God. Some created things are vestiges, others images; some are material, others spiritual; some are temporal, others everlasting; some are outside us, others within us. In order to contemplate the First Principle, who is most spiritual, eternal, and above us, we must pass through the vestiges, which are material, temporal, and outside us. This means to be led ‘in the path of God.’ We must also enter into our soul, which is God’s image, everlasting, spiritual, and within us. This means ‘to enter in the truth of God.’ We must go beyond to what is eternal, most spiritual and above us, by gazing upon the First Principle. This means to ‘rejoice in the knowledge of God and in reverent fear of his majesty’ (cf. Ps. 85:11)” (Itinerarium, 1:2).

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ever-flowing fountain that becomes a great and living river with four channels to water the garden of the entire Church.”106 At one level Bonaventure depicts the Tree of Life, as the antidote to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. At another, he acknowledges that this tree is nothing other than Jesus himself whose life Bonaventure orders into his origin, passion, and glorification.107 On this journey, the branches bear fruits that themselves are objects of contemplation, but also, like fruit, they please and refresh the wayfarer as interim rewards.108 It is as if someone climbing the tree is progressively rewarded and sustained by eating the fruit of the branches and, so, disposed to climb higher toward full union with the object of desire. Although the Itinerarium and the LV exposit different libri their meditations on creation and scripture, respectively, lead the wayfarer to contemplate more deeply God through Christ. Moreover, they both follow three principal stages of ascent toward the common object of ecstatic union and ultimate peace. The identification of three stages resonates with the three principal steps of the journey (desire, contemplation, and possession), the hierarchization of the soul (through illumination, purgation, and perfection), and the organization of the beatitudes (action, contemplation, and final vision).

Grace in the Itinerarium Underlying and facilitating the journey’s threefold ascent are the roles of grace and human action. The Itinerarium shows consistency with in the CS and Breviloquium on these subjects. Sanctifying grace is provided to the person of desire who does what she can to advance on the journey. In the first stage of contemplation, Bonaventure writes: But we are not able to rise above ourselves except through a higher power that raises us up. For no matter how much our interior order is disposed, nothing is done un106. LV, Prologue:3. 107. Comparing the Itinerarium and LV, Cousins writes: “In The Tree of Life Bonaventure situates his meditation on the humanity of Christ within the context of his speculative theology of the Trinity, thus making the link with the mystical Christ of The Soul’s Journey. In his different treatises, Bonaventure meditates on the mystery of Christ in the book of the soul, the book of creation, and the book of Scripture” (Cousins, Bonaventure, 14). 108. Bonaventure writes: “Although this fruit is one and undivided, it nourishes devout souls with varied consolations in view of its varied states, excellence, powers, and works” (LV, Prologue:4).

  Bonaventure and Reward  67 less it is accompanied by divine help (divinum auxilium). But divine help accompanies those who seek it from the heart humbly and with devotion; that is, to cry out for it in this valley of tears through fervent prayer.109

Divine help is utterly necessary in order to advance in contemplation and desire, and God provides this grace to those who groan with desire through prayer. Thus, the power that lifts the wayfarer is gained congruently through proper desire. Having established the beginning of sanctifying grace, the Itinerarium stresses its hierarchizing role throughout the stages of the journey. Even when perceiving sense objects, “[the incarnate Word] has infused the grace of charity, which, since it is from a pure heart and good conscience and unfeigned faith, rectifies the whole soul in the threefold way mentioned above.”110 As a result of the fall, the soul begins the journey “bent” inward, desiring its private goods. Grace unbends and rectifies the soul, reconfiguring it to the exemplar so that it can first look outward at God’s vestiges in the cosmos.111 Grace is necessary not only at the outset of the journey but throughout its progression. In the second stage of ascent, Bonaventure emphasizes Christ’s role as mediator and savior; through the Incarnation, “Truth, assuming human form in Christ, makes itself into a ladder restoring the earlier ladder which had been broken in Adam.”112 Through the power of the Incarnation and the indwelling of the Spirit, God pours the virtues of faith, hope, and love into the soul. These restore and perfect human habits so that the wayfarer may advance toward union: “When this is accomplished, our spirit is made hierarchical in order to climb upward according to its conformity to the heavenly Jerusalem, into which no one enters unless it first descends into his heart through grace, as John saw in his Apocalypse.”113 Recalling the Breviloquium’s emphasis on divine condescension in Grace, Bonaventure explains 109. Itinerarium, 1:1. 110. Itinerarium, 1:7. 111. This bears strong resemblance to Bonaventure’s presentation of the meritorious nature of human love. In Breviloquium V:8, Bonaventure argues for love of (1) God, (2) self, (3) others, and (4) one’s body, but because of sin, the bent soul loves only itself. As grace heals this corruption, the soul begins to love “outwardly” and “upwardly” in ways that it was unable to do without grace. 112. Itinerarium, 4:2. 113. Itinerarium, 4:4.

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that God enters (possesses) the human soul—hierarchizing it through purgation, illumination, and perfection—so that it can ascend to and reciprocally possess God. Sanctifying grace perfects nature so that nature can act in the interests of its salvation and final reward. As the soul becomes progressively conformed to the exemplar, the stress on the priority of grace recedes and human actions come fore in the soul’s ascent to God.114

Human Action in the Itinerarium Bonaventure’s mystical works commend human action at two related levels. At one level, Bonaventure commends actions associated with successful contemplation. The wayfarer must do the work necessary to see God in the objects of contemplation; for example, she must be able to perceive, understand, and judge the ideas signified in created things. Such work includes removing those things that inhibit or distract contemplation of God in the vestiges, images, and similitudes of creation. At a second level, having learned something of God through contemplation, the wayfarer must act. At its most basic, this extrinsic action advances the wayfarer’s love for God in the economy and promotes final union. The Itinerarium affirms the need for this twofold agency at several points. For example, when discussing the first stage of contemplation—seeing God through the vestiges—Bonaventure writes: “The one who wishes to ascend into God must first eliminate sin that deforms nature, then exert the above-mentioned natural powers. . . . For just as no one comes to wisdom except through grace, justice, and knowledge, so no one comes to contemplation except through perspicacious meditation, a holy life, and devout prayer.”115 At one level, the wayfarer must act to hone her contemplation, enabling her to see God in the vestiges. Prayer, leading a holy life, and prac114. Bonaventure makes very little mention of grace in the final stages of contemplating God through and in divine nature as well as in the final transitus itself. Grace is presupposed. In the last chapter on ecstatic union, however, he reminds his readers of the necessary steps for reaching this end: “Yet if you seek to question how these things come about, ask grace not instruction, desire not understanding, the groaning of prayer not studious reading, the spouse not the teacher, God not human beings, darkness not clarity, not light but the fire that totally enkindles and transfers us into God by ecstatic unctions and burning affections” (Itinerarium, 7:6). Grace initiates the list of things that the wayfarer needs to find union, and its order is appropriate given that it heals the soul from sin and conforms it through hierarchized elevation. 115. Itinerarium, 1:8.

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ticing “perspicacious meditation” promote such contemplation. Bonaventure stresses that holy living is necessary to advance in knowledge of God, and he specifies piety and charity as critical to progress. Christian wisdom depends on living justly and seeking knowledge.116 Living justly includes maintaining an upright will and choosing the wayfarer’s proper end. Love stands at the heart of the will’s action; Bonaventure’ writes: “Therefore let us root and found ourselves in charity so that, ‘with all the saints, we may be able to comprehend what is the length of eternity, the breadth of liberalness, the sublimity of majesty, and the depth of discerning wisdom.’”117 A will enflamed with love and exercised in good works moves one to apprehend God’s nature in its length, breadth, height, and depth. The actions that the Itinerarium sets forth as required for wisdom and contemplation resemble the four principal ways in which wayfarers may merit rewards in the Breviloquium (V:7–10): faith, love, following the commands of justice, and prayer. This coincidence is surely intentional. Just as Bonaventure sees these four categories of action as leading to possessing God in glory in the Breviloquium, so these actions advance the wayfarer’s quest for union in the Itinerarium. Over the course of the six steps of illumination outlined in the Itinerarium, Bonaventure adds concrete specificity to the four categories in the Breviloquium¸ teaching how one’s habits may branch out in acts of faith, prayer, justice, and love.118 116. See Gregory LaNave’s important contributions on the place of wisdom in Bonaventure, including LaNave, Through Holiness to Wisdom: The Nature of Theology according to St. Bonaventure (Rome: Istituto storico dei Cappuccini, 2005), and his comparative study, “God, Creation, and the Possibility of Philosophical Wisdom: The Perspectives of Bonaventure and Aquinas,” Theological Studies 69, no. 4 (2008): 812–33. 117. Itinerarium, 4:8. 118. The Itinerarium often sets human action in the language of following and, at times, imitating Christ. Christ is another ladder that the wayfarer must climb. The prologue demands that the journey must pass through the “burning love of Christ crucified.” With the reformation of the soul following sin, the wayfarer must seek grace and reformation through Christ who is “the mediator between God and human beings, who is like the tree of life in the middle of paradise” (4.2). The transitus itself is especially Christological: “In the transitus, Christ is the way and the door; Christ is the ladder and the vehicle, like the propitiation placed above the ark of God and the ‘mystery hidden from eternity’” (7.1). As way, door, ladder, and vehicle, Bonaventure presents Christ as the sole ingress into possession of God. The Itinerarium’s final exhortation again references Christ: “Therefore let us die and enter into the darkness; let us impose silence on our cares, desires, and dreams, and with Christ crucified let us pass over from this world to the Father, and so, having the Father shown to us, we may say with Phillip, ‘it is enough for us’” (7.6). With each of these references, the responsibility of action rests with the wayfarer. He must

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Grace in the Lignum vitae In the LV, Bonaventure presents grace as a direct consequence of Christ’s saving actions. He stratifies these graced effects along the wayfarer’s journey, making it available in various contemplative moments. Christ, as the Tree of Life, possesses “leaves,” “fruits,” and “flowers,” which each have salutary effects on those who contemplate them. The leaves, for example, are said to be medicinal while the fragrance of the flowers stirs human desire.119 Christ as tree conveys grace to whoever will look upon him; this grace stirs desire, heals, and perfects depending on the specific object of contemplation. While meditating on the mystery of Christ’s passion, Bonaventure presents the piercing of Christ’s side as a particular object for contemplation. Bonaventure recounts the event, writing: “While blood was mixing with water, the price of our salvation was poured forth, which gushing from the secret fountain of the heart gave abundant power to the sacraments of the Church in order to confer the life of grace and to become, for those already living in Christ, a font of living water springing up to eternal life.”120 Christ’s sacrificial death empowers the sacraments to save human beings and offer eternal life. Bonaventure exhorts the wayfarer: “Rise up, therefore, beloved of Christ . . . apply your mouth [to his lanced side] to draw waters with joy from the savior’s fountains. For this is the fountain rising up in the middle of paradise which, divided into four branches and flowing into devout hearts, enter the door, climb the ladder, pass out of this world, and die in the arms of the crucified. Recalling the meritorious categories of faith, love, justice, and prayer, each of these becomes profoundly Christological in the way that it should be directed and executed. Even as the wayfarer contemplates outside, inside, and above himself, each act should be in and through Christ. See Zachary Hayes, The Hidden Center: Spirituality and Speculative Christology in St. Bonaventure (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1992), for a study of how Christ as “center” effects the return of the wayfarer to God. See Cousins’s “Bonaventure and Dante” for an account of how Christ guides the Itinerarium’s journey without acting as the central object of contemplation. See also Ignatius Brady’s “St. Bonaventure’s Theology of the Imitation of Christ,” in Proceedings of the Seventh Centenary Celebration of the Death of Saint Bonaventure, ed. Pascal F. Foley, 61–72 (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1975). 119. In the prologue he writes: “From the trunk of this tree imagine that there are growing twelve branches that are adorned with leaves, flowers, and fruit. Imagine that the leaves are a most effective medicine to prevent and cure every kind of sickness. . . . Let the flowers be beautiful with the radiance of every color and perfumed with the sweetness of every fragrance, awakening and attracting the hearts of men of desire” (LV, Prologue:3). 120. LV, 30.

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waters and makes fecund the whole earth.”121 Human beings are to consume the grace communicated in the sacraments, making themselves fecund for action and able to progress on the journey. The LV presents grace as sanctifying and capacitating human beings for union. For example, at the very end of the work, Bonaventure includes a prayer for the gifts of the Holy Spirit; he begins the prayer thus: “We pray, therefore, to the most clement Father through you, his Only-Begotten Son, who for humankind was made flesh, was crucified, and was glorified, that [the Father] may send to us the treasures of the Spirit of sevenfold grace.”122 The request for grace at the end of the ascending journey underscores its perfecting effects. As outlined in Breviloquium, V:5, the gifts of the Holy Spirit perfect the powers of the soul and its habits and, as such, they finally conform the wayfarer to God. In these examples, the LV depicts grace as that which heals, reforms, and perfects human nature, echoing grace’s dispositive role in the Breviloquium and Itinerarium.

Human Action in the Lignum vitae Exhortation to action abounds in the LV. With nearly every fruit and every discrete object of contemplation, Bonaventure suggests an appropriate response. In many instances, Christ’s work inspires the onlooker to practice virtue. While some of Christ’s actions invite the wayfarer to praise or increase her desire for Christ, many call the wayfarer to imitate her savior. For example, when Bonaventure depicts Jesus’ betrayal by Judas, he recommends the following course of action to the wayfarer: [Christ’s meekness] was given as an example to mortals, so that when we are exasperated by a friend, we would not say in our human weakness “If an enemy had reviled it, I could have borne it,” because here was a person, another self, who seemed a friend, who ate the bread of Christ and shared the divine food at the sacred supper, and he it was who raised his heal against him! And yet, in this very hour of his betrayal, the most mild Lamb did not refuse to apply the sweet of his mouth to the mouth which abounded in malice, in order to give the traitor every chance to soften the hardness of his perverse heart.123 121. LV, 30. The reference to the four-channeled river links the image of Christ’s lanced side to that of the Tree of Life, which the prologue depicts as watered by a four-channeled river. 122. LV, 49. 123. LV, 17.

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Christ’s example deserves imitation by wayfarers so that they too, through grace, should bear with enemies so as to provide them with an opportunity to repent and find forgiveness. Christ’s condescension provides the example for ascending human action; imitation both conforms the wayfarer to the exemplar and advances his way to God. The LV’s journey is not simply one of response or imitation; it anticipates judgment and glory. Human beings must prepare to withstand final judgment, and Bonaventure’s depiction of Christ as judge is unsparing. Christ returns in wrath and separates the elect from the reprobate. Speaking of Christ as “truthful witness,” Bonaventure first notes that Christ will recompense each according to his works, writing: “Therefore there is a great necessity set upon us to be good, since all of our actions are in full sight of the all-seeing Judge.”124 The effects of grace, the exemplarity of Christ’s life, and the power that human beings gain from this contemplation must all be directed to “being good” because it constitutes the measure of human reward. On the third branch of the tree, Bonaventure essentially represents the threefold order of judgment in the Breviloquium: (1) declaration of merits, (2) swift judgment, and (3) final rewards. As parallel titles, Christ as “witness” pertains to the first, Christ as “judge” to the second, and Christ as “spouse,” “king,” “inscribed book,” and “desired end” point to the third. The rewards offered by both the Itinerarium and the LV are essentially the same. They fall into four stages: initial, interim, first-final, and secondfinal. Initial rewards belong to the outset of the journey, and they correspond to desire. Gratuitous grace arouses human beings, and as they cooperate, God freely responds with the congruent reward of sanctifying grace. The aspiring wayfarer must groan in prayer to begin the journey; she must be, as Bonaventure says, a “person of desires.” This desire arouses her soul and directs her to rise and begin the journey. Moving from desire to active contemplation, the wayfarer may earn further graces, which are provided as interim rewards for human action. These graces dispose the wayfarer to ascend to a higher level of contemplation and conformity through an increasingly hierarchized and conformed soul; they not only make progress possible but also provide initial foretastes of the de124. LV, 41, emphasis mine. The Quaracchi editors reference Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae, V, prosa 6.

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sired end. Importantly, both the increases in sanctifying grace and its created effects can be classed as interim rewards. As wayfarers begin to increasingly resemble Christ, they already experience interim rewards in via. As the wayfarer moves from contemplation to ecstatic union, she experiences communion with Christ as the first-final reward.125 In both the Itinerarium and the LV, the wayfarer is encouraged to become cruciform and proclaim with Paul, “with Christ I am nailed to the cross.” Christ is the desired end into whose arms the conformed must pass over into repose. This “first” final reward is particularly fitting given that Christ is the exemplar of the eternal arts, which guide the wayfarer on her reductive journey into God. While Bonaventure does not use the language of condignity, one can infer that this reward is condign because it reflects similitude and shared dignity between the wayfarer and the cruciform Christ. Finally, having passed through Christ, the soul finds peace and repose in God’s nocturnal illumination as its second-final reward.126 Desire is wholly transformed into rest because the wayfarer’s affectus is completely satiated by possession. Christ is utterly necessary for successful transitus and, in that sense, it may seem as though repose is had as a gift, yet this peace is never125. Examples of this reward are found in both texts. The wayfarer finally comes to Christ and embraces him; with him, the wayfarer will transition into a “second” final reward. In the Itinerarium Bonaventure writes: “Whoever turns his face fully to the Mercy Seat and with faith, hope, and love, devotion, admiration, exultation, appreciation, praise, and joy beholds him hanging upon the cross, such a one makes the Pasch, that is, the passover with Christ. By the staff of the cross he passes over the Red Sea, going from Egypt into the desert where he will taste the ‘hidden manna’; and with Christ he rests in the tomb, as if dead to the outer world, but experiencing, as far as is possible in this wayfarer’s state, what was said on the cross to the thief who adhered to Christ: today you will be with me in paradise” (Itinerarium, 7:2). Similarly, in the LV Bonaventure writes: “Believing, hoping and loving with my ‘whole heart,’ with my ‘whole mind’ and with my ‘whole strength,’ may I be carried to you, beloved Jesus, as to the goal of all things, because you alone are sufficient, you alone are good and pleasing to those who seek you and ‘love your name.’ ‘For you, my good Jesus, are the redeemer of the lost, the savior of the redeemed, the hope of exiles, the strength of laborers . . . the abundant fountain of all graces, ‘of whose fullness we have all received’” (LV, 48). 126. The soul must embrace Christ, and both works posit a further transitus as a result. In the Itinerarium Bonaventure writes: “Let us, then, die and enter into the darkness; let us impose silence upon our cares, our desires and our imaginings. With Christ crucified let us pass ‘out of this world to the Father’” (Itinerarium, 7:6). And in the LV, when Bonaventure speaks of Christ as “adorned spouse,” he writes: “Then the sweet wedding song will resound and throughout all the quarters of Jerusalem, Alleluia will be sung! Then ‘the virgins who were prudent and ready will enter into nuptials with the Spouse, and with the door closed,’ will abide in the beauty of peace in the tabernacle of confidence and in opulent repose” (LV, 44).

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theless the final object of the soul’s desire, which it freely sought through contemplative ascent. That Bonaventure implicitly subdivides final rewards is interesting. In one sense the two gifts are inseparable because the soul does not find cruciform union with Christ without transitus into repose, and yet the repose is not possible without first meeting Christ as gateway or sheepgate. So, the final rewards of the journey unfold in a twofold motion, and they are made possible, in part, through human agency, by God ultimately finding the soul acceptable, and by wayfarers having returned to God as beginning and end.

Conclusion Bonaventure’s treatment of grace, human action, and reward is remarkably consistent across the genres of his magisterial and mystical works. First and foremost, sanctifying grace is necessary and plays an indispensably dispositive role. Whether presented as the Holy Spirit’s indwelling or his created effects in the soul, sanctifying grace constitutes the means by which God intrinsically reforms the human person and prepares her for union with God. The emphasis on the necessity of sanctifying grace suggests that grace must precede efficacious human action. The major exception to this rule is that human beings must do what is in themselves to prepare for sanctifying grace. Bonaventure limits the facienti to preparation for sanctifying grace, whereas sanctifying grace alone disposes human nature for progress on the journey. Sanctifying grace reforms and elevates the soul, enkindling affectus and rendering the wayfarer a vir hierarchus. It also makes wayfarers acceptable to God. Bonaventure’s exemplarism is central to this theme. Inasmuch as the way of return to God is via conformation to the exemplar, human beings progress as their images grow into similitudes of the exemplar. This perfection makes the wayfarer ultimately acceptable. God reckons the wayfarer as conformed to God’s incarnate Word, making reductio into God possible. When God accepts human nature as a strong likeness of God’s self, it includes acceptation of human action. Bonaventure’s doctrine of rewards foregrounds human agency. As grace formally perfects nature, its efficiency recedes in importance while human action reciprocally grows in its stead. Free and reward-worthy ac-

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tion is expected of graced wayfarers. An emphasis on graced human habits in the Breviloquium and the power of human contemplation and action in the Itinerarium and LV demonstrate a high regard for the human capacity to cooperate and freely advance toward union in God. Indeed, in the CS Bonaventure simply calls operative grace prevenient and cooperative grace subsequent, which indicates that, having been restored and conformed, human beings are no longer subjects of operation as much as they are free agents. As acceptable and free, the possibilities for human reward are vast, and an expanded scope for human rewards follows as a consequence. Nearly every positive aspect of the human journey can be qualified as a reward in some sense. The conversion from a state of sin into a state of grace is a congruent reward under the conditions of the facienti. Bonaventure further reckons all interim and final rewards as condign rewards, reasoning that an acceptable person produces acceptable work.127 Because the status of a person is inestimably changed by sanctifying grace, the strictures on meritorious action are loosened. Greater pressure is put on the wayfarer to earn her rewards, and she may be exhorted to convert herself, progress in virtue, and attain eternal glory as rewards corresponding to her effort. Bonaventure’s fourfold affirmation of faith, love, justice, and prayer as meritorious actions captures these expectations. Finally, the role of scriptural reward texts deserves attention in Bonaventure’s writings. Scripture as an explicit theological warrant does not operate in the foreground of the magisterial works. While Bonaventure sometimes quotes scripture in the sed contras of his CS, the overall use of scripture as an authority is muted. This has more to do with the genre of these works than Bonaventure’s actual appreciation of scripture as a theological warrant and source for argument. Importantly, when speaking of grace branching out into the virtues, he makes explicit use of scriptural motifs like the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the beatitudes. Moreover, when speaking of merit, Bonaventure is comfortable quoting short passages to affirm that God rewards human beings for virtuous action. These function more as proof texts than as warrants, yet Bonaventure indicates confidence that his positions on divine rewards cohere with scripture. Scripture is deployed more widely 127. In 2 Sent., 27.2.3. resp., Bonaventure indicates that a person may be able to merit the “completion of grace” through the notion of a pact with God.

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in the mystical opuscula. In both the LV and the Itinerarium, Bonaventure seamlessly weaves the language, imagery, and voice of scripture into the way he presents the objects of contemplation as well as the way in which the wayfarer ought to respond. In both, the biblical text grounds and affirms the pattern of reductio. With the LV in particular, Bonaventure uses the biblical imagery of Christ’s origin, passion, and glorification to inform the objects of contemplation and make the journey a scriptural one. The LV uses Christ’s life to secure meritorious action and reward; the Word’s condescension in the Incarnation is part pedagogical—exemplifying in the flesh the proper pattern of human life. As we shall learn, these journey texts rest on the insights of Bonaventure’s biblical commentaries, where his direct exposition of scripture regularly affirms divine rewards.

Thomas and Reward

2

T HOM A S A N D R E WA R D I N T H E S Y S T E M AT IC WOR K S

Saint Thomas Aquinas’s work has exercised enormous influence on the history of Christian thought. Thomas stands out as both a decisive scholastic thinker and a product of the mendicant and Dominican movements of his time. His biography places him at the heart of several critical influences for theology in the thirteenth century. He entered the Dominican order, which had been founded just a decade before his birth and which cultivated renewal in the church through mendicant charisms and lifestyle.1 His theological formation, as a baccalaureus biblicus under Albert the Great in Cologne (1248–52) and as a baccalaureus sententiarum in Paris, places him in the heart of vital theological conversations and development.2 While at 1. An excellent orientation to the charism of the Order of Preachers can be found in the articles of Christ among the Medieval Dominicans: Representations of Christ in the Texts and Images of the Order of Preachers, ed. Kent Emery and Joseph Wawrykow (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998). In particular, see John Van Engen’s “Dominic and the Brothers: Vitae as Life-forming exempla in the Order of Preachers” (7–25); Simon Tugwell’s “Christ as Model of Sanctity in Humbert of Romans” (92–99); and Ulrich Horst’s “Christ, Exemplar Ordinis Fratrum Praedicantium, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas” (256–70). More extended studies of the early Dominican order and its founder can be found in Marie Vicaire’s Saint Dominic and His Times, trans. Kathleen Pond (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), and G. Bedouelle’s Saint Dominic and the Word, trans. Mary Thomas Noble (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987). William Hinnebusch’s Origins and Growth to 1500, vol. 1 of The History of the Dominican Order (New York: Alba House, 1966), remains an English-language standard for a general introduction to the origins of the Dominican order. 2. Thomas may have begun his studies under Albert in Paris as early as 1245 (following Albert to Cologne in 1248). Two biographies provide the most reliable chronology and background to Thomas’s training; see James A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D’Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Work (New York, Doubleday, 1974), and Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. Robert Royal, 2 vols.

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Paris, Thomas found himself thrust into the heart of the mendicant controversy where several secular masters, led by William of St. Amour, attacked Dominican and Franciscan prerogatives. So contested was the place of the mendicants that, along with Bonaventure, Thomas’s inception as magister was delayed until 1257 and only finally resolved through the intervention of Alexander IV.3 Thomas’s subsequent career as a master was equally filled with significant events. He did not merely practice the magisterial tasks of lectionem, disputationem, et praedicationem; rather, his experiences of founding Dominican studia, considering the practical and spiritual formation of mendicant preachers, and living his own mendicant identity all constituted a deep well for his systematic theological reflection.4 Thomas brings sharp speculative and spiritual commitments to bear on the questions of grace, human action, and divine rewards, and one can see his intellectual rigor interwoven with a deep and abiding sense of vocation and the spiritual life.5 We shall see, for example, that his language and ordering thematic of the Christian life as “journey” integrate aspects of Thomas’s vocation and service as a mendicant friar. His assimilation of high scholastic theology and Dominican spirituality give distinctive shape to his understanding of human life and its end in God. On questions of grace, human action, and divine rewards, Thomas inherits much from the Patristic tradition and his twelfth century predecessors, even as he articulates distinctive positions, which endure and inform the subject up to and beyond the Council of Trent.6 Four indispensable concepts underpin his discussion of the human journey into full union with God: (1) the primary causality of divine providence and predestination; (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003). For treatments of Thomas’s time as a bachelor, see Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 36–79, and Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:18–53. 3. See Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 80–92, and Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:75–84. 4. Leonard Boyle does much to establish, for example, the close relationship of Thomas’s Summa theologiae to the pedagogical needs he encountered while teaching young friars. See The Setting of the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1982). Torrell unpacks the threefold tasks of lecturing, disputing, and teaching in Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:54–74. 5. See Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 2:1–21 and 380–83. 6. For example, McGrath argues that Thomas’s views on grace and merit establish the medieval Dominican “school,” which exercised influence through the Council of Trent (McGrath, Justitia, 158–63). For other accounts of the history of Thomism or interpreters of Thomas, see Cessario, A Short History, and Fergus Kerr, After Thomas (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), especially chapter 8, “Quarrels about Grace.”

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(2) the priority of grace (as operative and cooperative) for human action; (3) the use of secondary causality in describing human action; and (4) the function of scripture in affirming human action and divine reward. The order in which Thomas prioritizes divine providence and predestination, grace, human actions, and rewards establishes a division between divine “gifts” and “rewards” as well as a method for evaluating various events in the lives of wayfarers. These flashpoints, when schematized onto the sequence of a journey, plot a striking and informative view of the wayfarer’s return to God. Indeed, the journey reveals appropriate moments for divine gifts and rewards according to conditions deduced from revelation.

Grace, Human Action, and Reward in the Summa theologiae The Summa theologiae (ST) is arguably Thomas’s greatest synthetic, theological, and pedagogical achievement. Comprised of three parts and 512 questions in its unfinished state, it undertakes an overarching exposition of Christian doctrine using an ordered collection of sources as authorities.7 Despite its breadth and chronological position in the corpus of his works, Thomas’s magnum opus was not immediately recognized as the authoritative source of his thought. In the centuries following his death, however, Thomists prioritized the ST as the source by which to understand Thomas and, if necessary, correct or situate diverse positions in his earlier writings.8 The 7. For Thomas’s ordered use of authorities in the ST, see I:1, 8 ad. 2; note particularly his position that scripture is intrinsic and incontrovertible, doctors of the church are intrinsic and probable, and philosophers are extrinsic and probable. Weisheipl argues that the ST does not present all topics with the depth or conceptual underpinnings of other works because Thomas conceived of the project for beginners (see the prologue to the ST); speaking of the content of the Summa contra Gentiles, he writes: “Much of the same field is covered more systematically in his Summa theologiae. The difference is that in the later work Thomas was developing an over-all view of the whole of theology for beginners; therefore only the most direct and simple arguments were used to establish an organic whole of what beginners ought to know before progressing onward. In the Summa contra gentiles Thomas was primarily an apologist selecting the most important issues separating Christians from Moslems, Jews, and heretical Christians” (Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 133). 8. See Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 339–44; Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:310–16; and Cessario, A Short History, 28–40, esp. 28–32, for reviews of the controversies of interpretation and attempts to represent Thomas in the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. By the fifteenth century, Capreolus established that the ST should take precedent over the Scriptum when trying to interpret Thomas,

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treatise on grace, ST I-II:109–114, which includes questions on God’s grace (109–111), its cause (112), and its effects (113–114), rightly constitutes the heart of a study of Thomas on grace, human action, and divine rewards; however, a number of other questions in the ST also warrant consultation.9 The intertextuality of the ST reinforces Thomas’s own certainty that an exposition of Christian doctrine cannot be fully appreciated in the atomization of its parts. Thomas conceives of the ST as an integrated and whole work, expecting the reader to grasp those topics that precede a given subject. Thomas divides the ST into three principal sections, the prima, secunda, and tertia pars, with the secunda pars further divided into a first and second part. He provides explanations to these divisions in the prologues to each part with further clarifications in the introduction to specific topics or treatises. In the preface to question 2 of the prima pars, he writes: Because the principle intention of this sacred doctrine is to hand on the knowledge of God, not only as God is in God’s self, but also as God is the principle of things and their last end, and especially of rational creatures, as is clear from what has been already said, therefore, in our intention to exposit this doctrine, we shall treat: first, of God, second, of the rational creature’s movement into God; and third, of Christ, who as a human person is our way of returning to God.10

Thomas describes the ST as an effort to “teach the knowledge of God”—the very object and subject of sacra doctrina—as God is in God’s self, as God is in human beings, and as God is in Christ, who causes and completes humankind’s return to God. The broad pattern of study—employed to unpack and exposit divine revelation and the content of Christian faith—is one of exitus-reditus, that is, of creation coming forth from God as source and returning to God as end.11 and Cajetan’s sixteenth century commentary on the ST signifies its ascendancy over Thomas’s other theological summaries. 9. Both Weisheipl and Torrell provide brief but useful overviews of the ST’s organization; see Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 216–30, and Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:142–53. For more explicit presentations, see M. D. Chenu, “Le plan de la Somme theologique de saint Thomas,” Revue Thomiste 47 (1939): 93–107; Boyle, Setting; and Torrell, Aquinas’s Summa: Background, Structure, and Reception, trans. Benedict M. Guevin (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005). 10. ST I:2, prologue. 11. Chenu articulates this principle in his Toward Understanding St. Thomas, trans. A. M. Landre and D. Hughes (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1964), 309ff. Thomas does not mention explicitly the notion of exitus-reditus in the Summa theologiae, but he acknowledges it in the Scriptum, (1 Sent., 2 di-

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Thomas situates the treatise on grace at the end of the prima-secundae, centered in the middle of the second part. He specifies the purpose of the prima-secundae thus: Because, as the Damascene states, it is said that man is made in God’s image, inasmuch as image signifies an intelligent, having a free-will and self-movement; now that we have treated of the exemplar, namely God, and of those things which proceed from divine power according to God’s will, it remains for us to consider his image, that is, man, inasmuch as he too is the principle of his operation, as having free will and power over his actions.12

The secunda pars takes up a study of human nature as the image of God. For Thomas, part of what is significant about human nature—in addition to its rationality and freedom—is the distinct end to which God has called the elect: eternal beatitude.13 Thomas defines this as a supernatural end—one beyond natural human powers. Therefore, after treating many aspects that lie within the natural capacities of human nature, he turns to the principle of grace as that which restores those natural powers damaged by sin and raises human beings to reach their special end.14 In the proemium to the treavisio textus). Without rejecting Chenu’s characterization, Torrell cautions that an unnuanced use of exitus-reditus flattens the ST’s more complex and deliberate organizational insights; see Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:150–59. See also Brian V. Johnstone, “The Debate on the Structure of the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas: From Chenu (1939) to Metz (1998),” in Aquinas as Authority: A Collection of Studies Presented at the Second Conference of the Thomas Instituut te Utrecht, December 14–16, 2000, ed. Paul van Geest, Harm Goris, and Carlo Leget, 187–200 (Leuven: Peeters, 2002). 12. ST I-II:1, proemium. 13. Thomas sets the horizon of the secunda pars in the first five questions, which treat final beatitude and the general means by which it is reached. These questions suggest the meta-journey which unfolds in the secunda and tertia pars. The questions which follow in the prima-secundae and secundasecundae approach the goal of beatitude through the discussions of virtue, vice, and proper human action. Thomas approaches the question of final beatitude in ST I:12 and concludes that the blessed can see God when grace elevates nature and unites it to God’s self. He establishes eternal beatitude as the end to which human nature is naturally and supernaturally oriented. 14. Questions I-II:106–108, pertain to the “law of the Gospel,” which Thomas also refers to as the new law; question 106 defines the new law; question 107 relates it to the old law; and question 108 describes “what the law contains.” In question 106, Thomas summarizes that “it is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given through faith in Christ, which is predominant in the law of the New Covenant, and that in which its whole power consists” (ST I-II:106, 1 c). The Holy Spirit as source of grace becomes a foundational theme in the questions preceding the treatise on grace proper (ST I-II:109–14). In his treatment of the Summa’s order, Torrell comments on the coherence of the questions on the law with the questions on grace; he writes: “But God has reserved himself the right to intervene in salvation

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tise on grace (ST I-II:109–114), Thomas writes: “It follows that we ought to consider the exterior principle of human acts, namely God, insofar as we are helped by him to act rightly (recte) through grace.”15 Thomas situates the treatise on grace at the center of the secunda pars as indispensable to the successful return of human beings to God.16 What follows in the secundasecundae makes sense only in light of human nature enhanced by grace; Thomas outlines the manner in which the graced wayfarer may approach God as final end. Grace constitutes a hinge on which the movement of human beings turns in the second part, broadly moving the discussion from a study of primarily intrinsic action to a study of extrinsic-intrinsic means of progression.17 history. Thus, he promulgated two kinds of law: the Old Law, which Thomas examines in minute detail (qq. 98–105), and the New Law, which Thomas identifies with the grace of the Holy Spirit (qq. 106–8). The whole of this treatise with its three subdivisions deserves to be known better. It is a magnificent apologia for the law. While Thomas highlights the great educative value of the law for personal freedom and stresses its necessary role in service to the common good, he also radically relativizes it, since its usefulness is only pedagogical and disappears once its service is completed” (Torrell, Aquinas’s Summa: Background, 34). Davies extends Torrell’s insight to the secunda-secundae and tertia pars; he writes: “[Thomas] takes the New Law to be what we are talking about insofar as we believe that God is at work to bring people to beatitudo and not just felicitas. He takes the New Law to be God acting in Christ to lift us to levels of virtue not acknowledged in the writings of philosophers such as Aristotle. And it is the New Law that Aquinas is chiefly concerned with in 2a2ae. Here he turns to theological virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit in more detail than he has so far done in the Summa Theologiae, and in 3a he goes on to focus on the person of Christ, to try to say what it might mean to call Christ divine, and to explain (as far as he thinks he can) what the Incarnation amounts to when it comes to the benefit of human beings” (Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, 212–13). 15. ST I-II:109, proemium. 16. Torrell writes: “It is profoundly significant that the treatise on grace comes at the end of the prima secundae, and it is easy to understand the reason. This volume begins with the final end that man pursues in all his actions [ST I-II:1–5], and everything that follows is an examination of the means that allow him to attain this end. The a priori condition that has been assumed but until now not examined, is that an act must be proportionate to the end that one wishes to attain. Now since this end is beatitude—the enjoyment of God in perfect communion of knowledge and love—it is completely disproportionate to human capabilities. By definition, this kind of happiness is connatural only to God. God, therefore, must provide man not only with the wherewithal to act in view of this end and to have his desire inclined to it, but also with the means by which human nature itself can be raised to the heights of that end. This is what the created gift of grace responds to, and with this Thomas concludes the prima secundae: God ‘equips’ man in such a way as to allow him to attain by his free and virtuous acts the end to which he calls him. What follows in the Second Part examines these acts in detail” (Torrell, Aquinas’s Summa: Background, 35). 17. This study does not argue that grace is the primary structuring theme in the Summa theologiae, nor does it suggest that I-II:109–14 offers the complete teaching on grace. For such a debate, see

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ST I-II:109—On the Necessity of Grace Thomas’s internal division of the treatise (questions 109–111, 112, and 113– 114) classifies grace as “itself,” “its cause,” and “its effects.” The first and last categories prove most consequential. Within the first group, questions 109, “of the necessity of grace,” and 111, “of the division of grace,” are central to his treatment of human action and divine rewards. Thomas frames question 109 with a telling heuristic: “the necessity of grace.” Each of its ten articles asks whether a certain human act or accomplishment is possible apart from grace, and in all but one instance question 109 answers with a resounding “no.” The most compelling propositions include “whether one can do any good without grace” (a. 2), “whether one can merit eternal life” (a. 5), “whether one can dispose oneself for grace” (a. 6), and whether one can rise from sin, avoid it, or persevere apart from grace (aa. 7, 8, and 10). Thomas stipulates that grace is necessary in each of these critical aspects of human life. Question 109 sets the tone for the treatise with an insistence on the priority of grace for any meaningful human progress on the journey of return to God. Thomas’s rationale for the necessity of grace provides the substantive argument behind 109’s rhetorical claims. As early as the first article—“can one know any truth apart from grace”—Thomas introduces two arguments that substantiate human dependence on grace. First, all created things depend upon God in order to act or move. The language resonates with Thomas’s doctrine of God, particularly his emphasis on God’s as ipsum esse; it is Thomas O’Meara’s “Grace as a Theological Structure in the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas,” Recherches de theologie ancienne et medieval 55 (1988): 130–53, and Romanus Cessario’s “Is Thomas’s Summa Only about Grace?” in Ordo sapientia et amoris, ed. Carlos-Josaphat Pinto de Olivera, 197–207 (Fribourg: Universitatsverlag Freiburg Schweiz, 1993). ST I-II:109 grounds Thomas’s treatment of the way in which human beings attain eternal beatitude, which he progressively expands in the secundasecundae and tertia pars. Davies speaks of the treatise on grace thus: “I speak here of 1a2ae,109–114 being a general discussion of grace because in 2a2ae Aquinas deals with particular theological virtues brought about by grace, and in 3a turns in some detail to the grace of Christ (grace resulting in people because of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ) and the means by which certain religious practices can be thought of as causes of grace” (Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, 223). Inasmuch as Chenu’s proposal of an exitus-reditus schema of the Summa has some bearing on understanding its order, the treatise on grace may reasonably be thought to act as an important locus for shifting the larger thematic discussion from one of going forth to one of return. Thinking of I-II:109–14, as providing the condition of the possibility for speaking of humanity’s reditus ad Deum, one can reasonably speak of the treatise as pivotal.

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that very being whose nature is pure act who moves the potential habits in created natures into action.18 He explains: “But we see in corporeal things that for movement (motum) not only the form which is the principle of the movement or action is required, but the motion of the first mover is also required.”19 Applying this to created intellects, Thomas reasons that human beings cannot think or know anything without this movement: “Therefore we ought to say that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever a person needs auxilio divino so that the intellect may be moved by God to its act.”20 An appropriate divine motion—a premotion—is required for any human being to use her capacities as a rational, free-thinking person.21 The applica18. Thomas defines “movement” loosely; he states: “Now every use implies movement, taking movement broadly, so as to call thinking and willing movements, as is clear from the Philosopher” (ST I-II:109, 1 c). This position shares parallels with Thomas’s ontological proofs for God’s existence (ST I:2) and his affirmation that human beings participate in God’s esse in order to exist. See John Wippel’s The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 114–21. Wippel explains: “On the other occasions, Thomas refers to such entities as participating in the First Act, or the First Esse, or the First Being, and as he often adds, by similitude or imitation. This does not imply that they have a part of God’s being. It rather means that in every finite substantial entity there is a participated likeness or similitude of the divine esse, that is, an intrinsic act of being (esse), which is efficiently caused in it by God. On still other occasions, when Thomas refers to such entities (or natures) as participating in esse, he seems to have in mind immediately the esse which is realized within such entities as their particular acts of being (actus essendi)” (Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 121). Lonergan adds: “In this position it is easy to discern the origin of the Thomist analogy of the principle of operation. God is His own virtue; His essence, His potency, His action in the sense of principle action—all are one” (Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 85). 19. ST I-II:109, 1 c. 20. ST I-II:109, 1 c. Wawrykow notes that Thomas sometimes elides the term auxilium with habitual grace, but he consistently reserves a narrow sense of the term, which means nothing other than God’s application of persons to their acts, and in the case of acts that make one pleasing to God, one may speak of auxilium as a sanctifying grace. Wawrykow writes: “For auxilium in this [narrow] sense, see such texts as I-11 109, 1c, where he calls it divinum auxilium, I-II 109, 2c (divinum auxilium), I-II 109, 3c (auxilium Dei moventis, auxilium Dei), I-II 109, 4c (auxilium Dei moventis), I-II 109, 5 ad 3 (auxilium gratiae), and 109, 6c (auxilium gratuitum Dei interius animam moventis)” (Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 171n52). 21. Lonergan reviews the development in Thomas’s understanding of the Aristotelian doctrine of premotion, especially in his section “Aristotelian Premotion and Thomist Application,” in Grace and Freedom, 72–76. Thomas adopts the notion of divine “premotion” to explain divine causation in the economy. Lonergan writes: “On the other hand, the Aristotelian premotion understood by St. Thomas affects indifferently over the mover or moved, agent or patient; explicitly it is the vel ex parte motivi vel ex parte mobilis; and what it brings about is not some special participation of absolute being but, again explicitly, some relation, disposition, proximity that enables mover to act upon moved” (71). Lonergan adds that Thomas synthesizes premotion with the notion of “application,” which implies that God—as

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tion of divine premotion includes the concursus generalis initially effected by the first mover as well as subsequent motions according to the plan of divine providence; so in cases where the movements of persons fall within their natural capacities, they are moved naturally by what might loosely be called divine auxilium. The term here, however, is here used to denote God’s movements in the order of grace insofar as God applies motion to bring about particular sanctifying and supernatural effects.22 Thomas introduces a second argument, namely, that for those things that are beyond the capacity of a given nature, something must be “superadded” (superadditum) to the form thereby raising the form to a new level. Thomas uses the example of water, which cannot by nature heat something else unless the formal power of fire is added to it. In the same way, human nature cannot ascertain truths beyond its nature except “by the light of faith or prophecy which is called the light of grace inasmuch as it is superadded to nature.”23 Thomas eventually classifies this grace as habitual grace (gratiae habitualis donum) inasmuch as it informs nature and disposes its habitual action.24 In instances where a divine truth surpasses human reason—for instance that God is triune—a habitual grace (the gift of faith) must be added to human nature. Guided by the premises that (1) human beings depend on divine movement for any action and (2) anything beyond the natural capacities of human beings requires a superadded habitual form, Thomas establishes the basic necessity of grace for the subsequent nine propositions, and he is loath to speak of any graced action without affirming both auxilium and habitual graces as causes. He writes: “Much more therefore does God infuse certain forms or supernatural qualities into those who God moves toward outside of the created order—applies motion to bring about the effects of the divine will through the work of providence in the economy (79). See my “Aquinas and the Grace of Auxilium,” Modern Theology 32, no. 2 (2016): 187–210. 22. That the application of auxilium is needed in the natural movements is clear; Thomas writes: “But it is clear that as all corporeal movements are reduced to the motion of the heavenly body as to the first corporeal mover, so all movements, both corporeal and spiritual, are reduced to the simple First Mover, Who is God. And hence no matter how perfect a corporeal or spiritual nature is supposed to be, it cannot proceed to its act unless it be moved by God; but this motion is according to the plan of providence, and not by necessity of nature, as the motion of the heavenly body” (ST I-II:109, 1 c). 23. ST I-II:109, 1 c. 24. Thomas does not use the term “habitual grace” until ST I-II:109, 6; thereafter he uses it to denote the grace that heals and elevates nature.

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the attainment of supernatural good, in order that they may be moved by God sweetly and promptly to the attainment of eternal good.”25 The categories together describe the work of grace in the recipient. Thomas further develops the significance of these categories in ST I-II:109, 2. Asking “whether a person can do any good apart from grace,” he distinguishes between prelapsed and postlapsed human beings. In either state, divine motion is required to accomplish any good. Thus moved, a prelapsed person could do goods commensurate with her nature (which includes actions flowing from acquired virtues). Even in this pre-fallen state, however, the person cannot accomplish a “surpassing good” (bonum superexcedens). Habitual grace, as something added or infused into human nature, is required for such an act; it raises a person’s capacity to do goods that would otherwise surpass her nature. For the postlapsed human person, sin corrupts her nature so that she is unable to perform properly natural goods.26 In a state of sin human nature further requires grace to be restored from corruption as well as to perform supernatural goods. Thomas concludes: And therefore in a state of natural integrity a person needs a gratuitous strength superadded to the strength of nature for one reason, namely, in order to do and wish supernatural good. But in the state of corrupt nature [a gratuitous strength superadded to nature is needed] for two reasons, namely, in order to be healed, and ultimately in order to do works of supernatural virtue, which are meritorious. Yet beyond this, in both states, man needs the divine auxilium so that he may be moved to act well.”27

Both divine motion (auxilium) and superadded habitual gifts are necessary for human persons to do surpassing goods, and beyond that, Thomas also introduces the “healing” effect of habitual grace. Habitual grace is distinguished as healing (sanans) and elevating (elevans), and in order to do those goods that deserve reward, originally fallen human beings need both effects. They also require auxilium that actualizes the potency of healed and elevated human nature. In ST I-II:109, 3–4, Thomas further applies the categories of habitual 25. ST I-II:110, 2 c. 26. Thomas allows that human beings in a state of sin are not “shorn of every natural good” and so can still “by virtue of [their] natural endowments, work some particular good, as to build dwellings, plant vineyards, and the like” (ST I-II:109, 2 c). 27. ST I-II:109, 2 c.

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grace and auxilium to vital dispositions for the journey, asking whether a person can love God above all things and observe the law without grace. Loving one’s creator is a natural extension of created nature, and thus, a pre-fallen person can love God above all else. However, the corruption of sin damages human nature’s ability to recognize and love God so that habitual grace is needed to heal its form, while auxilium moves it to active charity.28 Thomas distinguishes the ways in which the divine law may be observed. He first speaks of observing the law in terms of the “substance of the actions.” Human beings can simply follow the commands of the law in terms of their instruction. One can observe, for example, the precept against false witness out of fear of punishment; doing so falls within the natural and uncorrupted power of human nature. Thomas’s second sense of observing the law however, has to do with the actor’s disposition. One can ideally fulfill the law out of charity—seeing the law as occasion to love God and others more fully. To fulfill the law in this way—for others and not in self-interest—Thomas suggests that both pre-lapsed and lapsed human beings require habitual grace; for the former, grace is needed to elevate charity toward surpassing goods, and for the latter, grace is needed for healing and elevation. The infusion of charity as a habitus improves the form of the person so that he no longer merely follows the substance of the law out of obligation or fear but does so as an object of goodness and love.29 ST I-II:109, 5–6, explores explicit and necessary steps on the journey: whether a person can merit everlasting life (a. 5) or prepare for grace (a. 6). Meriting everlasting life exceeds the natural powers of finite human nature: “And for that reason, a person by her natural endowments, is not able to produce meritorious works proportionate to eternal life, and for this a higher power is needed, which is the power of grace.”30 Only supernatural goods deserve supernatural rewards such as eternal life; Thomas argues 28. Thomas writes: “Hence in the state of perfect nature man referred the love of himself and of all other things to the love of God as to its end; and thus he loved God more than himself and above all things. But in the state of corrupt nature man falls short of this in the appetite of his rational will, which, unless it is cured by God’s grace, follows its private good, on account of the corruption of nature” (ST I-II:109, 3 c). 29. Thomas writes: “In a second way the commandments can be fulfilled not only as regards the substance of the action but also as regards the mode of action, such that these actions are done out of charity” (ST I-II:109, 4 c). 30. ST I-II:109, 5 c.

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that grace, as the “principle of meritorious works” also acts as the principle of everlasting life. The journey requires grace but also holds out eternal life as a reward. Thomas further refines his descriptions of grace when answering whether one can dispose oneself for grace. Inasmuch as human beings require something superadded to their nature to do surpassing goods, they require habitual grace, yet this habit or capacity remains in potency until something reduces it to act. Thomas suggests this cannot be accomplished by further habitual grace—requiring an infinite sequence—but must instead be accomplished by divine auxilium.31 He writes: “We ought to presuppose a gratuitous auxilium of God, who moves the soul interiorily or inspires the good wish.”32 This inward movement of the soul is not merely a residual effect of God’s general “first movement”; it connotes God’s discrete movement that actualizes a person’s particular virtuous action—in this case—preparation for conversion. Thomas is careful to observe that the order and origin of these initial gifts is in God alone. By virtue of divine auxilium, God remains an active partner and friend in the human journey to eternal life. Thomas’s positions in articles 5–6 effectively foreclose on the possibility of human beings meriting or otherwise causing the graces necessary to enter a state of grace, which is a precondition for gaining eternal life. The thrust of ST I-II:109, 7–9, shifts away from any consideration of prelapsed nature to underscore the deleterious effects of sin, and therefore, the necessarily healing effects of grace. The articles paint a stark picture of fallen human nature, arguing that without grace and its ongoing provision, human beings cannot “rise from sin” (a. 7), “avoid sin” (a. 8), or “continue to do good” (a. 9). Human beings suffer three consequences as a result of sin: stain, corruption of natural good, and debt of punishment. These effects leave the sinner without the “luster” (decore) of grace, with a disordered nature, and with damnation as recompense.33 He writes: 31. Thomas likens a person lacking divine auxilium to a soldier who is capable of seeking victory but remains motionless without the command of the leader of the army (ST I-II:109, 6 c). 32. ST I-II.109, 6 c. 33. In ST I-II.85, on the effects of sin, Thomas argues that sin wounds human nature by disordering the natural order of intellect, will, and lower appetites; in the corpus of article three he writes: “Again, there are four powers of the soul that can be the subject of virtue, as stated above (Q. 61, A. 2), viz. the reason, where prudence resides, the will, where justice is, the irascible, the subject of fortitude, and the concupiscible, the subject of temperance.” In question 109, Thomas carries a sense of this dis-

  Thomas and Reward  89 But all human acts ought to be regulated according to the end, just as the movements of the lower appetites ought to be regulated according to the judgment of reason. Therefore, just as the inferior appetites are not totally subjected to reason, so the inordinate movements of the sensitive appetite cannot help occurring; so also since the rationality of the human person is not totally subject to God, it follows that many inordinate actions occur in his reason. For when a person’s heart does not have a foundation in God, so as to be unwilling to be separated from God for the sake of following good or avoiding evil, many things occur for the sake of following good or avoiding evil by which a person recedes from God and breaks his commands, and so the person sins mortally.34

The initial gifts of grace do not de facto reorder human nature either to its prelapsed or ultimately perfected state; nature is not yet fully subject to God. Perfect subjection of the will typically unfolds over the course of the wayfarer’s journey, requiring ongoing provisions of habitual grace and auxilium. In the interim, the lingering imperfection of nature leaves open the threat of sin or a fall from a state of grace. Without further help, human beings will sin mortally because they cannot avoid all of the sins all of the time. Thomas underscores the gift of perseverance at the end of question 109 as the remedy to the fomes peccati of sin. Habitual grace heals but does not dispose a person to avoid all venial sin or to withstand the effects of concupiscence. Rather, the gift of auxilium moves a person to act righteously and, as such, its repetition is needed to maintain the state of grace. I quote Thomas in his entirety: Therefore regarding the first mode of help, man in a state of grace does not need another help of grace, such as another infused habit. Nevertheless he needs the help of grace according to another mode, namely to be moved by God to act rightly. And the reason for this is twofold. First, by the general reason, as said above (a. 1) that no created thing is able to put forth any act, except by virtue of the divine motion. Secondly, for this special reason on account of the condition of the state of human nature. For although healed through grace as to the mind, it nevertheless remains order over even to the justified wayfarer whose irascible will remains unconformed to the movement of the intellect and will. 34. ST I-II:109, 8 c. Striking here is Thomas’s reference to one’s heart needing “a foundation in God.” This parallels, to some extent, Bonaventure’s discussion of the wayfarer’s charity as the pondus that anchors or founds human desire, directing its appetites to God as final end (see Breviloquium, V:8.5).

90  Thomas and Reward corrupted and infected in the flesh, through which it serves “the law of sin” as is said in Rom. 7:25. A certain obscurity [darkness] of ignorance also remains in the intellect according to which it is written in Rom. 8:26: “We do not know not what we ought to pray for.” Because of various turns of events, and because we do not know ourselves perfectly, we cannot fully know what is expedient for us, according to Wisdom 9:14: “The thoughts of mortals are timid and our counsels uncertain.” And for that reason we need to be protected and guided by God, who knows everything and is able [to do] everything. And for that reason also, for those born again as children of God in grace, it is fitting to say: “Lead us not into temptation, and Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and whatever else is contained in the Lord’s Prayer pertaining to this.35

The ongoing provision of divine auxilium is critical to the wayfarer’s progress in a state of grace.36 Temptation constitutes a very real threat insofar as the deleterious effects of sin persist even in the converted sinner whose sensual appetites remain disordered and for whom ignorance of the divine will persists. To substantiate the consequent need for auxilium, Thomas cites Paul’s conclusion in Rom. 7:25 that, even for the justified, the mind serves the “law of God” while the flesh serves the “law of sin.”37 Thomas’s appeal to passages from the Lord’s Prayer that petition God to lead and deliver persons away from temptation and evil resonate with similar references made by Saint Augustine in his late anti-Massilian works.38 In On the Gift of Perseverance, for 35. ST I-II:109, 9 c. 36. Thomas argues that the provision of auxilium effecting perseverance is distinct from habitual grace or other auxilia. He goes so far as to say that “To many grace is given to whom perseverance in grace is not given” (ST I-II:109, 10 c). This seems to imply that God may introduce persons into the life of grace who fail to reach their intended end because they do not receive this further auxilium. For example, in ST I-II:109, 10 ad. 3, drawing from Augustine, Thomas stresses that prelapsed Adam had the capacity or habit to persevere while he lacked the gift of perseverance. 37. Torrell dates Thomas’s completion of the prima-secundae to 1271 at the end of the second Parisian regency, while Thomas’s final lectures on Romans 1–8 were likely given in 1272–73 (Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:340). His mature teaching on grace is notably more indebted to Paul’s appreciation of sin’s effects on human nature. Henri Bouillard notes the increasing appreciation of Paul in Thomas’s late works; see Bouillard, Conversion et grace, 135–50. See also Matthew Levering, Paul in the Summa Theologiae (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2014), 182–85. 38. In On the Gift of Perseverance, Augustine makes direct appeal in the Lord’s Prayer that God complete, through grace, what they cannot do solely through human efforts. Augustine cites Cyprian’s De dominica oratione and offers an extended discussion of the Lord’s Prayer implying divine perseverance in sections 2.2–13.33. Augustine makes similar references, though with less exposition, to the Lord’s Prayer in On the Predestination of the Saints (8.15). Thomas explicitly cites On the Gift of

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example, Augustine writes: “For this indeed the saints, who do the will of God, also pray, saying the Prayer, ‘Thy will be done.’ Since it has already been accomplished in them, why do they still ask that it be done, unless that they may persevere in that which they have begun to be?”39 Thomas’s mature insistence on perseverance as an effect of auxilium underscores the ongoing necessity of grace, gained from his greater familiarity with the late Augustine and ongoing exposition of the Pauline corpus.40 These theological insights insist that sin is such that habitual grace, by itself, is an inadequate theological category for understanding the ongoing agency of God in the conversion, sanctification, and progress of the graced wayfarer to eternal life.

ST I-II:111—On the Divisions of Grace Thomas treats of grace’s divisions in question 111, and he introduces two decisive distinctions: sanctifying versus gratuitous grace and operative versus cooperative grace. Question 111, article 1, distinguishes between what has come to be called “sanctifying grace” (gratia gratum faciens) and “gratuitous grace” (gratia gratis data). Thomas writes: “And according to this, grace is twofold: one through which a person is united to God, which is called gratia gratum faciens, and another through which one person cooperates for leading one to God, and this gift is called gratia gratis data, because it is added beyond the capability of nature and beyond the merit of the person.”41 Sanctifying grace (gratia gratum faciens) accomplishes union with God. Union is accomplished by making the person “pleasing to God;” that is, the perPerseverance in the treatise on grace at I-II:112, 3 c, where he reframes the scholastic maxim, “facienti quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam.” Scholars have argued that Thomas encountered Augustine’s anti-Massilian works sometime in the 1260s prior to his completion of the treatise on grace. See Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 269–76, esp. notes 16 and 18; Wawrykow, “‘Perseverance’ in 13th-Century Theology: the Augustinian Contribution,” Augustinian Studies 22 (1991): 125–40; and Max Seckler, Instinkt und Glaubenswille nach Thomas von Aquin (Mainz: Matthias Grünewald, 1961), 90–98. 39. Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance, 3.6. 40. Levering observes the Pauline dimensions of ST I-II:109–114; he writes: “In fact, in the fortyfour articles found in questions 109–114 of the prima-secundae pars, Pauline citations occur seventy times—a significant number but somewhat less than one might have guessed. A glance at the articles suggests a possible reason: Aquinas relies heavily on Augustine. Since Augustine’s theology of grace is profoundly Pauline, this might explain why Paul is not directly quoted more often. With that said, seventy citations is still a large number, and we can be sure that we will gain insight into Aquinas’s treatise by exploring his citations of Paul” (Levering, Paul in the Summa Theologiae, 155). 41. ST I-II:111, 1 c.

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son is healed from corruption and elevated to a supernatural plane, making him capable of meritorious acts. By its definition, sanctifying grace includes habitual grace, which heals and elevates the recipients by infusing certain forms and dispositions to action. Gratuitous grace, on the other hand, refers to superadded gifts that God uses to move persons other than the recipient toward union with God; think here of the gifts enumerated by Paul in 1 Cor. 12:8–11. These gifts do not immediately effect the final union of the recipient to God (except that their freely-willed actualization may be meritorious); rather, they effect the potential union of others to God.42 Thomas’s treatment of sanctifying grace raises two important points. First, the term gratia gratum faciens suggests that sanctifying grace makes the recipient “acceptable” to God. The meaning of gratum faciens is potentially ambiguous; as we observed, Bonaventure uses it to establish the possibility for condign merit for human actors who have been made acceptable. Thomas, however, restricts human action (where God is not referenced as the primary actor) to congruent merits. Thus, it would seem that sanctifying grace does not mean gratum faciens in the same manner as it does for thinkers like Bonaventure. Second, related to this topic, Thomas does not elaborate how habitual grace and auxilium both constitute sanctifying grace. The lack of an explicit discussion has led some to posit that auxilium is really a part or subfield of habitual grace as the singular grace that makes one pleasing or acceptable because it pertains to form. This seems hard to sustain, given Thomas’s consistent distinction between habitual grace and auxilium in question 109. More likely, Thomas’s appreciation of auxilium establishes novel difference from his thirteenth-century contemporaries. As Thomas increasingly appreciates the importance of divine motion as the efficient cause of all things, he affirms auxilium as a necessary complement to habitual grace, or a grace pertaining to form, so that both graces are needed to bring about the sanctification of the wayfarer.43 In ST I-II:111, 2, Thomas introduces an all-important distinction between grace as “operative” and grace as “cooperative.” Thomas adopts the language from the tradition, as codified first by Augustine and then by the 42. Noteworthy here is Thomas’s recategorization of gratuitous grace to focus on a gift freely given to a recipient for the conversion and good of others; it does not seem to play, at least in name, the preparatory or prevenient role to conversion with Bonaventure assigns to it. 43. See my “Aquinas and the Grace of Auxilium,” 193–200.

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Lombard.44 He also redefines earlier scholastic uses of this distinction, which had become nearly synonymous with the categories of prevenient and subsequent grace and which Bonaventure generally affirms.45 Working from Augustine in the sed contra, Thomas writes: Augustine says: “By cooperating in us God perfects that which God began by operating in us, because the one who begins by operating so that we might will [is] the one who perfects by cooperating with those who are willing.” But the operations of God by which God moves us to the good pertain to grace. Therefore grace is fittingly divided into operating and cooperating.46

Thomas initially seems to worry over these categories as ones that are naturally contradictory—either God operates or God cooperates in the work of human salvation. He argues for a complementary relationship in which operative graces capacitate a person to will and cooperative graces invite the will’s free movement. God operates so that, sometimes, human beings can 44. The Lombard addresses “De gratia operante et cooperante” in 2 Sent., 26, chapter 161; see Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, editio tertia, ed. Ignatius Brady (Grottaferrata: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971). Augustine addresses operative and cooperative grace several times; Thomas quotes Augustine from De gratia et libero arbitrio, 17; see Augustine, De gratia et libero arbitrio, Patrologia Latina 44, edited by Jacques-Paul Mignes (Paris: In via dicta d’Amboise, près la Barrière d’Enfer, 1845). Augustine also references human cooperation with divine grace in De correptione et gratia, 8.17; see De correptione et gratia, Patrologia Latina 44, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris: In via dicta d’Amboise, près la Barrière d’Enfer, 1845), and De natura et gratia, ed. by C. F. Urba and J. Zycha, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 60, (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1902), 33. Burns argues that the anti-Massilian works, On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance, represent the final development of Augustine’s views on operative and cooperative grace (Burns, The Development, 172–73). 45. Of Thomas’s distinction between operative and cooperative grace in the Scriptum (in 2 Sent., d. 26.q.I.a.5), Lonergan writes: “In treating of the unity of sanctifying grace both St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas in their Commentaries on the Sentences had raised the objection that grace was both operative and cooperative, both prevenient and subsequent. The answer they gave was that this distinction did not imply a multiplicity of graces but only a multiplicity of effects from one and the same sanctifying grace” (Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 35). He later notes the overarching development in Thomas’s thought: “Third, there is development with regard to the prevenient action of grace on free will: in the Commentary on the Sentences and the De veritate, the free acts that take place in justification are informed by the infused grace; in the Contra gentiles the prevenience of grace is pressed in terms of motio moventis and motus mobilis; in the Summa theologiae this terminology is developed on the analogy of Aristotelian physics and the motion of free will as well as its information is attributed to the simultaneously infused habitual grace” (Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 61). The ST’s position allows Thomas to conceive of both habitual grace and auxilium as operative and cooperative. 46. ST I-II:111, 2 sc.

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cooperate subsequently and according to their free wills; here the earlier medieval classification of operative/prevenient and cooperative/subsequent seems affirmed. In the corpus, however, Thomas argues that both habitual grace and auxilium ought to be distinguished according to operative and cooperative effects, and he clarifies his understanding of operative and cooperative grace, writing: Therefore in those effects in which our mind is moved and does not move, but in which God alone is moving, the operation is attributed to God, and accordingly this is called “operating grace.” But in those effects in which our mind both moves and is moved, the operation is not attributed alone to God but also to the soul, and accordingly this is called “cooperating grace.”47

Thomas differentiates operative and cooperative graces according to agency not temporality. With operative grace, God is the sole agent and the human mind is simply moved (mota et non movens). To illustrate operative grace, imagine the example of a parent picking up an infant in one room and simply moving the baby to another; the parent is the sole operator or mover, and the infant is mota et non movens. With cooperative grace, God moves so that the mind both moves and is moved (movet et movetur); imagine a kind of choreographed movement where God infuses grace in such a way that the mind freely moves in tandem with it; two agents bring the movement to term. To use a similar example, imagine a parent standing a toddler on her feet and guiding her so that she freely walks toward a particular goal. Here the initial and continued action by the parent is indispensable, but it is action that capacitates and inspires the toddler to move with the parent; the child movet et movetur. Thomas distinguishes the difference between operative and cooperative auxilia as it relates to the human will. He writes: But there is a double act in us. First [there is] an interior [act] of the will. And in regard to that act, the will is a thing moved, and God is the mover; and especially (praesertim) when the will begins to will good which before had willed evil. And for that reason, insofar as God moves the human mind to this act, it is called operating grace. But there is another exterior act [of the will] which, because it is commanded by the will, as said above, the operation of this act is accordingly attributed to the will. And because God also helps (adiuvat) us in this act, both by confirming 47. ST I-II:111, 2 c.

  Thomas and Reward  95 the interior will and by granting the exterior capacity of operation, in respect to these acts, [grace] is called cooperating grace.48

The implications of this passage are rich. It parses the grace of auxilium in terms of its operative and cooperative effects. At times, God simply moves the will and it is moved; no reciprocal human action is required. At other times, God moves the will so that the will moves itself to some exterior act. In this cooperative effect, God reduces the potential of a person’s free willing into actuality. The will cooperates so as to deliberate and choose a potential good, and having chosen a good, it undertakes an exterior act to that end. The passage also indicates two concrete instances of auxilia. Thomas points to the conversion of the sinner as a special instance (praesertim) of operative auxilium because it constitutes that moment when the sinner is redirected toward a new object of apprehension and love. Conversion from sin is therefore, at least partially, effected by operative auxilium.49 In the other instance, 48. ST I-II:111, 3 c. 49. The commentary tradition diverges on whether the conversion of a sinner—inclusive of the will’s movement toward God as object of love—is operative from its outset to its term or whether it is initiated operatively and concluded cooperatively. Thomas’s response to an objection in the same question occasions some of the difficulty; he writes: “One thing is said to cooperate with another not merely when it is a secondary agent under a principal agent, but when it helps to the end intended. Now man is helped by God to will the good, through the means of operating grace. And hence, the end being already intended, grace cooperates with us” (ST I-II:111, 2 ad. 3). Critical to the divergence of opinions is the meaning of the duplex actus of the will in conversion, which is not immediately symmetrical to Thomas’s earlier discussions of the will’s action, in ST I-II.8–17, where he elucidates three dimensions to the will’s action: willing the end, the choice of means for attaining the end, and the execution of the end. The three dimensions include an initial, intermediate, and final act of the will with the initial seeming to fit an interior act and the final seeming to fit with an exterior act, though even the status of the final act is disputed by some. Wawrykow explores the asymmetrical relationship between ST I-II:8–17, and ST I-II:111, 2, offering a reasonable resolution in God’s Grace, 174–76. Lonergan takes up the interpretive question in detail in Grace and Freedom, 121–38, noting the difference between the duplex actus of ST I-II:111, 2, and the triplex actus of ST I-II:8–17 (Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 132–33). Importantly, Thomas does elsewhere speak of a twofold act of the will, in ST I-II:19, 6 c, where he writes: “Now, in a voluntary action, there is a twofold action, namely, the interior action of the will, and the external action: and each of these actions has its object. The end is properly the object of the interior act of the will: while the object of the external action is that on which the action is brought to bear.” This division, less interested in the discrete interior acts of the will and more focused on the initial interior act of the will and the subsequent external action, approximates to ST I-II:111, 2. If the parallel holds, one could argue that operative auxilium actualizes the interior act of the will as love or desire for union with God, while cooperative auxilium facilitates the free choice of the will to select those things conducing to that end. In the case of conversion, determining the status of the choice of

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the will accomplishes an exterior meritorious act under the command of the free will. The difference is that in conversion, the will does not cooperate, but subsequently in a state of grace, it acts commendably as it moves with instances of auxilium. Thomas’s distinctions thus begin to demarcate significant stages on the journey to union with God according to divine and human agency. Thomas similarly parses the operative and cooperative effects of habitual grace. Arguing that habitual grace has a double-effect in human beings, he notes that it can transform a person’s nature and her operation. He writes: “And therefore habitual grace, insofar as it heals and justifies the soul, or makes it pleasing (sanctifying it) to God, is called operating grace; but insofar as it is the principle of meritorious works, which proceed from the free will, it is called cooperating [grace].”50 Healing and justifying the soul constitute operative effects of habitual grace. Human nature does not dispose itself or cooperate with those changes; recall Thomas’s position in question 109, article 6, that human nature cannot prepare itself for grace. The repetition of the language of “justice” also parallels his connection of conversion to operative auxilium; the damaged will cannot begin to will good until it is healed. As healed and elevated and with the help of cooperative auxilium, human nature may freely will to do good. The intellect and will, in part, cause the good action by cooperating with the grace that has predisposed it for such action. The fruits of such acts (virtuous acts of faith, hope, love, mercy, patience, etc.) constitute the effects of cooperative habitual graces. Thomas’s classification of habitual grace and auxilium into operative and cooperative categories provides a way in which to understand the timing and means is especially significant insofar as it identifies the agent or agents in the act. Wawrykow notes: “The significance of this question is great. Since merit is the effect of cooperative grace, when we ask whether choice of means is the effect of operative auxilium or of cooperative auxilium, we are in effect defining the limits of human merit” (Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 174–75). Scholars in favor of identifying a cooperative dimension to the act of conversion elicit a series of texts from other parts of the Summa to support the necessarily contingent action of the will in its choice of means, including ST I:83, 3 c; ST I-II:13, 8 c; and ST III:85, 5 c. Of these, ST III:85, 5, seems especially forceful: “Secondly, we may speak of penance, with regard to the acts whereby in penance we cooperate with God operating.” Working from the fourfold sequence of justification outlined in ST I-II:113, 6, Thomas distinguishes six movements related to the act of penance which begin in divine operation and terminate in cooperation. Thomas links none of these steps, explicitly, to auxilium. 50. ST I-II:111, 2 c.

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agency of human acts on the journey. It illumines when human cooperation is possible. Specifically, cooperation always follows the operative effects of grace. To return to the example, when the toddler cooperates with her parent’s initial operation so as to “walk,” these actions can be credited to her as effects of her own cooperative efforts. When someone asks how she crossed the room, one can say “she walked,” thus crediting her, at least in part, as a decisive agent. The effects of cooperative grace thus represent the most likely locus for reward-worthy human actions. A telling way to distinguish gifts from rewards, then, is to determine whether they are the effects of operative or cooperative graces.

ST I-II:112—On the Cause of Grace Thomas takes pains to reinforce the priority of divine action in the order of human salvation in ST I-II:112.51 In the third article, Thomas takes up the central and enduring maxim: “ facienti quod in se est.” The history of interpretation involving the “ facienti” surely drives Thomas’s decision to engage and redefine the maxim. In the sed contra, Thomas writes: “A human person is compared to God as clay to the potter, according to Jer. 18:6: ‘As clay is in the hand of the potter, so you are in my hand.’ . . . Hence, a person never receives grace from God by necessity, however much a person prepares herself.”52 Clay is passive in the hands of the potter, awaiting the disposition of its form. Thomas approaches the preparation of a person for grace from two vantage points: (1) God as mover and (2) the person’s free will as moved. From the latter perspective, the power of grace so far exceeds human nature that no commensurate human preparation is possible. Identifying the facienti as a human action causing the initial gift(s) of grace fails to recognize God as the transcendent source of a grace. When speaking of preparation from God’s perspective, grace necessarily includes preparatory action inasmuch as God disposes the person for the express purpose of receiving habitual grace—the person is as clay in the hands of the potter. Thomas writes: “Another mode may be considered as it is from God the mover. And so it has a necessity as to 51. Articles 1 and 2 stipulate that grace cannot be prompted by the wayfarer’s self-disposition or merit. Rather, disposition and merit are consequences of initial and operative gifts of grace. 52. ST I-II:112, 3 sc.

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that to which it was ordained by God, not indeed of coercion but because of infallibility, because the intention of God cannot fail.”53 The primary thrust of Thomas’s response is not at all about human effort but about the infallibility of divine intention. That which God wills or ordains comes about not because human beings have enticed God, but rather because God’s will cannot be defective or contravened. Hence, the free will is moved insofar as God wills to move it according to its nature. Little effort is required by Thomas to disqualify the traditional meaning of the facienti because of what he has already established in questions 109–111. His energy is rather focused on divine ordination—the ordering of all things including human willing—as an unfailing effect of divine providence. Thomas redeploys the facienti in a new way; it now pedagogically reinforces God’s priority in bestowing grace. “Doing what is in oneself ” cannot guarantee that “God will not deny grace.” On the contrary, God does what is in God’s self, which infallibly prepares human beings for grace and guarantees its infusion.

ST I:22–23—The Meaning of Divine Providence for Rewards That a sinner’s conversion may be understood, first and foremost, as an effect of operative grace is remarkable. The exclusion of cooperative human agency from the initium and perhaps term of conversion implies that God alone calls and justifies the sinner. For the careful reader of the ST, this implication follows naturally on Thomas’s doctrine of God. Thomas addresses predestination as an effect of divine providence in the prima pars (qq. 22–23); the questions extend the preceding discussion of divine nature, specifically, God’s self-communication and manifestation of divine goodness through creation. God freely wills to create things that participate in divine goodness such that all things naturally demonstrate goodness. When taken as a whole, the cosmos manifests divine goodness in its variegation and the ends toward which things attain.54 God creates with intention and sapiential order, and 53. ST I-II:112, 3 c. 54. Thomas explains in ST I:19, 2 c: “It pertains, therefore, to the nature of the will to communicate as far as possible to others the good possessed; and especially does this pertain to the divine will, from which all perfection is derived in some kind of likeness. Hence if natural things, insofar as they are perfect, communicate their good to others, much more does it appertain to the divine will to communicate by likeness its own good to others as much as possible. God thus wills both himself to be,

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Thomas argues that God directs and governs all things toward their ordered ends.55 This governance, broadly discussed, falls under the heading of providence, and with specific regard to human ends, it falls under the heading of predestination. God intends all created things for specific ends, and as such, all things fall under the ordered government by which God directs the cosmos. Thomas speaks of providence in two respects: (1) the eternal order of providence and (2) the execution of the plan, both of which underscore the category of final causality.56 God’s providential plan or intention exists eternally and formally in the divine mind. Habitual grace to some extent mirrors this because it pertains to the natural and supernatural forms that God provides; it reflects divine wisdom and its ordering of the cosmos, and in the economy of salvation habitual grace orders and disposes nature so that it can attain eternal beatitude. Thomas calls God’s efficient execution of the plan governance (gubernatio). Such governance depends, importantly, on divine motion for its effects and makes use of secondary agents; Thomas writes: “As to and other things to be; but himself as the end and other things as ordained to that end; inasmuch as it befits the divine goodness that other things should be partakers in it.” God communicates goodness in the act of creation, and all created things exist for this end: to manifest divine goodness. God creates with intention, ordering the cosmos in all its variety to maximally demonstrate goodness. See Harm Goris, “Divine Foreknowledge, Providence, Predestination and Human Freedom,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. R. van Nieuwenhove and J. Wawrykow (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 99–122. 55. See Corey Barnes, “Natural Final Causality and Providence in Aquinas,” New Blackfriars 95, no. 1057 (2014): 349–61; his “Ordered to the Good: Final Causality and Analogical Predication in Thomas Aquinas,” Modern Theology 30, no. 4 (2014): 433–53; and David Burrell, “Act of Creation with Its Theological Consequences,” in Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction, ed. Thomas G. Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating, and John P. Yocum (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 27–44. 56. In ST I:22, 1 c, Thomas begins: “It is necessary to attribute providence to God. For all the good that is in created things has been created by God, as was shown above. In created things good is found not only as regards their substance, but also as regards their order toward an end and especially their last end, which, as was said above, is the divine goodness. This good of order existing in things created is itself created by God. Since, however, God is the cause of things by his intellect, and so it behooves that the type of every effect should pre-exist in the divine mind: and the type of things ordered toward an end is, properly speaking, providence.” Thomas’s account of providence underscores God’s intentional act of creation and God’s immediate, purposeful direction of creation for specific ends. He repeats the same line of argument when introducing predestination: “Hence, properly speaking, a rational creature, capable of eternal life, is led toward it, directed as it were, by God. The reason of that direction pre-exists in God; as in Him is the type of the order of all things toward an end, which we proved above to be providence” (ST I:23, 1 c).

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the second, there are certain mediators of God’s providence; because God governs inferior things through superior things, not on account of any defect in God’s power, but on account of the abundance of God’s goodness, so that God communicates the dignity of causality even to creatures.”57 God governs by moving creatures directly and indirectly. Governance and grace thus go hand-in-hand; in the economy of salvation, divine auxilium moves the recipient to be converted, to persevere, and even to love God and neighbor, while habitual grace capacitates actors to participate in the governance of creation as secondary agents. Thomas premises his treatment of predestination on the brute fact that eternal life lies beyond the natural power of human beings; it is a supernatural end. He writes: “For if a thing is not able to arrive at something through the power of its own nature, it ought to be moved there by another; just as an arrow is sent to the mark by the archer. Wherefore, properly speaking, a rational creature who is capable of eternal life is led to it, as if sent there, by God. The reason for that direction preexists in God.”58 Eternal life lies beyond the capacity of finite human nature, and thus God intervenes as the archer who directs an arrow. With God, however, such intervention follows the eternal plan of providence, and because eternal life represents a special and supernatural end, God acts as the primary agent in human salvation— moving human beings along a supernatural journey to their predestined end. Except where God has ordained that human beings cooperatively participate in this movement, God moves human beings, and they are simply moved to that destination. Does the predestination of some to glory mean that God destines others to damnation? Thomas speaks of God “permitting” reprobation or the fall of some persons into damnation. Thomas’s view has to do with the limitations 57. ST I:22, 3 c. Lonergan writes: “But according to St. Thomas, all motion is effected according to the divine plan, and this plan calls for a hierarchic universe in which the lowest things are moved by the middle-most and the middle-most by the highest. Not only did St. Thomas at all times clearly and explicitly affirm a mediated execution of divine providence, but he even argued that there would be no execution of divine providence unless God controlled the free choices of men and of angels through whom the rest of creation was administered. This position leaves no room for the theory that God gives each agent some ultimate actuation to constitute it as here and now acting” (Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 73–74). See also Brian Shanley, “Divine Causation and Human Freedom in Aquinas,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 72, no. 1 (1992), 100–22. 58. ST I:23, 1 c.

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of human nature. Just as predestination is God’s efficacious will to heal and elevate persons in order to attain a supernatural end, so others are not chosen who nevertheless remain ordered to a natural end. This natural end takes on the character of damnation in view of sin. Those persons not converted or who have fallen from a state of grace through original and personal sins receive appropriate recompense. This end satisfies the demands of justice. Sinners are justly punished for transgressions. For Thomas, predestination and reprobation are causally asymmetrical. The former involves divine intervention and operative movement while the latter is merely the end to which sinful human beings are permitted to move apart from divine intervention.59 Moreover, the predestination of some to glory and the reprobation of others to damnation cannot be synonymous with God “loving” some and “hating” others. Rather, as Thomas states, “God loves all persons and all creatures inasmuch as God wills some good to all; nevertheless, God does not will every kind of good to each.”60 The facticity of creaturely existence attests to God’s love and will for goodness in all things. Withholding the supernatural gift of eternal life does not imply that God fails to love the reprobate. Divine love is the very cause of creation, but what becomes obvious is that God communicates more love to some things (including some persons) than others.61 This 59. In ST I:23, 3 ad. 2, Thomas further explains the difference between predestination and reproba­ tion; he writes: “Reprobation differs in its causality from predestination. [Predestination] is the cause both of what is expected in the future life by the predestined—namely, glory—and of what is received in this life—namely, grace. Reprobation, however, is not the cause of what is in the present—namely, sin; but it is the cause of abandonment by God. It is the cause however, of what is assigned in the future, namely, eternal punishment. But the guilt proceeds from the free-will of the person who is reprobated and deserted by grace. In this way the word of the prophet is true—namely, ‘Destruction is thy own, O Israel’” (emphasis mine). See Matthew Levering’s study of the doctrine of predestination including the place of Thomas’s position in the larger tradition: Predestination: Biblical and Theological Paths (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), especially 76–83 and 96–97. See also Harm Goris’s Free Creatures of an Eternal God: Thomas Aquinas on God’s Infallible Foreknowledge and Irresistible Will (Leuven: Peeters, 1996). 60. ST I:23, 3, ad. 1. 61. When Thomas speaks of predestination, he includes the notion that God chooses the elect as an effect of divine love. He puts it succinctly: “Predestination presupposes election in the order of reason; and election presupposes love” (ST I:23, 4 c). Out of love God chooses to save some; it is a gracious, unmerited choice by God to rescue people from damnation. Thomas makes a second important point by distinguishing divine love from human love. For God, Thomas reasons, love is the principle of divine acts and the goodness found in created things. Divine love—as one and the same with God’s esse—originates certain goods such as the decision to save some through election. With human beings, on the other hand, love arises from a prior good so that election precedes love.

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gradation of divine love is not unlike the gradation of creatures in the cosmos; it fits God’s overarching will to manifest divine goodness maximally, that is, in the fullness of its degrees and relations. This affirmation of divine love also secures the utter gratuity of election. God does not love some more than others because of something they have done to deserve it; rather, God elects to love some who, on account of that love, may act in reward-worthy ways. What emerges from the treatment of reprobation is an account of “single-track” predestination where God only wills the salvation of some but does not will the reprobation of others. Moreover, while predestination itself cannot be considered a reward, reprobation can. A doctrine of “negative rewards” thus emerges in Thomas’s doctrine of predestination. Thomas’s double-affirmation of the eternal nature of predestination and its origination in divine love seems to foreclose on the possibility of merit informing predestination. He nevertheless addresses the issue directly (ST I-II:23, 5) asking “Whether the foreknowledge of merits is the cause of predestination?” Thomas dispatches three arguments that seemingly affirm that merit determines predestination. The first two rely on the notion of “preexisting” merits; that is, God predestines persons to eternal life on account of something that already deserves reward. Thomas writes: “For the Pelagians posited that the beginning of doing well came from us but the consummation from God. And so the effect of predestination was granted to one and not to another, because the one made a beginning by preparing oneself and the other did not.”62 Thomas takes on an acknowledged opponent and another, possibly unacknowledged, in his response. The acknowledged Pelagian position promotes predestination as an effect (perhaps as a reward) for an initial and self-determined effort by the wayfarer herself. If she strives to convert to a life of grace, God responds to her precipitous efforts by predestining her to eternal life. The unacknowledged interlocutor may be Thomas’s contemporaries who affirmed congruent merit as grounds for conversion from a state of sin to a state of grace; here again the traditional use of the facienti quod in se est elicits a red flag. Thomas deploys scripture (2 Cor. 3:5) and argues that nothing done by human beings in the present life effects predestination inasmuch as predestination constitutes part of God’s eternal plan for creation. In the order of logic, God’s predestining necessarily precedes human action, including any 62. ST I:23, 5 c.

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initial efforts human beings could attempt before conversion. Without God’s loving election of some, the elect could not make a beginning in themselves; thus, the order of predestination is set with divine election first and human actions following in some order after that. Thomas considers another argument in favor of merit for predestination that abandons “pre-existing” merit and employs an analysis of divine foreknowledge. Thomas writes: “Wherefore there were others who said that merits following the effect of predestination are the reason for predestination, as if it was understood that, for that reason, God gives grace and preordains to give grace to one because God foreknows that [the person] will use that grace well.”63 Thomas identifies a critical flaw in the argument: it improperly identifies grace as a cause of predestination. Grace is always an effect. The grace that makes commendable actions possible flows from (1) divine providence, (2) election (which has its origin in divine love), and (3) predestination. It cannot occur apart from these prior causes. Thomas concludes: “And so it is impossible that the whole of the effect of predestination in general should have any cause on our part. Because whatever is in a person ordering him toward salvation is also held together under the effect of predestination; even the preparation for grace itself, which can never be done except through divine auxilium.”64 Insofar as grace is an effect of predestination, it is a consequence of a prior choice; what follows from grace are certain commendable human actions (like acts of faith, hope, and love), but even these occur as a consequence of predestination first and grace second. God foreknows them as outcomes of God’s predestining action in a person. The elect begin like all other postlapsarian human beings—as sinners. They would freely sin and deserve reprobation were it not for divine election and its communication of graces that heal and elevate their natures. Thus, Cain and Abel begin with the same status (at least conceptually), but one merits glory because of a gratuitous gift of predestination (which flows from divine love and includes election and subsequently grace), while the other presumably merits damnation (through his permitted misuse of human freedom). In the course of his response, Thomas deploys a scriptural text worth note. He quotes Jer. 5:21, “Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted.” 63. ST I:23, 5 c. Augustine entertained this view early in his career. He makes the admission and argues that the view is errant in On the Predestination of the Saints, 3–4. 64. ST I:23, 5 c, emphasis mine.

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This text could be taken to be an “anti-reward” text; that is, it suggests, at the very least, that conversion is solely a result of divine agency—of operating grace. God converts and people are “simply converted.” Introducing merit as a cause of predestination offers a tempting way to rebalance the roles of divine and human agency on the journey. Thomas knows of the temptation and acknowledges that it can be inserted under the guise of divine justice. He entertains the objection that, since God is just and it would be unjust to simply predestine some sinners while leaving others to reprobation, God must surely predestine according to divine foreknowledge of future merits or sins. Thomas’s response illustrates his panoramic vision of divine providence. God creates so as to manifest divine goodness, and integral to this manifestation is diversity and gradation within creation, with each grade of being contributing to the whole exhibition of goodness.65 Thomas explains: “Therefore God wills to manifest God’s goodness in some; in those whom he predestines, by means of mercy, sparing them; and in those whom he reprobates, by means of justice, punishing them.”66 Two expressions of divine goodness—mercy and justice—are broadly manifested in the different ends to which human beings are directed. The rationale for who is predestined or reprobated belongs to God alone; it “depends upon 65. Thomas writes: “Now it is necessary that God’s goodness, which in itself is one and undivided, should be manifested in many ways in his creation because creatures in themselves cannot attain to the simplicity of God. Thus, it is that for the completion of the universe there are required different grades of being; some of which hold a high and some a low place in the universe. That this multiformity of graces may be preserved in things, God allows some evils, lest many good things should never happen, as we said above” (ST I:23, 5 ad. 3). An explicit discussion of creation and the gradation of being can be found in ST I:22, 2. 66. ST I:23, 5 ad. 3. The passage echoes On the Predestination of the Saints, where Augustine argues that, while God’s ways are inscrutable, divine justice and mercy are reflected in the divine acts of predestination and reprobation. Augustine writes: “But since in some persons the will is prepared by God and in others it is not, we must indeed distinguish what comes from his mercy and what comes from his judgment. . . . Behold mercy and judgment: mercy upon the elect, who have obtained the justice of God, but judgment upon the others who have been blinded. And yet the former believe, because they have willed, while the latter have not believed, because they have not willed. Hence mercy and judgment are brought about in their own wills.” Later in the same paragraph Augustine writes: “‘All ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.’ But ‘his ways’ are ‘unsearchable.’ Hence, the mercy by which he freely liberates and the truth by which he justly judges are both unsearchable” (231–32). In the ST, Thomas references On the Predestination of the Saints no less than twenty-eight times, including five references in I:23. Thomas also references On the Gift of Perseverance at least eight times, including four times in the treatise on grace.

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the simple will of God.”67 Merit cannot be introduced surreptitiously as a principle for salvation or damnation. Thomas goes one step further to argue that divine justice actually depends on the wholly gratuitous status of predestination; he writes: Nevertheless, neither on this account is there iniquity (injustice) in God if God prepares unequal things for not unequal persons. For this would be contrary to the ratio of justice, if the effect of predestination were given as a debt and not given freely (by grace). For in things which are given by grace, one is able to give more or less ad libitum, as long as one does not withhold something owed to someone, without any prejudice of justice.68

If God predestined as a “reward”—something that corresponded to a person’s good action—then it would be manifestly unjust (and not good) to show mercy to some and punish others. The recompense due each person would be damnation, and its cancellation for some and not others could not be called just. If it is simply given as a gift, however, God can dispense according to God’s loving and free will. Divine election need not be seen as destroying human contingency or freedom. Thomas writes: “Nevertheless the order of providence is infallible, as was shown above (I:22, 4). So therefore the order of predestination is also certain; and nevertheless free will, by which the effect of predestination comes about contingently, is not destroyed.”69 God’s movement is efficient and infallible, yet it preserves creaturely freedom. Proper knowledge of God, through the habitual grace of faith, and proper love of God and others, through the habitual gift of charity, always depend on the contingency of choice. Yet Thomas sees operative and cooperative auxilia as those ongoing applications of motion to the recipient that inspire or motivate free actions without fail. Thomas’s position reflects important metaphysical in67. ST I:23, 5 ad. 3. 68. ST I:23, 5 ad. 3. 69. ST I:23, 6 c. Thomas maintains his position in the discussion of the will’s movement in I-II:10, 4 c; he writes: “[Divine providence] moves all things in accordance with their conditions; so that from necessary causes through divine motion, effects follow of necessity; but from contingent causes, effects follow contingently. Since, therefore, the will is an active principle, not determinate to one thing, but having an indifferent relation to many things, God so moves it, that he does not determine it of necessity to one thing, but its movement remains contingent and not necessary, except in those things to which it is moved naturally.”

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sights gained in the Summa contra Gentiles and confirmed in the Summa theologiae. In these later works, Thomas does not assign the infallibility of providence and predestination to the sphere of divine foreknowledge as we observed in Bonaventure; instead, he sees it as a direct effect of God’s active willing. As transcendent and efficient cause, God moves all things to act by the application of motion—according to the plan in the divine mind—so that God not only knows the ends of all things but also moves them to those ends. Divine providence promotes rightly ordered willing in the elect so that even the contingent motion of the elect flows from divine auxilium and God as ultimate cause.70 While Thomas safeguards predestination in relation to justice, justice has little to do with predestination as a cause; that is reserved for divine goodness and love. God wills both mercy and justice as goods, and predestination and reprobation correspond appropriately. Justice cannot therefore serve as the primary lens by which to understand predestination and the journey that follows. Justice more narrowly conditions merit and the rewards that correspond to meritorious human acts. Divine goodness supersedes the category of reward and frames the circumstances for salvation and damnation. The possibility of reward can only occur within the already-established setting of gratuitous predestination. More specifically, reward can only pertain to the wayfarer’s actions following conversion. Thomas thus prosecutes his discussion of the effects of grace in prima-secundae, question 113, on justification, and question 114, on merit, under the assumption that these effects follow upon God’s gratuitous election and predestination of some to eternal life. 70. Lonergan concludes that by the time of the Summa contra Gentiles Thomas had synthesized Aristotelian conceptions of premotion and divine providence so that God is the efficient and immediate cause of discrete movements in providence. Lonergan writes: “The Thomist higher synthesis was to place God above and beyond the created orders of necessity and contingence: because God is universal cause, His providence must be certain; but because He is transcendent cause, there can be no incompatibility between terrestrial contingence and the cause of certitude of providence” (Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 79). He adds: “Only when St. Thomas settled down to the vast task of thinking out the Christian universe in the Contra gentiles did he arrive at the truth that divine providence is an intrinsically certain cause of every combination or interference of terrestrial causes. By the same stroke would he arrive at the practically identical truth that God applies every agent to its activity. Accordingly, we are led to infer that the essence of the idea of application is the Aristotelian premotion as informed by the Thomist causal certitude of divine providence: ‘Deus igitur per suum intellectum onmia movet ad proprios fines [God therefore moves all things to their proper end through his intellect]’” (Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 80).

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Gifts and Rewards: Operative and Cooperative Effects of Divine Action ST I-II:113—Divine Operation as Gift Thomas uses the proemium to question 113 to frame the subsequent conversation of justification and merit. He writes: “The effects of grace ought now to be considered. And first, the justification of the ungodly, which is the effect of operating grace; and second, merit, which is the effect of cooperating grace.”71 Operative grace norms Thomas’s approach to justification; specifically, God moves the human will and it is simply moved. The proemium thus follows and affirms his illustration of operative auxilium in ST I-II:111, 2, where “the will begins to will good which before had willed evil.” An ordo of divine and human action is therefore set. God initiates and completes the process that moves human beings from a state of sin to a state of grace.72 Human effort cannot be counted among the causes of justification. Thomas has already determined that predestination implies divine agency alone, that human beings cannot dispose themselves for grace, and that conversion from sin is an effect of operative auxilium and operative habitual grace. With justification established as the solely operative work of God, question 113 primarily engages other topics having to do with justification, such as its terminological meaning, its constituent parts, and the way in which those parts fittingly remit human sin. Thomas defines justification by its term or goal, which is the remission 71. ST I-II:113, preface. This passage constitutes a decisive text affirming the operative character of conversion, taken here to include the choice of means and to be coextensive with justification. Thomas includes the entire sequence of justification under the heading of operative grace. While one might argue that even cooperative movements begin under the heading of operative grace—and so justification may include cooperative dimensions—Thomas does not classify merit in that way, instead distinguishing it as a discrete effect of cooperative grace over and against justification as an effect of operative grace. Later in his discussion of the movement of the free will in justification; see ST I-II:113, 3 c. 72. Henri Bouillard’s Conversion et grace remains a seminal study on Thomas for the topic of grace in the conversion/justification of sinners. He shows that Thomas insists on preparation for justifying/ sanctifying grace, yet this preparation is the effect of operative grace so that the wayfarer cannot be said to prepare herself. See also T. Deman’s “Review of Conversion et grace chez S. Thomas d’Aquin,” Bulletin Thomiste 7 (1943–44):46–58. Wawrykow observes that Bouillard’s work is criticized for its failure to distinguish the distinctive role of auxilium (from that of habitual grace) in the preparation of the sinner for conversion or justification (Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 40–42). Bouillard is nevertheless correct in his view that Thomas restricts conversion to operative.

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of sin. “Justice” (iustititio) reflects a “good order” or rectitude “in the interior disposition of a person, insofar as what is highest in the person is subject to God, and the inferior powers of the soul are subject to the superior, namely, to reason.”73 Justification does not perfect or complete the interior rectitude of the wayfarer; rather, it restores “a certain rectitude” (quondam rectitudinem), implying that further provisions of grace will be needed even in the state of grace. Justification in human beings moreover requires that they move. Thomas writes: “In another way, justification may be brought about in a person by a movement which is from one contrary to another contrary. And in this way, justification implies a transmutation from the state of injustice to the state of justice mentioned earlier.”74 The movement to a state of justice unfolds through four stages in the order of logic: (1) the infusion of grace, (2) a movement of the free will toward God in faith, (3) a movement of the free will in detestation of sin, and (4) the remission of sins.75 Pertinent to this study is not so much the stages themselves as how Thomas understands them to fittingly remit sin according to human nature. The seemingly redundant specification that an infusion of grace initiates justification underscores the motif that grace precedes the restoration of order in human beings. Thomas describes such grace as “the effect of divine love in us.”76 What Thomas does not say, but is implied by his discussion in question 109, is that grace also heals the corrupted nature of a sinner. An affirmation of gratia sanans is needed for the second step in justification—the movement of the free will in human beings. Until the will is healed it cannot move toward its proper end nor obtain the remission of sins. Thomas writes: Yet God moves everything according to its own mode. Wherefore God moves a person to justice according to the condition of his nature. But it is a person’s proper nature to have free will. Hence in a person who has the use of free will, the motion to justice by God does not occur without a movement of the free will; but God so infuses the gift of justifying grace that God simultaneously moves the free will to accept the gift of grace in those who are capable of such movement.77 73. ST I-II:113, 1 c. 74. ST I-II:113, 1 c. 75. See ST I-II:113, 6 and 8. 76. ST I-II:113, 1 c. 77. ST I-II:113, 3 c.

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God moves the free will to seek God as opposed to sin; the will thus moves from one terminus (sin) toward the other (God). God’s operative auxilium initiates the movement, and in this case, Thomas’s description of auxilium as “motion” is particularly apt inasmuch as it actualizes a potency of the free will. Justification unfolds not against or in spite of a sinner’s nature but through the disposition of her rational and free nature. Inherent in the movement of the free will is informed choice. A person who wills something with her intellect has deliberated and selected that which is understood as best for her.78 Saving knowledge of God is had by faith, and Thomas reckons that grace infuses habitual faith into the soul so that the will’s movement is one informed by faith; it is Thomas’s version of justification by faith. He writes: “And for that reason the justification of the ungodly requires a movement of the mind, by which it is converted to God. However the first conversion to God is by faith, according to Heb. 11:6: ‘The one approaching God ought to believe that he is.’ And so a movement of faith is required for the justification of the ungodly.”79 Thomas speaks of faith as a recognition of God as the believer’s highest and best end.80 The faith that informs the person’s choice to seek God is ultimately perfected or consummated by charity; it is fides formata.81 Just as the will moves toward God in faith and love, it also moves toward sin in hatred or detestation. Now informed by faith, the will is able to detest (detestatur) the former objects of desire that distracted it from its highest good. Thomas thus calls the move78. Thomas seems to present two different accounts of this action in ST I-II:8–17 and I-II:111. Wawrykow summarizes Thomas’s primary account thus: “According to Thomas, there are three fundamental parts to the human act: the conceiving and willing of the end; the deliberation about and choice of the means to the end; and the execution of the act” (Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 174). 79. ST I-II:113, 4 c. 80. Faith as a formed belief in God as highest good and ultimate end conforms not so much with Luther’s understanding of trust in Gospel promises—though that may be included in such faith—as it does with Augustine’s understanding of the nature of Christian life in the De Doctrina Christiana. Augustine advances the central argument that faith recognizes God as highest good so that the soul can order its loves and movements to God; see De doctrina christiana, ed. J. Martin, Corpus christianorum, Series latina 32, (Turnhout: Brepols, 1982), Book I, chs. 4–6. See Wawrykow, “The ‘Regula Fidei’ in 13th-Century Accounts of ‘Theology’: Reflections on the Place of Augustine’s De doctrina christiana in High Scholastic Theology,” in Reading and Wisdom: The De doctrina christiana of Augustine in the Middle Ages, ed. E. English, 99–125 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995). 81. See ST I-II:113, 4 ad.1.

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ment of the will a “double-movement” toward sin, “ad quem,” and toward God, “ad quo.” The double movement terminates in the remission of sins, which marks the new status of wayfarers as “justified.” They no longer retain the guilt of their sin nor do they principally tend toward sin; on the contrary, through the gifts of faith quickened by charity, the soul now tends toward God and lives in a state of grace. Thomas speaks to the sequential movement of operative graces in justification: “The reason for this is because in whatever movement the motion of the mover is naturally first; but the disposition of the matter, of the movement of the moved, is second; the end of the movement in which the motion of the mover terminates is last.”82 The “movement of the mover” resonates with the operative grace of auxilium—the motion of God that motivates the will of the recipient. The second step has to do with the disposition of the matter. In the process of justification, the disposition of the matter includes the infusion of faith, which is perfected in charity. Habitual graces heal and possibly elevate the will, which lacked the virtues of faith and charity by which to move itself toward the remission of sin. Thus, in the movement of justification, Thomas integrates operative auxilium and habitual graces to explain the remission of sins and the new status in which the justified finds herself—an aptly named “state of grace.”

ST I-II:114—Divine and Human Cooperation as Reward Merit and reward are not synonymous terms. For that reason, it is imperative to examine what Thomas means by merit (merito). Ironically, he begins by speaking of reward (merces) through the use of a reward text. In the sed contra of question 114, article 1, Thomas writes: “It is said (Jer. 31:16): ‘There is a reward for your work.’ But a reward is said to be something recompensed on account of merit. Therefore it seems that a person may merit from God.”83 Establishing a close link between the two concepts, Thomas argues that merit is a ratio for divine rewards. God provides certain rewards on account of the meritorious character of certain actions. Thomas has already stipulated that meritorious actions must be free and arise from charity. Thus, when under the right conditions, human beings freely love God and 82. ST I-II:113, 8 c. 83. ST I-II:114, 1 sc.

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neighbor, their actions acquire the character of merit and deserve recompense from God. The language of merit tends to refer to the person who does the work while the language of rewards tends to reference the overall operator who, by virtue of his status, can promise and supply rewards for certain works. Thomas anticipates a potential problem with his working definition of merit. While scripture seems to affirm that God rewards human beings, how can human actions possibly be commensurate with the rewards provided by God? Thomas addresses this problem first from the perspective of justice; he writes: “Wherefore it is a just act to give a just price for anything received from another, so also it is a just act to pay a reward for work or toil.”84 It is unjust to withhold rewards when one does the assigned work, and payment should correspond to the kind of work provided by the laborer. Thomas reasons that justice is typically established between equals; thus, a laborer and an employer approach each other on the same footing and negotiate a price for a given job, which reflects any number of conditions such as the type of work, the “going rate” for a certain kind of work, the time and effort a given task will require, the urgency of the task, etc. Strict justice should therefore hold between equals who can agree on a just day’s wage and a just day’s work. Thomas states: “And hence where there is justice simply, there is the character of merit and reward simply.”85 Were God and human beings parties of equal status or dignity, then merit between them might be straightforward and according to strict justice. Not all reward scenarios, however, fit the structure of equality between parties. Thomas writes: But where there is no absolute equality between [the parties] neither is there absolute justice, but a certain mode of justice is able to be, just as a certain right is said of a father or a master, as the Philosopher says in the same book. . . . But in those [relationships] where there is relative justice and not absolute justice, there is also no character of absolute merit but only relative merit, insofar as the character of justice is found there, just so the child merits something from his father and the slave from his lord.”86

84. ST I-II:114, 1 c. 85. ST I-II:114, 1 c. 86. ST I-II:114, 1 c.

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Where inequality exists between the parties, only a “relative” (secundum quid) justice exists, and so, only a relative kind of merit or reward. The “greatest inequality” exists between God and human beings. This is ontologically the case and also true inasmuch as whatever inherent good creatures possess (including their existence) they already possess from God as gifts from the creator. They already “owe” God their very existence. By setting out a relationship of radical inequality in light of his earlier comments about justice, Thomas necessarily sets human merit and divine reward in relative terms. He writes: “Wherefore there can be no justice between [human] persons and God according to absolute equality, but [only] in a certain proportional sense, insofar, that is to say, as each works according to his own mode.”87 Thomas speaks of rewards in a highly qualified sense that necessarily reflects the ontological disproportionality that exists between God and human beings. His final proviso—“as each works according to his own mode”—specifies that rewards are relatively just when each party acts according to their natures or natural modes of action. If a relationship of inequality exists, then how does Thomas conceive of rewards for human actions? The superior party sets the conditions for reward: But the mode and measure of human virtue in a person is from God. And for that reason a person cannot merit before God except according to the presupposition of divine ordination (divinae ordinationis), namely, that a person obtains from God something like a reward for his operation [or works], what God gave (deputavit) him the power of operation for. So also natural things by their proper movements and operations obtain that to which they were ordained by God. Nevertheless [human beings obtain it] differently because the rational creature moves himself to action through the free will; wherefore his action has the ratio of merit, which is not the case in other creatures.88

A defining aspect of the unequal relationship between God and all created things is that created things act and attain their respective ends from God according to divine ordination.89 Human beings can merit only those 87. ST I-II:114, 1 c. 88. ST I-II:114, 1 c. 89. See Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 178–89, which argues that ordination is something more than the general notion of divine providence and its specific application to predestination. Ordinatio explains how and why human beings can obtain rewards from God. Wawrykow writes: “[T]he divine

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things that God empowers them to earn (virtutem operandi deputavit). For example, Thomas argues that divine commands and counsels convey many of those things that a wayfarer may merit, and God provides perfecting graces—sometimes as interim rewards—that empower wayfarers to merit the rewards attached to the commands and counsels. The language of empowerment stresses that rewards are possible not only because God deputes certain actions to be worthy of merit but also because God provides the natural and supernatural gifts to the wayfarer that make meritorious work possible. Divine ordination connotes a totalizing view of God’s action in the economy, which (1) establishes certain reward-worthy actions on the wayfarer’s journey, and (2) capacitates and actualizes the wayfarer so that progress is possible. Human beings can merit because God has ordered their return to God in a way that includes merit. Merit is appropriate to human beings because they possess free will, and so, merit belongs to the natural order of providence. God predestines some persons to eternal life, provides operative and cooperative graces (which empower the wayfarer), and sets down certain contingent actions as worthy of rewards. These conditions constitute the ordo of salvation, and their integration maximally demonstrates divine goodness and love as it relates to the salvation of human beings. A helpful analogy here, suggested in part by Thomas’s reference to the disproportionate relationship between “father and son” is that of an allowance between parents and a child. According to the parents’ “plan” for rearing their child (and ordering their domestic economy as well as possible), they may choose to establish a system whereby their child can earn certain rewards for certain actions. From the parents’ perspective, such a system of rewards is optimal because it helps the child to mature naturally and appropriately while acquiring habits that maximize his nature. Thus, the parents construct a system whereby, for instance, a child may earn ten dollars each week by washing the dishes and removing the trash. The parents determine that these tasks are good for the child and for the household economy— ordination that grounds merit in Aquinas refers to God’s decision, formulated in the divine wisdom, to fashion a rational creature whose repeated morally good and graced actions permit it to come meritoriously to God. In light of this decision to make a creature whose acts can have salvific significance, God then grants to the object of God’s special love everything necessary to attain this transcendent end, that is, grace and charity that cause the acts that orient the elect rational creature to God and draw him to God” (Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 189).

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manifesting goodness in both. Moreover, it could be said that these tasks ought to have fallen to the child regardless of a reward; nevertheless, the parents determine that their child will benefit more through a recompense for the task. (For instance, perhaps the parents are glad to have the child earn money, which he would otherwise request as a gift from the parents, or perhaps they see reward as incentivizing and thus forming the child’s use of free choice.) Similarly, the household ordination does not merely mark out reward-worthy tasks; the parents teach the child how to properly wash dishes and take out the trash (thereby disposing the child with the power or habitus to perform these tasks). Presumably the parents see such virtuous dispositions as themselves good habits that advance the child’s welfare and progress toward adulthood. After outlining the plan for an allowance, a week passes and the child freely performs (that is, by choice) the tasks that the parents ordained and empowered the child to do. When the end of the week comes, can one say that the child has “earned” the ten-dollar reward? Yes. By his free decision to do the deputed work, the child has earned the reward that the parents ordained to give to him upon its completion. At the same time, can one also call the allowance money a gift? Yes. The child would not be able to earn anything—according to his unequal and dependent relationship to the parents—had not the parents given him the power to do so according to a larger parenting plan. Thus, the child’s allowance is both a gift and a reward, resurfacing Thomas’s position that graced wayfarers are both worthy and unworthy of glory. As a gift, the reward of an allowance flows from the parents’ determination to do something that is not naturally necessary but is nevertheless “good” for the child and the family. It is an effect of parental love and the order that flows from it. The reward cannot be originally or strictly merited by the child. As a reward, the money recompenses the child’s voluntary completion of tasks that the parents set for him. The child has the capacity to refuse to do the tasks (which may bring a different recompense), so that by doing them, he performs works of a meritorious character that deserve the proportional rewards attached to them by the parents.90 The ten dollars cannot follow a strictly just arrangement because of the inequality in 90. Thomas can provide greater nuance to divine ordination through the distinction between operative and cooperative grace. These different ways of disposing the wayfarer are not as readily available to the parent.

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the relationship, but one can see a relative justice in its payment to the child who earns it. In this example, one sees the way in which human beings act as instrumental agents in accomplishing their predestined ends. Important to note here is that the system is much more about divine rewards—and a system whereby God can deliver them—than it is about the rights or agency of the recipient; in that sense, Thomas’s discussion tends toward the language of rewards over merit. The duplex nature of “gift” and “reward” inherent in reward-worthy action arises from Thomas’s insistence that “a person obtains from God something like a reward for his operation, what God gave him the power of operation for.”91 Meritorious works follow a system of quasi-allowances established by God. Thomas can thus say that “a person merits insofar as he does voluntarily what he ought to do.”92 Moreover, not unlike the parents who established a system in which they must justly pay their child for certain acts, Thomas also concludes that, by the divine system of merit, God becomes a debtor not to human beings but to God’s self. He writes: “Because our actions have the ratio of merit only on the presupposition of divine ordination, it does not follow that God is simply made a debtor to us, but to Godself, insofar as God’s ordination ought to be fulfilled.”93 By virtue of providence, God attaches rewards to certain human actions so that, when wayfarers accomplish these actions, their work has the character of merit according to the system established by God. The remaining questions in ST I-II:114 explore which actions on the journey fall under the ratio of rewards and which do not. Question 114 takes up the terminus of the journey first, asking whether eternal life may be merited under varying circumstances: without grace (a. 2) or with grace (a. 3)? Knowing that merit is only possible as an effect of cooperative grace provides a straightforward enough answer to article 2. The reader of question 109 also knows that grace is necessary to heal and elevate fallen nature, and Thomas renews these claims in article 2. Article 3 asks whether eternal life may be considered a congruent or condign reward. For Thomas, the notion of condign merit indicates an equality or “co-dignity” between the two parties or, at least, between the nature of the work and the nature of the reward. Condignity would seem impossible given the inequal91. ST I-II:114, 1 c. 92. ST I-II:114, 1 ad. 1. 93. ST I-II:114, 1 ad. 3.

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ity between God and human beings, yet Thomas does not entirely foreclose on the possibility that human beings condignly merit eternal life. Because meritorious acts are the effect of cooperative grace, rewards can be considered from the perspective of both agents.94 If one measures a good work as arising from a person’s free will—so that the human person is identified as operator—then it cannot possibly be coequal in dignity with the Rewarder or the reward of eternal life. If one considers the principle that causes the free choices and consequent good work—so that the Holy Spirit is identified as operator—then such work is condign because it arises from God’s self in the external missions of the divine persons. Thomas writes: “For now the value of the merit is assessed according to the power of the Holy Spirit moving us into eternal life, according to that passage from Jn. 4:14 ‘It will become in him a spring of water welling up into eternal life.’”95 Congruent rewards, on the other hand, primarily reference human beings as the agents of the work. As soon as human agency is identified, inequality or disproportion between the parties attains so that only congruent rewards are possible. Thomas’s distinction between congruent and condign grace not only appreciates the roles of divine and human agency; it also underscores the dynamism of that cooperation. Eternal life is an outcome of God and the person bringing to term that which God wills for the wayfarer.96 94. Thomas writes, “A person’s meritorious work can be considered in two ways: in one way, according as it proceeds from free choice; another way, according as it proceeds from the grace of the Holy Spirit” (ST I-II:114, 3 c). 95. ST I-II:114, 3 c. 96. A final critical point stemming from the discussion of condign and congruent merit is the general affirmation that a person can do things that deserve the reward of eternal life. Thomas writes: “Also the price of the work is assessed according to the dignity of the grace, by which a person, having been made a sharer in the divine nature, is adopted as a child of God, someone to whom the inheritance is owed by the right of adoption itself, according to that passage in Romans, ‘If sons, then also heirs’” (ST I-II:114, 3 c). The divinizing power of grace makes an otherwise insufficient human action one of surpassing good, and it makes the recipient a “sharer” in the divine nature and thus a co-heir with the Son in the rewards given to him by the Father. This connection becomes even stronger in Thomas’s biblical commentaries, particularly the commentary on John where Thomas is able to draw textual connections between the saving work of the Word and the movement of the wayfarer on the journey. For Thomas on adopted sonship, see Luc-Thomas Somme, Fils adoptifs de Dieu par Jesus Christ: la filiation divine par adoption dans la theologie de saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: J. Vrin, 1997), and William D. Lynn, Christ’s Redemptive Merit: The Nature of Its Causality According to St. Thomas (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1962). Best among studies on Aquinas and deification is Spezzano’s The Glory of God’s Grace, particularly 192–206, on “Participation in the Divine Nature as Participation in Christ’s Sonship.”

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Just as Thomas integrates faith into his discussion of justification, he treats the virtue of charity as integral to reward-worthy action in ST I-II:114, 4. Works are worthy of reward based on two basic principles: (1) divine ordination and (2) the free will of the actor. Charity motivates both of these principles. Divine providence and the order of the cosmos can reflect nothing other than the divine will, which is love. Human beings are predestined and graced because God loves them. Moreover, divine ordination conditions the journey so that forward progress depends on cooperative acts of love that have God in mind as the ultimate object of love and, along the way, conform the wayfarer to God as end. Loving acts, however, are necessarily contingent actions where persons choose to love something. Thomas writes: “Similarly, is it also manifest that what we do out of love we do most willingly. Therefore, because the ratio of merit requires that it be voluntary, merit is chiefly attributed to charity.”97 Thomas’s treatment of the relation between charity and reward reminds his readers that the journey must be suffused with love for God and, in turn, for others. It cannot be one of mere self-service whereby the wayfarer narrowly works to advance her self-interest. Rather, the journey begins and continues in a loving desire for God as highest good and, as such, the degree to which a person acts with charity can measure (and thus determine) the extent to which she deserves reward. After examining the terminus of the journey, Thomas turns to its initium in ST I-II:114, 5, asking “Whether one may merit for oneself the first grace.” The basic answer is, again, already at hand: no, justification is an effect of operative grace. Thomas concludes: “And so it is manifest that all merit is repugnant to grace, since as in Rom. 11:6: ‘if from works, then not now by grace.’”98 He further reasons that grace exceeds in proportion the finite nature of human beings so that it cannot be properly earned. Beyond the ontological rationale, Thomas reasserts the causal order originally established with predestination: merit cannot be an initial cause of grace; only grace can cause meritorious works: “But when anyone already has grace, the grace already possessed cannot fall under merit, because a reward is the terminus of the work, but grace is the principium of all our good works, as said above.”99 One might legitimately ask why Thomas repeats all these positions against 97. ST I-II:114, 4 c. 98. ST I-II:114, 5 c. 99. ST I-II:114, 5 c.

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earning the first grace from God. Apart from affirming these positions in light of his discussion on merit, the article’s objections suggest other motivations. Objection 1 cites Augustine (Epistle 186) and the phrase “faith merits justification,” by which the objector advocates that one can merit the first grace by the act of faith. Thomas clarifies Augustine’s position as an important authority that actually affirms the conclusions of ST I-II:114, 5. He writes: Just as Augustine says in his Retractions he was deceived in this for some time, believing the beginning of faith to be from us but its consummation to be given to us by God; that [position] he there retracts. And it seems to pertain to this sense that [he thinks that] ‘justification is merited by faith.’ But if we suppose as a truth had by faith that the beginning of faith is in us from God, so also the act of faith follows from the first grace, and so the first grace is not able to be merited.100

Thomas concludes that, for Augustine as for himself, only God can initiate faith through a first and unearned gift of grace. Advocating Augustine’s retracted position approaches the Massilian position, which Augustine rebutted in De praedestinatione sanctorum.101 That is, arguing that first grace comes as a reward subverts divine priority in the salvation of human beings, leaving God to respond to those who “do what is in themselves.” Thomas concludes: “God does not give except to the worthy. Yet they were not previously worthy, but because God makes them worthy by grace.”102 Even as Thomas rebuts the objector’s position, he stresses that all matter must be disposed for a given end and, in the case of human beings, the disposition for eternal life is an effect of God’s operative grace. For Thomas, the journey toward union with God is a gradated movement to the final term. As such there are intermediate steps, and grace effects these steps as well as the final terminus. He writes: “Now the motion of any mover extends not only to the ultimate end of the movement, but also to the whole progression of the movement. But the end of the movement of grace is eternal life, and progress in this movement is by the increase of charity or 100. ST I-II:114, 5 ad. 1. 101. In On the Predestination of the Saints, 3–4 (223–28), Augustine explains that his own view about who initiates conversion changed over time; he comes to identify God as the sole cause of conversion which implies that God chooses or predestines the persons whom God then prepares to receive grace. 102. ST I-II:114, 5 ad. 2.

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grace.”103 God predestines some to eternal life and uses graces to move the elect to this end, but the process by which the end is attained unfolds contingently, through intermediate cooperation by the wayfarer. God rewards the wayfarer with increasing capacity (habitus) and motivation (auxilium) to love God and others. Progress on the journey is marked by growth in charity and its related virtues even as such love differs among wayfarers and their given contexts and places on the journey.104 The step-by-step sanctification of believers in charity manifests divine goodness in all its variegated complexity. Thomas concludes his examination of rewards on the journey with the question of perseverance. In ST I-II:109 he described the gift of perseverance as “divine auxilium guiding and protecting the person against impulses of temptation.”105 That auxilium “protects” the person in spite of herself already suggests that perseverance cannot be an effect of cooperative grace.106 Moreover, perseverance references God as actor—not the wayfarer. Thomas concludes: “Hence it is clear that the . . . perseverance of the wayfarer does not fall under merit because it depends solely on divine motion which is the principle of all merit.”107 Thomas references the final invocations of the “Lord’s Prayer” to confirm this view; the petitioner asks God to “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” The prayer reflects a humble peti103. ST I-II:114, 8 c. 104. In ST I-II:114, 4, Thomas argues that charity is the principal virtue and proximate cause for meritorious acts; it is a root virtue from which others grow. He writes: “Now the human mind’s movement to the fruition of the Divine good is the proper act of charity, whereby all the acts of the other virtues are ordained to this end, since all the other virtues are commanded by charity. Hence the merit of life everlasting pertains first to charity, and secondly, to the other virtues, inasmuch as their acts are commanded by charity.” Taken in this way, one may say that increases in other virtues such as mercy, justice, patience, humility, and the like are also interim rewards for the wayfarer’s cooperation, which is rooted in charity. 105. ST I-II:109, 10 c. 106. Wawrykow points out that perseverance represents a distinctive example of operative auxilium outside of conversion; he writes: “Some interpreters of Aquinas have seen conversion as the only example of operative auxilium, but this is wrong. Not only would that be a strained interpretation of his point that conversion is the special example of such grace (that is ‘special’ does not mean ‘only’). It ignores the fact that by this point in the treatise, Aquinas has already provided sufficient indication of where another operative auxilium would be found: in the perseverance in habitual grace of those who have already converted to God” (Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 197). 107. ST I-II:114, 9 c.

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tion to a merciful God rather than an expectation of reward.108 In the words of the prayer, the wayfarer asks that God treat him as a “thing moved.” Thomas thus ends his review of possible rewards with another that cannot be merited: perseverance. What makes this non-reward particularly noteworthy is its timing on the journey. God provides perseverance to recipients already in a state of justice and grace. It seemed clear enough that a translation into a state of grace could not be merited while progress in that state and final glory could be viewed as rewards. Thomas complicates this map of the journey by suggesting that, even in a state of grace, God provides wayfarers with operative graces, which maintain their status and which might otherwise be lost through sin. The resulting view of the journey is one in which (1) justification and reconciliation are never rewards, (2) final glory is always seen as a congruent reward when viewed from the perspective of the wayfarer’s action, and (3) progress between these poles is effected both by continuing gifts and rewards. As such, the wayfarer finds herself simultaneously responsible for her progress and in need of regular, undeserved divine assistance. The interim stages of the journey are dynamic ones that reflect both divine and human agency according to the order established by God. While this complicates the categorization of human actions, it reflects an intimate and ongoing relationship between God and the wayfarer that, as we shall see, is substantiated by examples from scripture.

The Possibility of Rewards Thomas establishes a framework within which divine rewards are possible. Providence and predestination, provisions of grace, and contingent human action inform the framework and are plotted onto the wayfarer’s journey to union with God. Two categories of rewards emerge: (1) interim rewards (increases in grace during the journey) and (2) final rewards (glory 108. Thomas writes: “We impetrate in prayer things that we do not merit, since God hears sinners who beseech the pardon of their sins, which they do not merit, as appears from Augustine . . . otherwise it would have been useless for the publican to say: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner’ (Lk. 18:13). So too we may impetrate of God in prayer the grace of perseverance either for ourselves or for others, although it does not fall under merit” (ST I-II:114, 9 ad. 1). The language of impetration (impetrare) is interesting, suggesting some human capacity for effective agency prior to certain graces. For Cajetan’s reception and use of this term, see my “Human Action and the Possibility of Reward: Cajetan on Grace, Justification, and Merit,” Zeitschrift für Neuere Theologiegeschichte 17, no. 1 (2010): 1–33.

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given to those who have reached the journey’s end). Thomas restricts what can be said of reward-worthy action. Human beings cannot earn the first grace, justification, reconversion, or other operative graces such as perseverance; reward-worthy actions are entirely encompassed and made possible by prior and ongoing graces. Thomas only speaks of merit in the final question of the treatise on grace, and after establishing its limited legitimacy in the first article, he uses six of the remaining nine articles to exclude potential scenarios for merit.109 Measured in this way, one could say that Thomas effectively limits the applicability and significance of reward.

Rewards in Other Parts of the ST With a strong grasp of the treatise on grace, one can see its relationship and influence in other parts of the ST, particularly those that speak to the journey itself. Three sections from among many exemplify interesting ways in which “rewards” inform Thomas’s larger discussion the human journey: (1) his treatment of the beatitudes as virtues (ST I-II:69), (2) his treatise on charity (ST II-II:23–46), and (3) his discussion of the effects of the Sacrament of the Eucharist (ST III:79). These topics emerge in three distinct areas of the ST, yet each connects to the treatise on grace, and more to the point, each indicates an indispensable place for divine rewards. Thomas does not merely think of the journey as theoretically possible or as a handy illustration for the way in which grace operates; rather, the journey comprises concrete instances of human efforts that are worthy of reward and thus indispensable for union with God.

The Beatitudes Thomas’s discussion of the beatitudes in ST I-II:69 belongs to the treatise on human habits. The beatitudes represent specific positive habits (virtues), which human beings may practice as a means to completing the journey. The beatitudes are themselves profoundly scriptural. They constitute a series of reward texts spoken by Jesus, and Thomas integrates their various actions 109. Articles 2, 5–7, and 9–10 each address a certain situation on the journey that cannot qualify as worthy of reward. See Michael Root’s “Aquinas, Merit, and Reformation Theology after the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,” Modern Theology 20, no.1 (2004): 5–22, especially 10–14.

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into his overall conception of the wayfarer’s journey.110 Indeed, a plain sense reading of the scriptural text reveals Jesus relating certain rewards to certain actions. Beatitude refers to a state of happiness or blessedness and, in one sense, the seven beatitudes connote states of happiness in themselves. Nevertheless, Thomas includes them in a larger treatise on habits that, generally, dispose or prepare the wayfarer for reward-worthy action. In ST I-II:69, 1, Thomas distinguishes the beatitudes from the technical categories of “virtues” and the “gifts.” Poverty, mourning, peacemaking, and the other beatitudes connote happy states that differ but relate to those enumerated in the theological virtues, cardinal virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.111 Thomas writes: “But a person is moved toward beatitude through the works of virtue and above all by the works of the gifts, if we speak of eternal beatitude, for which our reason is not sufficient [cause], since we need to be led by the Holy Spirit, and to be perfected with the Spirit’s gifts that we may obey and follow [God].”112 The causes underlying the beatitudes are reducible neither to the virtues nor to the gifts, yet attaining final beatitude requires the habitual actualization of both. He concludes: “And for that reason the beatitudes are distinguished from the virtues and gifts, not [as habit from habit], but as act from habit.”113 The beatitudes connote actions commended uniquely by Christ that carry divine rewards for those who do them, and Thomas sets them into continuity with the virtues and gifts through the language of “habit.”114 110. Thomas appeals to Christ’s authority when defending the fittingness of the rewards revealed in the beatitudes; he writes: “On the contrary stands the authority of our Lord who propounded these rewards” (ST I-II:69, 4 sc). 111. In ST I-II:68, 1, Thomas distinguishes between “virtue” and “gift” according to the way in which they dispose a person to “well-doing.” Virtues arise by intrinsic principles while gifts arise from extrinsic principles (particularly the inspiration of the Holy Spirit). He enumerates the virtues according to the cardinal and theological virtues and the gifts according to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. In the sed contra to ST I-II:69, 1, Thomas writes: “Certain things are included among the beatitudes that are neither virtues nor gifts, e.g., poverty, mourning, and peace. Therefore the beatitudes differ from the virtues and gifts.” 112. ST I-II:69, 1 c. 113. ST I-II:69, 1 c. 114. Wawrykow describes Thomas’s use of habit: “For Thomas, a habit is a steady disposition for action of a certain type. It is a perfection of the soul or of a power of the soul that makes possible action of a certain type” (Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 169).

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The rewards connected to the beatitudes are possible because the recipient has a prior disposition and corresponding action deserving of reward. If “blessed are the chore-doers for they shall receive their allowance” was a beatitude, the disposition of a love for chores and its habitual actualization would merit the reward of the allowance. But is the disposition itself a reward? Thomas writes: Therefore those things which are touched on as merits in the beatitudes are a certain preparation or disposition to beatitude—either perfect or inchoate. And yet those which are set down as rewards are able to be either perfect beatitude, and so pertain to the future life, or a kind of inchoate beatitude, as is [the case] in persons who have attained perfection, and so the rewards pertain to the present life.115

The wayfarer merits future rewards by undertaking the dispositions set out in the beatitudes, but those dispositions themselves may constitute either a perfect or an inchoate kind reward (inchoatio beatitudinis). They also could be parsed as interim or final rewards, and the principal criterion for differentiation would be whether the disposition leads to further progress on the journey (interim) or whether it already anticipates union with God (final). What is certain is that the habitual acts resulting from the dispositions of the beatitudes typically advance the wayfarer toward union with God, which Thomas describes as a praemium. The beatitudes signify and cause both interim and final rewards; he writes: “For when a person begins to progress in the acts of the virtues and the gifts, one may hope that the person will arrive both at perfection on the journey and at perfection in the heavenly homeland.”116 “Perfection” may therefore connote both an interim and final reward that is caused, meritoriously, by the habitual actualization of the beatitudes. Thomas categorizes the beatitudes according to the varied dimensions of human life. They pertain to the “sensual” (beatitudes 1–3), “active” (4–5), and “contemplative” (6–7) aspects of the wayfarer’s life and they share a progressive relationship.117 Thomas writes: “For sensual beatitude [happiness] is 115. ST I-II:69, 2 c. 116. ST I-II:69, 2 c. 117. Thomas writes: “These beatitudes are most suitably enumerated. To make this evident it must be observed that beatitude has been held to consist in one of three things: for some have ascribed it to a sensual life, some, to an active life, and some, to a contemplative life. Now these three kinds of happiness stand in different relations to future beatitude, by hoping for which we are said to be happy” (ST I-II:69, 3 c).

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an impediment to future beatitude because it is false and opposed to reason. But the beatitude of the active life is dispositive for future beatitude. But contemplative beatitude, if it is perfect, is essentially future beatitude itself, but if it is imperfect, it is a certain inchoateness of [future beatitude].”118 Thomas’s reading of the beatitudes elucidates stages of the journey. The wayfarer must first overcome the obstacles of the sensual life that include residual concupiscence. Knowing from the treatise on grace that such obstacles can only be healed through operative infusions of grace, it is clear that habits like meekness and mourning are initially infused and actualized through operative graces. When the wayfarer is healed by grace so that her sensual life is properly ordered to her predestined end, she may pursue the happiness of the active life; the work of justice and mercy loosely correspond to “life in a state of grace,” and they aim at the final reward of eternal life. Finally, in the contemplative life the wayfarer may begin to experience—imperfectly or perfectly—the happiness of final beatitude. To be sure, even in a state of grace, the wayfarer still practices poverty of spirit, meekness, and mourning, but these precede and make possible the steady dispositions of justice and mercy as well as the contemplative practices of peacemaking and purity of heart. Thomas concludes his discussion of the beatitudes by treating the rewards themselves. Each reward properly recompenses the practiced habit or disposition that Jesus associates with it. With the sensual life, the beatitudes withdraw the wayfarer from disordered desires. Speaking generally of the first three beatitudes and then of the first beatitude as an example, Thomas writes: And for that reason the rewards of the first three beatitudes are taken up according to those things in which some find earthly beatitude. For people seek a certain excellence and abundance in exterior things, namely riches and honors, both of which are signified by the kingdom of heaven in which a person attains to the excellence and abundance of good things in God. And for that reason the Lord promises the kingdom of heaven to the poor in spirit.119 118. ST I-II:69, 3 c. 119. ST I-II:69, 4 c. Thomas argues that sensual pleasure is sought in external goods, concupiscence, and inordinate love of self. Poverty of spirit shows contempt for personal good. Meekness is cultivated (1) as a natural, acquired virtue of human nature, and (2) as an infused and elevating gift; both eschew personal goods and honor. Similarly, Thomas argues that mourning overcomes concupis-

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Thomas practices this same kind of “disposition → habitual action → corresponding reward” sequence with the remaining six beatitudes. The reward signifies perfection in habitual action. With the sensual life, then, the rewards correspond to the wayfarer’s intellect and will as reordered away from selfishness. With the active, they correspond to practicing justice and mercy with one’s neighbors.120 With the contemplative, they correspond to experiences of union with God.121 God provides interim and final rewards to the wayfarer over the progressive course of the journey so that the journey itself can be experienced in terms of increasing rewards. The sensual and active rewards promote forward movement within the state of grace (even as they direct the wayfarer toward the final reward) while the rewards of the contemplative life already participate in final reward—seeing God and being children of God. Thomas’s argument reemphasizes that the wayfarer’s journey is naturally progressive; following the arc of the beatitudes, wayfarers begin in a state of sin, move into a state of grace, and advance toward final beatitude or union with God. Thomas’s systematic treatment of the beatitudes illustrates the critical integration and affirmation of his understanding of human action and divine rewards. Grace heals natural virtues and elevates them through further habitual gifts. Such gifts dispose persons to habitual action. Habitual graces cence so that the first three beatitudes promote the movement away from sin and into a state of greater beatitude, possibly synonymous with the state of grace. 120. The active life calls one to orient one’s love, selflessly, to the neighbor. Thomas distinguishes that one interacts with one’s neighbor sometimes out of “duty” (debitum) and other times out of “spontaneous gratuity.” Put more simply, wayfarers are obliged to interact justly with their neighbors but they may also do so freely in love. Thomas writes: “And [as to dutiful interaction with others] we are disposed [in one way] by a virtue, so that we ought not to refuse to do our duty to our neighbor, which pertains to justice. But [in another way] by a gift we are led with a fuller desire to do the same duty just like eating and drinking with a fervent desire for food and drink. Thus the fourth beatitude set down: ‘Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice’” (ST I-II:69, 3 c). Thomas suggests that the fifth beatitude represents the proper disposition—had by virtue and gift—for interacting “spontaneously” with one’s neighbor, and in doing so, the wayfarer “shall receive mercy.” 121. The contemplative life is marked by dispositions that already anticipate the wayfarer’s final reward. With the sixth beatitude, Thomas writes: “Now the effect of the active life, insofar as a person is perfected in himself by the virtues and gifts, is the cleansing of the heart, so that soul of a person is not defiled by the passions. Thus the sixth beatitude set down: ‘Blessed are the clean of heart’” (ST I-II:69, 3 c). The contemplative life is one in which the foretastes of purity of heart and peacefulness can be further practiced as meritorious action. As rewards, the contemplative beatitudes anticipate final glory and participate in this reward, either “perfectly or inchoately.” The pure of heart “see God.”

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capacitate human beings to cooperate and practice virtuous action and auxilium actualizes their potency. Because these virtuous and habitual actions are undertaken freely, they deserve reward. The rewards of the beatitudes befit the actions and exist on the “presupposition of divine ordination.” Christ himself orders these rewards; God becomes a debtor to God’s self when Jesus reveals to human beings that they will receive rewards for certain meritorious acts—all of which are anchored in selfless love for God and neighbor. The beatitudes thus constitute reward texts that partially order the system of divine recompense for human beings. Thomas stratifies the beatitudes over various dimensions of human life so that they promote a totalizing movement to final beatitude. He takes a practical example of scriptural rewards and exposits their meaning in light of his technical understanding of predestination, grace, human action, and rewards.

Charity Thomas treats charity as the theological virtue that presupposes every reward. He initially discusses the theological and cardinal virtues in the prima-secundae under the heading of habits. In ST I-II:62 he enumerates the theological virtues and distinguishes their qualities from other moral and intellectual virtues. Then fifty-two questions later, at the outset of the secunda-secundae pars, Thomas devotes forty-six questions (ST II-II:1–46) to the theological virtues. Beyond the obvious variation in length, a critical difference in these two treatments is that the latter exposits them in light of the treatise on grace. Thomas devotes twenty-four questions (ST II-II:23–46) to the general subject of charity, more than four times the length of the treatise on grace. Charity is not simply a richer topic; rather, it constitutes the primary context—the debitum of charity commanded by Christ—in which one can see the effects of grace and their connection to divine reward. It is the practical way to union with God.122 Three particular examples illustrate 122. Davies writes: “Aquinas’s main idea here is that charity amounts first of all to a full and proper love of God, and then, based on this, to a full and proper love of what we ought to love in the realm of creatures. And in agreement with what we have seen him to think about the New Law, Aquinas takes charity to be ‘instilled within our hearts’ since it derives from God working directly in us by grace so as to make us God-like in our thinking and acting” (Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, 240). Spezzano speaks of the treatise as introducing charity as a fundamental and organizing theme for the ST and for thinking of deification; she writes: “First, the virtue of charity, by which human

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that Thomas continues the themes of journey and reward into his analysis of charity. They explore the virtue itself, its increase, and its order. Asking whether charity is “something created in the soul,” Thomas reemphasizes the order of operative and cooperative grace. Noting that charity is made possible through the motion of the Holy Spirit, Thomas writes: “The movement of charity does not proceed from the Holy Spirit moving the human mind so that the mind is only [a thing] moved and is in no way the principle of this movement, as if when a body is moved by a certain exterior movement. For this is contrary to the ratio of a voluntary act, the principle of which ought to be in one’s self, as was said above.”123 Thomas is certain that the Holy Spirit provides the auxilium by which charity is possible, yet it must move the wayfarer so that she moves with the motion; otherwise the act losses its voluntary (and meritorious) nature. The Spirit’s actualization of charity cannot destroy human nature but must edify the proper character of human love. Thomas states: Also, similarly, it cannot be said that the Holy Spirit moves the will to an act of loving just as an instrument is moved because, although [an instrument] is a principle of an act, it is nevertheless not in [its power] to act or not to act. For the ratio of a voluntary act would also be removed and the ratio of merit would be excluded, as was had above, because the love of charity is the root of meriting. So it ought to be said that the will is moved by the Holy Spirit to the act of loving so that [the will] is also effecting the act.124

Thomas relates charity to merit by arguing that merit (and thus reward) is possible when a person freely and deliberately commits a charitable act. The movement of the Spirit thus empowers the human will so that it “is also accomplishing the act.” The analogy of the child’s allowance is helpful; the child must choose to do the acts that earn the allowance (the reward), yet beings love God, and others for God’s sake, is based on God’s communication to us of a good; that is, it is based on God’s love for us, by which he causally communicates every good. As detailed in previous chapters Thomas often frames his treatments of the special gifts of God’s love for humankind—grace, the Incarnation, adopted sonship—with a reference to this introductory article [IIa-IIa 23 a1] to the communication of the divine goodness by God’s causal love, placing these discussions into the context of the divine ordinatio, established by God’s will to manifest the divine goodness in the order and government of the universe, and especially of rational creatures called to beatitude” (Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace, 214–15). 123. ST II-II:23, 2 c. 124. ST II-II:23, 2 c.

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these acts depend upon the prior motion of the parent. Thomas ultimately concludes that God must place “some habitual form in us which is superadded to natural power, inclining that power to the act of charity, and making it to operate promptly and with delight.”125 Thomas neatly deploys the categories of auxilium/habitual grace, operative/cooperative grace, and reward in this introductory article on the nature of charity. Progress in the journey depends on charitable acts, yet Thomas situates such acts in the context of primary (divine) and secondary (human) causality. Thomas builds on the centrality of grace and human action for charity when he asks “whether charity can increase” (ST I-II:24, 4), and he uses the question to plot reward-worthy acts of charity onto the journey’s path. He writes: “It should be said that the charity of the wayfarer is able to increase. For we are said to be wayfarers because we are tending toward God, who is the ultimate end of our beatitude. But on this journey, the more we progress toward God, the closer we are to God, who is not approached by bodily steps but by the affectus of the mind. But charity causes this approach, because the mind is united to God through charity.”126 Thomas inextricably links the goal of charity with the motif of journey so that charity underscores and anticipates interim and final rewards. Human beings make progress by acting with love toward God and neighbor. Thomas’s argument parallels the discussion of meriting “increases in grace” in ST I-II:114, 8, which holds that progress to the final goal includes interim steps or increases in charity.127 The discussion of charity’s increase illustrates that Thomas’s earlier treatment of grace is not merely abstract. Rather, he ties rewards to specific actions so that the wayfarer’s journey and ultimate destination depend on concrete acts of love. Thomas’s discussion of the “order of charity” extends these concrete considerations. Authentic charity orders all objects of love to God as ultimate end so that what the wayfarer loves in the “lesser” objects is a reflection, likeness, or relation to God: “Yet it was said above that the love of charity tends to God just as to the principle of beatitude, on which 125. ST II-II:23, 2 c. 126. ST II-II:24, 4 c. 127. In ST I-II:114, 7 c, Thomas writes: “Now the motion of the mover extends not merely to the last term of the movement, but to the whole progress of the movement. But the term of the movement of grace is eternal life; and progress in this movement is by the increase of charity or grace” (emphasis mine).

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the sharing of the friendship of charity is founded. And for that reason, a certain order ought to attend by which things are loved by charity, according to relation of the first principle of that love, which is God.”128 With God as the ordering telos of all charity, the wayfarer ought to love all things insofar as they manifest divine goodness and relate to God as final end. Thomas outlines an order following (1) love of God above all things, (2) love of neighbor above oneself, and (3) love of oneself. He further delineates the order of charity to include family, close neighbors, benefactors, and enemies.129 Thomas’s seemingly complex organization of charity clarifies the value of certain acts and objects encountered on the journey; it details the roadmap for the wayfarer. Yet such acts are not always clear, particularly as they relate to neighbors who include family, friends, strangers, benefactors, and enemies. Thomas makes the strong contention that the order of charity revealed to the wayfarer will persist intrinsically among the citizens of heaven. The things of nature do not dissolve in heaven; he writes: It should be said that the order of charity necessarily remains in the heavenly homeland as it pertains to the love of God above all things. For this will be the case simply when a person will enjoy God perfectly. But concerning other persons, a distinction seems needed. Because, just as was said above, the degrees of love are able to be distinguished either according to the different goods which a person desires for others or according to the intensity of the love.130

The “degree” and “intensity” of the wayfarer’s love will determine the extent to which she enjoys the vision of God. Note too that discussions such as those covering the theological virtues are scriptural discussions. In the case of the theological virtues, Thomas takes the language of First Corinthians and applies it to the journey—stressing that these virtues must be practiced by wayfarers in order to receive interim and final rewards.131 The beatitudes 128. ST II-II:26, 1 c. 129. For a complete order, see ST II-II:26, 1–12 and 27, 1–8. In question 26, for instance, Thomas argues that one ought to love “close” neighbors more than distant neighbors (a. 6) and one’s father more than one’s children (a. 9). 130. ST II-II:26, 13 c. 131. Davies writes of Thomas’s treatise on charity: “Aquinas’s treatment of charity draws on his reading of the New Testament and on the tradition of post-biblical theology he inherited, the writings of St. Augustine being a key example. . . . So he is thoroughly influenced in his discussion by texts such as I Corinthians 13, in which St. Paul speaks of himself being ‘a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal’ without love, and in which he ends up saying that ‘faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest

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and theological virtues represent the scriptural chores that the Father sets out for his adopted children along with the promise of reward.

The Sacramental Life Thomas’s view of rewards extends through the tertia pars to the sacramental life of the wayfarer.132 His general comments on the necessity and effects of the sacraments (ST III:60–65) stress that the sacramental system is indispensable for progress on the journey because the sacraments are means by which God advances wayfarers in grace.133 Thomas treats the “necessity of the sacraments” in ST III:61, and he argues that sacraments (1) “confer on persons divine auxilium for salvation under the corporeal and sensible signs which are called sacraments”; (2) “provide spiritual medicine to persons by means of certain corporeal signs”; and (3) “lest therefore it is too hard for a person to be totally drawn away from corporeal actions, corporeal exercise of these is love.” Another Pauline text governing Aquinas’s teaching on charity is Romans 5:5, which says ‘God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’” (Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, 239–40). See also Levering’s investigation of Thomas’s use of 1 Cor. 13, in Paul, 236–66. 132. See Corey Barnes’s Christ’s Two Wills in Scholastic Thought (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2012), 183–92, for a discussion of the place of the tertia pars in the order of the Summa. Barnes notes the limitations of an exitus-reditus model and argues for Christ, particularly in his humanity, as a critical axis on which the Summa turns. In “Grace,” Wawrykow offers an initial discussion of this topic under the heading “The Grace of Christ”; see Wawrykow, “Grace,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. R. van Nieuwenhove and J. Wawrykow (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 209–18. See also Carlos Leget’s Living with God: Thomas Aquinas on the Relation between Life on Earth and “Life” after Death (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 141–75. 133. Liam Walsh introduces Thomas on the sacraments in “Sacraments,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. R. van Nieuwenhove and J. Wawrykow, 326–64 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995). See also Walsh’s “The Divine and Human in St. Thomas’s Theology of Sacraments,” in Ordo sapientia et amoris, ed. Carlos-Josaphat Pinto de Olivera, 321–52 (Fribourg: Universitatsverlag Freiburg Schweiz, 1993), and John P. Yocum’s “Sacraments in Aquinas,” in Aquinas on Doctrine, ed. Thomas G. Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating, and John P. Yocum, 159–81 (London: T&T Clark, 2004). In “Sacraments,” Walsh relates Thomas’s stress on sacramental causality to the overarching affirmation of divine causality found in his doctrine of God: “A particular feature of the relationship between God and humans that is important for sacramental theology is divine causality. When Aquinas analyzes the action of God in the Prima Pars, he proposes a remarkable integration of its final, formal, and efficient components. In crude terms, God never does anything without having an end in view and without generating a form for what is to reach that end. Where there is divine energy, there is, inseparably, divine design and divine desire. . . . And when God is acting in humans, made in his own image and for the purpose of coming to know and love him, the action of humans is God-formed and God-directed, as well as being God-moved” (Walsh, “Sacraments,” 330–31).

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was set down for persons in the sacraments.”134 The sacraments confer grace through material objects easily grasped by human beings; they confer healing medicine against the corruption of sin; and they dispose wayfarers for the exercitum of the journey. Refuting the contention that the sacraments merely signify grace, Thomas argues that God uses the sacraments as instruments by which to convey grace to wayfarers: “And by this mode the sacraments of the new law cause grace, for they are instituted by divine ordination in order to cause grace in [the recipients].”135 The reference to divine ordination resonates with the language of reward; sacraments are part of the causal ordo—as separated causal instruments—by which human beings can move toward final union with God. They infuse habits and reduce recipients to action thus disposing and training them for progress on the journey. In addition to causing grace in general, specific sacraments communicate specific effects. Not unlike the beatitudes, Thomas argues that the specialized effects belong to different stages or dimensions of the journey. The journey, for instance, includes conversion from a state of sin into a state of grace, and so the special effects of baptism and confession prove indispensable to the wayfarer in need of conversion or reconversion. Similarly, confirmation represents the wayfarer’s arrival “at the perfect age, as it were, of the spiritual life.”136 As Thomas argues for confirmation’s sacramental status, he reminds his readers of the distinct effects of sacraments: “It should be said that the sacraments of the new law are ordered toward special effects of grace, and 134. ST III:61, 1 c. 135. Thomas, ST III:62, 1 c. God uses instruments fitted to accomplish God’s ends. Thomas explains, for instance, that a craftsman uses an axe to fashion a couch because it is a fitting instrument to accomplish that particular end; the axe has instrumental power, but only by the will and motion of the craftsman. Thomas writes: “But the instrumental cause works not by the power of its form, but only by the motion whereby it is moved by the principle agent; so that the effect is not likened to the instrument but to the principle agent; for instance, the couch is not like the axe, but like the art which is in the craftsman’s mind” (ST III:62, 1 c). In ST III.62, 5 c, Thomas further defines the sacraments as separated instrumental efficient causes that extend from the conjoined efficient causality of Christ’s human nature and the effects of his passion. He writes: “Now the principle efficient cause of grace is God’s self, in whom Christ’s humanity is compared as a united instrument, and so the sacrament is as a separate instrument. And for that reason, the saving power is derived from Christ’s divinity through his humanity in that sacrament.” The very purpose of the Incarnation is to give life, and this approximates to the language of divine auxilium. Thomas writes: “The Word, insofar as he was in the beginning with God, vivifies souls as principal agent; nevertheless his flesh, and the mysteries carried out in it, operate instrumentally for the life of the soul” (ST III.62, 5 ad. 1). 136. ST III:72, 1 c.

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for that reason, where a special effect of grace occurs, there is ordered a special sacrament.”137 One can see extreme unction, for instance, as conferring a special grace to those anticipating their final end, or in the case of marriage and holy orders, God provides grace to conform and order recipients in distinctive states of life.138 Along with the Eucharist, these sacraments fall across the continuum of the journey as timely sources of grace for progress. The effects of sacramental grace may themselves be rewards or disposition to actions worthy of reward; here again, distinction may be observed in the sacraments’ operative and cooperative effects. The Eucharist offers an opportune example of sacramental grace understood as a reward. In ST III:73, on the nature of the Eucharist, Thomas sets the discussion of the sacrament into the language of journey. First, he affirms the Eucharist as spiritual food (spirituale alimentum) that sustains wayfarers on the journey; just as a traveler would require corporal food, so the journey to union with God requires spiritual sustenance.139 Second, Thomas reviews appropriate names for the sacrament, listing four: Eucharist, viaticum, sacrifice, and communion. As viaticum, the Eucharist provides traveling provisions to wayfarers: “The Eucharist has a third signification in respect to the future, namely, insofar as the sacrament prefigures the enjoyment of God, which will be in the heavenly homeland. And according to this it is called viaticum, because it shows to us the way of progressing to that homeland.”140 The Eucharist provides support in via and it manifests the heavenly homeland in itself. The Eucharist communicates manifold effects in the recipient and Thomas enumerates these in ST III:79. He stresses that the Eucharist is “perfect in itself.” While the other sacraments attain perfection through reception, the Eucharist is perfected in the consecration of the sacramental elements, which become the body and blood of Christ prior to and irrespec137. ST III:72, 1 c. 138. The special effects of baptism and confession accomplish conversion from a state of sin into a state of grace. Confirmation, matrimony, and holy orders mark special stati within the life of grace, and extreme unction disposes the recipient for movement into final beatitude. The Eucharist preserves and promotes progress of wayfarers already in a state of grace and seeking final union. 139. Thomas writes: “And for that reason, just as baptism is needed for the spiritual life, which is spiritual birth (generatio), and confirmation, which is the spiritual growth, so the sacrament of the Eucharist is needed because it is spiritual food.” (ST III:71, 1 c). 140. Thomas, ST III:73, 4 c.

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tive of reception.141 As such, the Eucharist contains Christ “Who, just as by coming visibly into the world he conferred the life of grace to the world, according to John 1 ‘grace and truth were through Jesus Christ,’ so also, by coming sacramentally the life of grace is worked in persons, according to John 6, ‘the one who eats me will live on account of me.’”142 Following the broad heading “life of grace” (vitam gratiae), Thomas presents the remission of sins, spiritual nourishment, and ecclesial unity as effects of the sacrament. After securing the general power of the sacrament to convey grace, Thomas argues in subsequent articles that the Eucharist promotes the attainment of glory (a. 2), forgives venial sins (a. 3), and preserves the recipient from future sins (a. 6). These varied effects promote the wayfarer’s journey, but not all of these effects may be classified as rewards. Thomas unites the Eucharist with final rewards more firmly when he asks whether the “attaining of glory is an effect of this sacrament.” Thomas fields the following problem: It seems that the effect of this sacrament is not the attainment of glory. For the effect is proportioned to its cause. But this sacrament belongs to wayfarers, and for that reason it is called viaticum. Therefore, since wayfarers are not yet capable of glory, it seems that this sacrament does not cause the attainment of glory.143

In addition to effecting interim progress and interim rewards, the Eucharist also effects final rewards. Because the sacrament is perfect in itself, contains Christ, and signifies his passion, the Eucharist disposes the wayfarer for final rewards, if in no other way than by its signification: the sacrament “prefigures the enjoyment of God, which will be in the heavenly homeland.” If the Eucharist does not promote final rewards, its res significata is counter- indicated. Spiritual food does not merely serve the journey; rather, it culminates in the direct reception of God in the visio Dei. Resuming a theme heard before, all the interim gifts and rewards of the journey have union with God as their object, and so the Eucharist can unhesitatingly be said to anticipate and promote that reward. In reply to the initial objection, Thomas answers: 141. In ST III:78, 1 c, Thomas writes: “This sacrament differs from the other sacraments in two respects. First of all, in this, that this sacrament is accomplished by the consecration of the matter, while the rest are perfected in the use of the consecrated matter.” 142. ST III:79, 1 c. 143. ST: III:79, 2 ob. 1.

134  Thomas and Reward The passion of Christ by which the power of this sacrament operates is indeed the sufficient cause of glory, nevertheless we are not immediately led into glory through that passion, but we ought first to suffer in a similar way [with Christ] so that we may afterwards receive glory [with him], as is said in Rom. 8, and so this sacrament does not immediately admit us to glory, but it gives to us the power of progressing to glory. And for that reason it is called viaticum.144

Thomas maintains conceptual space between reception of the Eucharist and final rewards. This allows him to affirm cooperative human agency. Wayfarers must properly receive the Eucharist and then cooperate with the powers bestowed in the sacrament, and in these acts, cooperation becomes consequential for attaining final glory. Thomas also recognizes the Eucharist by the name “sacrament of charity,” which connotes the most prominent interim reward conveyed by the sacrament. It communicates increases in charity as both habitual grace and auxilium.145 According to the disposition of the recipient, the Eucharist infuses greater habitual perfection in the wayfarer through the gift of charity.146 Proper reception of the sacrament progressively expands the wayfarer’s capacity to love so that even some bonum superexcedens, such as loving one’s enemy, is formally possible in the recipient. Thomas does not, however, limit the rewards of the Eucharist to increases in habitual grace. He writes: “And for that reason, through this sacrament insofar as its power is concerned, not only is the habit of grace and of virtue conferred, but it is excited into action (excitatur in actum) according to 2 Cor. 5:14: ‘the charity of Christ presses us.’”147 Thomas connects the effects of the Eucharist to the conceptual distinctions between habitual grace and auxilium. Without God’s movement pressing the recipient to love, the formal capacity to love one’s enemy remains in potency. An additional reward of proper reception, then, is cooperative auxilium, which actualizes the wayfarer’s love. 144. ST III:79, 3 ad. 1. 145. Thomas introduces sacramentum caritatis in ST III:73, 3 ad. 3, where he writes: “Hence, as Baptism is called the sacrament of life, so the Eucharist is termed the sacrament of Charity, which is the bond of perfection (Col. 3:14).” 146. In ST III:79–80, Thomas addresses the disposition of the wayfarer as critical to receiving the full effects of the Eucharist. Mortal sin impedes the reception of the res tantum, while venial sin can inhibit the full effects of charity. See especially ST III:79, 3 and 8, and ST III:80, 1. 147. ST III:79, 1, ad. 2.

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The Eucharist causes wayfarers to advance toward final glory by signifying the end, infusing habitual graces, and exciting the recipient to action. When the recipient cooperates with such graces, Thomas argues that the Eucharist communicates certain interim rewards. Increases in charity are the most immediate example.148 Thomas additionally suggests that venial sins may be forgiven as a kind of interim cooperative reward. When refracted through the language from the treatise on grace, the position makes good sense. Those disordered or concupiscent actions that do not cause a fall into a state of sin can be healed and moved into a right order. God at times does so with gifts, such as the operative auxilium of perseverance or an infusion of habitual charity. At other times, the wayfarer may cooperate with grace in the remission of venial sins by acting with the motion of the mover or the habit of charity. Such cooperation classifies the remission of venial sins a reward. By following the sacrament’s motion in love for God and others, the wayfarer withdraws from concupiscence. Thomas writes: “Yet the reality (res) of this sacrament is charity, not only insofar as habit but also insofar as act, which is excited (excitatur) in this sacrament; and by this means venial sins are absolved.”149 Thomas’s use of the word res gestures at the res tantum of the sacrament; that which the recipient receives is nothing other than God’s love, and the effect is formal (res) and efficient (exercitum).150 The Eucharist constitutes a source of grace, a series of interim rewards, and a foretaste of final glory. Moreover, unlike baptism, confirmation, marriage, and holy orders, the Eucharist stands out as a sacrament that promotes the journey at multiple points.151 As long as persons are living in a state of grace 148. Note that Thomas affirms this effect in the treatise on grace, especially in ST I-III:114, 8 c. 149. ST III:79, 4 c. In the subsequent article (a. 5), Thomas reminds readers that the Eucharist may not remit the entire debt of punishment caused by venial sin; penance remains integral to full satisfaction. 150. The term excitatur is the one that Thomas used when speaking of divine auxilium’s effect in his earlier general discussion of the effects of the sacraments (ST III:62). The gift of charity conveyed in the Eucharist not only infuses the habitus of charity; it also excites or “inspires the good wish,” thereby actualizing charity. 151. Distinguishing the effects of the Eucharist as those that strengthen the wayfarer already on the journey, Thomas writes: “Every medicine does not suit every stage of sickness; because the tonic given to those who are recovering from fever would be hurtful to them if given while yet in their feverish condition. So likewise Baptism and Penance are as purgative medicines, given to take away the fever of sin; whereas this sacrament is a medicine given to strengthen, and it ought not to be given except to them who are quit of sin” (ST III:80, 4 ad. 2).

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and seeking final glory, the Eucharist, properly received, provides cooperative graces as rewards advancing that end.

Conclusion Four concepts provide distinctive shape to Thomas’s doctrine of rewards and the roles played by God and human beings. First, divine predestination sets an overarching thematic to the wayfarer’s journey. Grace, human actions, and rewards are ordered effects of God’s predestining will and, as Thomas strove to demonstrate in ST I:23, divine election has no cause outside of God’s love and will to manifest goodness. As such, God alone is the first cause of human action and rewards. Second, God provides gifts of grace to promote divine predestination. As that which heals, elevates, and moves human beings, grace is necessarily prior to human action; it is the sine qua non of rewards, and Thomas calls it the principle of meritorious works. Third, having identified predestination and grace as prior causes, Thomas nonetheless affirms that human beings constitute genuine secondary actors in their return to God. As elect and consequently graced, they can cooperatively choose actions that advance their movement toward God. Nevertheless, meritorious action is significantly restricted as was highlighted in ST I-II:114. Finally, grace perfects, elevates, and actualizes human nature so that it may do works deserving of rewards. Even these good works, however, are disproportionate with eternal life. Because God wishes to move human beings to eternal glory according to their nature, God orders a system whereby the finite quality of human work—even elevated or surpassing work—is counted as congruently worthy of reward. The nature and specific forms of God’s ordination, however, are most observable in scripture, which explicitly attaches divine rewards to certain human actions. Thomas is able to demarcate several important points on the journey. Like Bonaventure, major stages of the journey include beginning in a state of sin, moving into a state of grace, and progressing toward final beatitude. Thomas parallels these meta-stages when he classifies the beatitudes according to the sensual, active, and contemplative stages of the journey. He also includes scores of further interim steps proper to the state of grace. When speaking of divine action, he indicates a variety of places where operative and

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cooperative graces distinguish different stages of progress. The sacraments, for instance, assist the wayfarer as concrete instruments of grace at a variety of the journey’s stages; baptism, confirmation, and extreme unction denote noticeably different points of progress, even as Eucharist and penance assist throughout. As for human agency, Thomas marks the wayfarer’s map at countless points. The beatitudes and specific acts of charity (as outlined in the order of charity) denote multiple opportunities for reward-worthy action. Their common foundation is that they are revealed by scripture. All reward texts commend the same root action—that human beings love God above all and other selflessly as part of the natural ordo of charity. Inasmuch as charity is expressed in varied ways, particularly when wayfarers are journeying in the concrete context of human life, scriptural reward texts further clarify when and how a person’s charity may be deserving of particular rewards. Christ exemplifies this charity most perfectly in his acta and passa. Both Thomas’s and Bonaventure’s scriptural commentaries thus offer rich resources for understanding the role of divine rewards as a part of the wayfarer’s journey.

Reward in the Scripture Commentaries

3

B ON AV E N T U R E A N D AQU I N A S ON R E WA R D I N T H E S C R I P T U R E C OM M E N TA R I E S

We turn to the scriptural commentaries by Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas. As we have noted, sacra pagina and sacra doctrina are integral dimensions of the same vital task for both men. Study of their scriptural commentaries illumines the biblical roots of their doctrine as well as their dynamic understandings of the place of divine rewards in an overarching framework of salvation. In his seminal work on Thomas Aquinas, JeanPierre Torrell observes that Thomas’s systematic works are best understood when read in concert with his biblical commentaries. He writes: “Though long overlooked in favor of the Sentences or Summa, this kind of biblical teaching was nevertheless Thomas’s ordinary labor. . . . If we wish, therefore, to get a slightly less one-sided idea of the whole theologian and his method, it is imperative to read and use in much deeper fashion these biblical commentaries in parallel with the great systematic works.”1 The present chapter seeks to do just that for Thomas and Bonaventure: to read and exposit their biblical commentaries for their presentation of human action and divine reward in concert with their systematic works. Doing so demonstrates deep harmony between their exegetical and systematic works, and it reveals the fundamentally biblical nature of Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s doctrines of reward. 1. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:55.

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Expositing Scripture Bonaventure and Thomas share an understanding of divine revelation’s purpose including the force of reward texts for plotting Christian life as a journey. Interpreting and understanding the meaning of scripture is nevertheless a multifaceted endeavor requiring certain basic rules for exegesis. Bonaventure’s prologue to the Breviloquium discloses his approach to exegesis, which is practically affirmed in the commentaries themselves.2 Following Eph. 3:14–19, Bonaventure suggests that the dense revelation of scripture can be understood under the four-dimensional qualities of width, length, height, and depth: “But the ‘breadth’ of scripture consists in the multiplicity of its parts; the ‘length’ in its description of times and ages, the ‘height’ in its description of ordered grades of hierarchy, and the ‘depth’ in the multiplicity of its mystical senses and meanings.”3 With each heading, Bonaventure indicates a hermeneutical dimension that informs an appropriate approach to exegesis. The breadth, length, and height of scripture speak to its historical and eschatological character, and Bonaventure uses depth to acknowledge its manifold senses.4 The deep meaning of scripture requires many interpretive 2. The origins of the prologue are not entirely settled. Most scholars agree that it began as a separate work, perhaps as a lecture in praise of scripture. Scholarship has also argued that Bonaventure intentionally reworked the prologue to fit and preface the succeeding seven books of the Breviloquium by offering an overview of the nature of theology and its origination in God’s self-disclosure in scripture. See especially Camille Bérubé’s De la philosophe a la sagesse chez Saint Bonaventure et Roger Bacon (Rome: Instituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 1976), 117–30, and Falque, Saint Bonaventure, 31–52. For Joshua Benson’s treatment of Bonaventure’s inception lecture and the De reductione, see Benson, “Identifying the Literary Genre of the De reductione artium ad theologiam: Bonaventure’s Inaugural Lecture at Paris,” Franciscan Studies 67 (2009):149–78; “Bonaventure’s De reductione artium ad theologiam and Its Early Reception as an Inaugural Sermon,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 85, no. 1 (2011): 7–24; and “Bonaventure’s Inaugural Sermon at Paris: Omnium Artifex Docuit Me Sapientia. Introduction and Text,” Collectanea Franciscana 82, nos. 3–4 (2012):517–62. See also Hammond’s “Dating Bonaventure’s Inception as Regent Master.” 3. Breviloquium, Prologue:6. Thomas Reist divides the Breviloquium’s prologue into two sections. Bonaventure first considers scripture in itself (section 1), which touches on the origin and purpose of scripture. He then offers a hermeneutic of interpretation according to the above-mentioned dimensions (sections 2–6). See Thomas Reist, Saint Bonaventure as a Biblical Commentator (Lanham: University Press of America, 1985). Reist presents Bonaventure’s view of scripture and hermeneutics in chapter two, “Saint Bonaventure and Sacred Scripture,” 29–66. In Transiency and Permanence, Tavard introduces Bonaventure’s views on “The Book of Scripture” (31–55). 4. With breadth, Bonaventure classifies the biblical books and explains their relation using the principal distinction of Old and New Testaments as the difference between journeys characterized by

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tools to excavate its full import. Scripture’s literal meaning rarely exhausts the depth of text’s meaning so that further senses ought to be sought.5 He affirms the use of the allegorical, tropological/moral, and anagogical senses, particularly to the extent that they promote the reader’s grasp of scripture’s overall intent—to point and advance the wayfarer to God. Bonaventure affirms allegory as an especially vital tool for exegesis. Setting some limits on the use of the spiritual sense, he culls three principal rules from Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana: (1) consider the literal meaning; if it pertains to salvation, look no further, but if does not, seek the allegorical meaning; (2) when scripture refers to the history of Israel literally, look for a meaning beyond the literal that accords with Christian faith; and (3) if a passage presents both a literal and spiritual meaning, accept both; if they are not harmonious, accept the spiritual.6 His approach leaves ample space for the spiritual meaning as well as wide latitude in interpretation. In the Collationes in hexaëmeron, he evokes the image of a zither to explain the way in which the “string” of one text finds harmonization only when sounded with others.7 Bonaventure’s exegesis often relies on sounding the meaning of a given passage by harmonizing it with other passages that use similar words, images, or phrases. He builds authority for a given spiritual meaning by showing that a spiritual interpretation in one passage resonates through other pericopes. Sounding the zither enkindles and sustains the wayfarer’s desire: “Therefore, Scripture has a manifold meaning so that it may win over fear versus love. Both of these movements deploy precepts, teachings, and examples to accomplish their ends; the promise of reward fits into teachings and examples of either fear or love depending on the recompense that is promised. With length, Bonaventure provides a succinct theology of history that divides the ages into successive stages leading to the world’s return to God. Christ—coming late in salvation history—is the axis and exemplar by which the ages turn toward God, and ultimately, scripture reveals the world as beautifully ordered by God to God’s providential ends. Bonaventure argues that scripture’s height reveals the ecclesial and celestial hierarchies, which provide a “ladder” by which the wayfarer may return—as herself hierarchized—to God. This ascent moves from natural knowledge to grace to glory—a theme repeated particularly in the Itinerarium. 5. See Breviloquium, 4:1. See also Reist, Saint Bonaventure as Biblical Commentator (New York: University Press of America, 1985), 39–41. Bonaventure often signals his use of the spiritual sense by beginning a section with the term spiritualiter. 6. See Breviloquium, Prologue: 6.3. Scholars note that Bonaventure’s rules borrow directly from Robert Grosseteste’s De cessatione legalium, 1.9.5–8. 7. Bonaventure writes: “Tota Scriptura est quasi una cithara, et inferior corda per se non facit harmoniam, sed cum aliis” (Collationes in hexaëmeron, XIX:7).

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every mind, meeting each at its own level while remaining superior to all, illuminating and setting on fire with shafts of love every mind that searches it with care.”8 The work of exegesis, in a sense, is also part of the wayfarer’s journey; pursuing meaning in the biblical text builds love of God and affectus for union with God as final end. Thomas’s approach to exegesis understands that scripture expresses divine revelation in human language by human authors. He writes: “For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets, who wrote the canonical books.”9 Scripture is a reliable instrument that conveys divine revelation for the sake of human salvation, and it must be examined and interpreted to that end. Sacra doctrina informs this task, taking as its conviction that divine revelation seeks “to bring about salvation more fitly and more surely” so that theology’s task is to express the articles of faith as reasonable. Scriptural exegesis and theological inquiry should thus be integrated in their aims and methods.10 The scriptural commentaries unpack divine revelation in one genre even as the more systematic works pursue the same goal in another genre. Thomas Prügl aptly summarizes the goals of Thomas’s commentaries: “The purpose of Aquinas’ exegesis is not the establishment of 8. Breviloquium, Prologue:4.3. 9. ST I:1, 9 ad. 2. Nicholas Healy explains the relationship thus: “The knowledge which the Church teaches is embodied authoritatively in Scripture. Scripture cannot be identified with revelation. It is the closest possible thing we have to revelation, since it is the apostolic witness to that revealed knowledge, brought about in the minds of the prophets and the apostles, in matters otherwise unknowable to us. But it is a human document. Although it is the authoritative expression of revealed knowledge, it is nothing more than an expression, not revelation itself ”; see Healy’s introduction to Aquinas on Scripture: An Introduction to his Biblical Commentaries, ed. Thomas G. Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating, and John P. Yocum, 1–20 (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 15. 10. For Thomas’s general approach to exegesis, see Prügl’s “Thomas Aquinas as Interpreter of Scripture,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. R. Nieuwenhove and J. Wawrykow, 386–415 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005); Leo Elders’s “Aquinas on Holy Scripture as the Medium of Divine Revelation,” in La doctrine de la revelation divine de saint Thomas d’Aquin, ed. Leo J. Elders, 132–52 (Vatican City: Libreria editrice vaticana, 1990); and Terence McGuckin’s “Saint Thomas Aquinas and Theological Exegesis of Sacred Scripture,” New Blackfriars 74, no. 870 (1993): 197–213. For studies that speak to the function of scripture in Thomas’s theology generally, see Wilhelmus Valkenberg’s Words of the Living God: Place and Function of Holy Scripture in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Peeters: Leuven, 2000), and Paul van der Ploeg’s somewhat dated “The Place of Holy Scripture in the Theology of Saint Thomas,” The Thomist 10, no. 4 (1947): 398–422. See also Baglow’s “Sacred Scripture and Sacred Doctrine in Saint Thomas Aquinas” for the relationship of scripture to doctrine.

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dogmatic proof based on Scripture. It aims rather at an agreement or a correspondence between Scripture and the doctrine of faith; or, as he himself put it, the continuation of manifestio veritatis by interpreting the fixed form of this manifestation.”11 Even as scripture conveys divine revelation, its words are not synonymous with it; they are not the revelation itself. The interpreter must extract proper meanings from scripture’s forms. Thomas addresses the different senses of scripture in the last article of ST I:1 where he gives prioritization to the literal sense. The literal sense is fundamental because it reflects the intent of the auctor principalis, who is God.12 Thomas derives the meaning of a given passage in scripture by seeking the plain-sense intention of the author and its signification in the words of scripture.13 Because of its authorial status, Thomas reasons that only the literal sense of scripture should be used to settle theological questions; he writes: “And thus no confusion follows in Sacred Scripture because all the senses are founded on the one, namely, the literal, from which alone can argument be drawn, and not from those senses said according to 11. Prügl, “Thomas Aquinas as Interpreter of Scripture,” 403. Prügl goes on to define the relationship between Thomas’s systematic and exegetical works thus: “The difference between a ‘systematic’ Summa and an ‘exegetic’ commentary is therefore modest. Both aim at the ‘manifestation of truth,’ and both deal with the rational understanding, order, and permeation of the revealed word. The ‘advantage’ of the Summa lies in the fact that its endeavors are not tied to the continuous text of a biblical book; its topics are instead ‘freely’ arranged according to the requirements of the theological discipline (secundum ordinem doctrinae non secundum quod requirebat librorum expositio). On the other hand, the commentary possesses the advantage of being able to uncover within the biblical text ‘more’ than is necessary for the systematic description of a theological subject” (Prügl, “Thomas Aquinas as Interpreter of Scripture,” 403–4). 12. Thomas writes: “Since the literal sense is that which the author intends, and since the author of Holy Writ is God, Who by one act comprehends all things by His intellect, it is not unfitting, as Augustine says (Confess. xii), if, even according to the literal sense, one word in Holy Writ should have several senses” (ST I:1, 10 c). 13. Weisheipl writes: “For [Thomas], there are two basic senses in Scripture: the literal, indicated by the words used to express the truth intended by the author; and the spiritual, indicated by things, persons, and events narrated to signify other things, persons, and events. The literal, or historical, sense is at the foundation of the spiritual sense and is the only sense valid for theological argumentation” (Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 106). Thomas initially presents his understanding of the senses of scripture as part of the disputed questions treated in his inception lecture, highlighting that Thomas saw biblical interpretation and its distinctive practices as central to the overall task of the master. See Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 104–7, where he suggests that two questions traditionally appended to Quodlibet 7 should be reclassified as part of the quaestiones disputate, which constituted a formal part of his inception into the consortium of masters.

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allegory, as Augustine says.”14 Thomas restricts the authoritative use of scripture to its literal sense because it alone reliably mediates the author’s intent. Thomas by all means allows that scripture’s meaning is not exhausted by the literal sense; it expresses God’s intention, which itself transcends the grasp of the finite mind and finite language. Using the literal sense as a hermeneutical anchor, the interpreter may also draw allegorical, moral, and anagogical meaning from a given passage.15 These, however, are not definitive because they cannot be reliably reduced to the author’s plain intent; based on abstractions from the primary sense of scripture, they can never be seen as reliably unequivocal. The spiritual sense of a passage can in fact be dispensed because its saving content is contained elsewhere in a literal expression. Thomas writes: “Nevertheless, no part of Sacred Scripture perishes from this because nothing necessary for faith is contained under the spiritual sense which Scripture does not clearly hand on elsewhere through the literal sense.”16 The literal sense provides all that is necessary to interpret divine revelation and arrive reliably at the way to salvation; nevertheless, because the literal sense is itself rich in meaning, it may be unpacked through more than one literal interpretation.17 The text may speak plainly and literally at more than one level. Bonaventure’s inclination toward the spiritual sense will sometimes allow for more expansive interpretation than what Thomas will countenance with the restrictions of the literal text, yet both are committed to preserving the plain-sense meaning of a given passage and its implications for the mystery of salvation. 14. ST I:1, 10 ad. 1. Prügl summarizes the importance of the literal sense for theological arguments: “Only the literal sense avoids the confusion that would be fatal to theological arguments. Images, metaphors, and poetic and rhetorical stylistic devices must be interpreted literally in order that their underlying purposes may be comprehended” (Prügl, “Thomas Aquinas as Interpreter of Scripture,” 394). 15. McGuckin writes: “The appreciation of St. Thomas’ exegetical interpretations requires, therefore, a consciousness of his understanding of the senses of Scripture, in particular the literal and spiritual senses. Irrespective of the forms of speech used, the literal sense includes the inspired author’s whole intention. The writer was inspired by God who granted spiritual significance to the events, persons and things mentioned by the writer. This occurred without the author’s awareness and had as its purpose the continuing benefit of revelation. . . . For St. Thomas, allegory and metaphor became useful sources and channels of reflection in his exegesis” (McGuckin, “Saint Thomas Aquinas and Theological Exegesis,” 209). 16. ST I:1, 10 ad. 1. 17. See Prügl, “Thomas Aquinas as Interpreter of Scripture,” 395–96, and Mark F. Johnson’s, “Another Look at the Plurality of Literal Sense,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 2 (1992): 117–41.

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Reward Texts Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s commentaries unpack scores of reward texts. The beatitudes, as we have observed, typify reward texts, and the bible contains a surfeit of other references to divine rewards for human actions. Thomas and Bonaventure, however, do not treat every passage for its theology of rewards. They pursue varying goals in their commentaries so that their treatments of reward texts vary. Sometimes they comment on texts directly and at length, and other times they pass cursorily over them in favor of other themes. This chapter investigates enough passages to articulate and compare their teaching on rewards. It further relates these teachings to their systematic positions on predestination, grace, human action, and reward. It necessarily foregoes more passages than it treats, but a representative sample includes passages that pertain to both interim and final rewards; passages that classify human actions into certain categories; passages that possess a certain authority based on the writer or speaker; and passages that introduce images or ideas that endure in the history of Christian thought. In the interests of comparing Bonaventure and Thomas, the chapter first explores examples from their synoptic commentaries on Luke and Matthew respectively, and it then turns to passages taken from their commentaries on John.18 We shall see that Bonaventure and Thomas compile straightforward biblical evidence for the notion that God rewards commendable human action.

Bonaventure: Passages from Luke Bonaventure’s exegetical works include a commentary on Luke’s gospel as well as postillas on Ecclesiastes, the Book of Wisdom, and John’s gospel.19 18. Because Bonaventure left no formal commentaries on Paul, Thomas’s Pauline commentaries have been omitted from the chapter, but representative examples and analysis may be found in the appendix. The study also foregoes use of Thomas’s Catena aurea (Glossa continua super Evangelia, completed between 1265–68). Thomas’s authorial brilliance in the Catena is found more in the ordering and manipulation of the preceding commentary tradition than in direct commentary on the text. On the Catena, see Weisheipl, “Friar Thomas,” 171–74, and Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:136–41. 19. Bougerol overviews these works; see his Introduction, 94–98. He defines “postilla” as seeming “to be derived from the expression post illa verba, used by the reader to introduce the commentary of a text he has just read. The term in fact designates all the commentaries that insert a brief exposition between scriptural passages or loci” (Bougerol, Introduction, 88). Studies of Bonaventure’s biblical

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Of these, the works on Luke and John are most pertinent to the study of reward texts, and of the two, Bonaventure’s Commentarius in Evangelium S. Lucae (CL) is the most complete. He developed this work originally as a baccalaureus biblicus (1248–50) during the cycles of commenting on scripture, but the breadth, polish, and intent of the commentary indicate subsequent revisions, most likely in preparation for use among friars, particularly those with preaching responsibilities.20 Scholars typically date the final version of the commentary sometime in the year or two before he is named regent master in 1257. The sheer size of the commentary is impressive; in the Quaracchi edition, it consumes 601 double-column pages—by no means a cursory work.21 Bonaventure divides the commentary into four main sections following Luke’s narrative: (1) Mystery of the Incarnation (chapters 1–3), (2) Ministry of Christ’s Preaching (4–21), (3) Medication of the Passion (22–23), and (4) Triumph of the Resurrection (24).22 Rather than following a line-by-line commentary, Bonaventure organizes the biblical text into sub-narratives. These pericopes are treated as whole units for their colleccommentaries are limited. The editors of A Companion to Bonaventure recently revised and updated a section from Bougerol’s Introduction, entitled “Bonaventure as Exegete” (167–87), as an introduction to Bonaventure’s commentarial style and exegesis. 20. Schlosser writes: “During the years 1248–1250, Bonaventure worked as a baccalaureus biblicus, which means that he had to introduce students to the study of the biblical books. For this purpose, Bonaventure chose to comment on the Gospel of Luke. This was certainly not just accidental, because in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is above all described as the saviour of the poor and as a teacher of prayer” (Schlosser, “Bonaventure,” 13). Robert Karris addresses the specific use of Bonaventure’s commentary for preaching and its invocation of Francis (mentioned explicitly four times); see Bonaventure, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, trans. Robert Karris, vol. 8, pt. 3 of Works of Saint Bonaventure (Saint Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2004), lv–lxv. See also Reist, Saint Bonaventure, 74–78. Karris provides a series of helpful essays in the introductions to his three-volume translation of Bonaventure’s Luke Commentary. See also his “St. Bonaventure as Biblical Interpreter: His Methods, Wit, and Wisdom,” Franciscan Studies 60 (2002): 159–208, and Dominic Monti’s “Bonaventure’s Interpretation of Scripture in His Exegetical Works” (dissertation, University of Chicago, 1979), 12–78, for general presentations of Bonaventure’s exegetical method and use of sources. For an introduction to early Franciscan (pre-Bonaventure) exegesis, including studies of Alexander of Hales and John of la Rochelle, see Ignatius Brady’s “Sacred Scripture in the Early Franciscan School,” in La sacra scrittura e i francescani, ed. Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, 65–82 (Rome: Antonianum, 1973). 21. The work runs from page 3–604 in Opera omnia, volume VII. The English translation, published in three parts, spans 2459 pages, including indexes. 22. These headings are taken from a reproduction by the Quaracchi editors who add further subheadings under each capital; for an English translation of the entire table, see Reist, Saint Bonaventure, 203–4.

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tive themes and details. Bonaventure makes passing references to reward throughout the whole of the text. One could take almost any example of a parable or instruction, for example, and discover indications that human actions deserve recompense from God. In fact, he comments on the notion of reward at least cursorily, and in most cases, at some depth.23 Six passages commend themselves for specific review: 6:20–26 (the sermon on the plain), 12:29–34 (instruction to seek treasure in heaven), 14:12–14 (invitations to the banquet), 18:28–30 (sacrifice for the Kingdom of God), 19:1–10 (the story of Zacchaeus), and 19:11–27 (the parable of the pounds).

Luke 6:20–22—The Sermon on the Plain Jesus’ sermon on the plain outlines four dispositions that bring about beatitude: poverty, hunger, weeping, and persecution; and to those who undergo these experiences, Christ says “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven” (6:23). Like in Matthew’s beatitudes, Luke connects particular human actions with divine rewards, and Bonaventure highlights the fit between the rewards and habits enumerated by Christ. The beatitudes each connote a different kind of reward, including (1) participation in divine power (kingdom), (2) tasting divine goodness (being satisfied), (3) contemplation of divine truth (laughter), and (4) eternal life (a “great” reward).24 The rewards differ according to the preceding human action and according to their timing on the journey. Contemplation and tasting divine goodness, for example, connote rewards that begin early and continue throughout the journey; they are interim rewards that cease, 23. For the sake of illustration, however, Bonaventure addresses reward texts in the following passages, which are by no means exhaustive: Luke 6:20–26, 6:35ff., 6:38ff., 8:45ff., 11:9–13, 12:16–21, 12:29–34, 12:35–40, 13:6–9, 13:22–30, 14:7–11, 14:12–14, 14:15–25, 16:1–9, 16:19ff., 18:28–30, 18:35–43, 19:1–10, and 19:11–27. 24. Bonaventure connects the four beatitudes of Luke’s gospel to Eph. 3:18; he writes: “And these four are designated by Eph. 3:18: ‘So that you may be able, he says, to comprehend with all the saints what is ‘length, breadth, height, and depth’: the length of eternity; the breadth of goodness; the height of power; the depth of wisdom or truth. Now these four promises correspond to the four types of merit which lift us up to God and justify our free wills” (CL, 6:49). Translations are mine and are taken from Commentarius in Evangelium S. Lucae, vol. 7 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1895). Quotations in the notes are taken in translation from Bonaventure, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, vol. 7, pts. 1–3 of Works of Saint Bonaventure, trans. Robert J. Karris (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2004); citations note the chapter and paragraph of the commentary as enumerated in the Quaracchi edition.

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in a sense, at final beatitude. Bonaventure classes eternal life, on the other hand, as a final reward. Moreover, the rewards have immediate effects; he writes: “And note that Christ speaks in the present tense, ‘yours is,’ either on account of the certitude of the promise or also because truly poor persons now in a certain way begin to be ‘kings.’ . . . Whence they are already happy in a certain way and not in misery [just as] those who reflect evangelical or voluntary poverty.”25 Wayfarers who begin to practice virtuous human actions, such as voluntary poverty, begin to experience, in a certain inchoate way, beatitude as a reward in this life. That rewards are promised to wayfarers speak to Bonaventure’s framework for divine rewards. God promises certain recompense on the condition of certain action; the condition of “being promised” is what makes the reward fitting. This shifts the focus from the particular quality of the reward and onto the fittingness of divine ordering. This ordination, however, differs from that expressed by Thomas in the ST. In that system, God establishes a series of rewards proportional to human work. While Bonaventure would not deny that human actions have an intrinsic congruence with rewards, their status as promised makes them appropriate. Proportion need not frame the system; rather, the roles of acceptatio and promise come to the fore. Rewards as promised by God also fit with Bonaventure’s sense that scripture guides human beings to salvation in part through “incentive promises.” Emphasis on promises can be seen in Bonaventure’s repeated use of the phrase “Christ promises” as the preface for his presentation of each reward in Luke 6:20–26.26 Thinking of promises in this way expands the field of reward texts for Bonaventure; wherever God promises a reward, wayfarers gain further insight into the shape and demands of the journey. Bonaventure comments on the fittingness between specific human actions and promised rewards. He compiles diverse biblical citations that suggest that a given promise is fitting because it resonates throughout the biblical canon. For example, when Bonaventure comes to the third beatitude, “blessed are you who weep for you shall laugh,” he first cites the passage from Luke and then quotes no less than fourteen parallel passages that recall 25. CL, 6:51. 26. For example, Bonaventure begins the commentary on the passage thus: “Concerning the promises of the beatitudes note that four things are promised” (6:49). Bonaventure uses this same construction at the beginnings of paragraphs 50, 52, 53, and 54.

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weeping (and at least anticipate joy).27 Bonaventure’s method of interpreting one passage through the lens of others becomes significant because it surfaces hosts of other passages that Bonaventure relates to reward. Many explicitly promise a reward while others amplify the nature and meritorious character of the disposition or action referenced in the passage. The effect is best demonstrated by quoting an example in its entirety. In explaining how a “great reward” is possible for suffering (Lk. 6:23), Bonaventure writes: Thus [Christ] makes those who suffer rejoice through a reward, where he says “Rejoice and exalt. Behold your great reward is in heaven.” Rejoice, that is, because of recompense, as in Rom. 12: “Rejoice in hope [and] be patient in tribulation.” That was fulfilled in Acts 5: “The apostles departed from the sight of the council (Sanhedrin), rejoicing in their suffering because they had the dignity to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.” But a consideration of reward leads to this [suffering for Jesus’ sake]; Jer. 31: “May your voice rest from weeping and your eyes from tears, because there is a reward for your work.” The “reward,” I say, is great because “there is great peace for those who love your law,” etc. as it is said in the Psalms; and I say “forever” because [the reward is] in heaven. Wisdom 5 says: “But the just will live forever and their reward is with the Lord.” And this is what Bede says: “From among the hatred of their hearts, from among the insults of their tongues, from among the persecution of their hands, your heart moves with joy, seeing high rewards.” And because this work is most difficult, namely to rejoice in tribulation, for that reason, [Jesus] not only promises rewards but he attaches an example.28

In this single paragraph commenting on a single reward text, Bonaventure cites five other scriptural texts pertaining to rewards. We see the zither effect in action. His collection of reward passages, however, demands an ensemble of zithers; the sound of the text is more like a pipe organ with all the stops pulled out for maximal polyphony. This polyphony builds authority for the case that scripture consistently and wholly promises rewards for virtuous human action. Bonaventure’s scriptural commentary does not simply exposit Luke; rather, it refracts the whole of the book of scripture through the lens of Luke and the sermon on the plain, and to the extent that it reveals reward texts, Bonaventure’s exegesis contends that scripture regularly promotes incentive promises and divine rewards. 27. He cites, in order: Is. 38:2–3, Mt. 26:75, Job 30:31, 2 Sam. 1:12, Lk. 19:41, Job 30:25, Rom. 12:15, Jgs. 2:4–5, 1 Pet. 12:15, Jn. 16:20, Ps. 41:4, Job 8:21, Prv. 31:25, and Gn. 21:6. 28. CL, 6:55.

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A final theme in Bonaventure’s commentary on Christ’s sermon on the plain is the diversity of divine rewards. Summarizing the periscope, Bonaventure writes: “Thus note that Divine Scripture teaches us different rewards according to a diversity of merits. Thus we find ‘saving’ rewards, ‘great’ rewards, and ‘worthy,’ ‘full,’ ‘fitting,’ ‘swift,’ ‘faithful,’ ‘copious,’ and ‘perpetual’ rewards.”29 Diverse human actions receive a variety of rewards; that is, variety in the effects of sanctifying grace or the way in which grace branches out into the acts. For example, “quick rewards” refer to those making progress—interim rewards—inasmuch as God responds rapidly to the works of the just. This affirmation of diverse rewards informs texts such as the Itinerarium and LV where Bonaventure indicates broad spectrums of rewards to wayfarers who properly ascend the ladder of contemplation.30 His main task in this particular passage is to affirm rewards as both interim and final, as promises, as diffused widely throughout scripture, and as diverse in effects.

Luke 12:29–34—“Deterrence from Avarice by Promising Rewards” Christ exhorts his disciples to seek the kingdom of God and not preoccupy themselves with temporal worries such as food or possessions. In return, the Father will provide for their immediate needs as well as everlasting treasure in heaven. Bonaventure divides the text under three general headings, each related to rewards: “Here in the fourth point [Jesus] calls them back from worry of avarice by promising desirable things. He introduces three things; for he dissuades them from the worry of avarice and cupidity by promising sufficient provision for the journey, super-excellent rewards, and superabundant treasure.”31 Under the first heading, God provides interim rewards—“provisions”—for wayfarers who have proper desire and actions. Emphasizing the language of journey, Bonaventure suggests that God will not abandon those desiring (volentes) to reach union with God without 29. CL, 6:57. 30. For example, Bonaventure calls Christ a reward in the LV, but he gives Christ a variety of names that imply a variety of ways that Christ can be experienced as a reward. He calls Christ “truthful witness,” “wrathful judge,” “glorious conqueror,” “adorned spouse,” “king,” “inscribed book,” “fountain-ray of light,” and “desired end”; see LV, §§ 41–48. 31. CL, 12:41.

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providing the interim rewards they require: “Isaiah 49 states: ‘What mother can forget her infant so as not to feel sorry for the child of her womb?’ etc. Therefore those wishing to progress to the heavenly homeland are not left forsaken on the journey for lack of food.”32 While basic provisions may not seem like rewards, Bonaventure nevertheless defines them as such because they are promised and provided by God in response to human striving.33 Wayfarers must be “focused,” that is, they must know and seek the object of their desire in order to merit the provisions. He writes: “Thus our worry ought not to be about acquiring food but about acquiring the eternal kingdom; as in Rom. 14: ‘The Kingdom of God is not about food and drink but about justice and peace and rejoicing in the Holy Spirit.’”34 As long as one maintains one’s affectus for union with God, God will respond with interim rewards that promote progress.35 The wayfarer who follows virtue also spurns avarice and covetousness, and God promises a final reward for doing so. Bonaventure notes that this promise is made to the elect. Focusing on Christ’s use of the term “little flock,” he reasons that Christ is calling the elect from the mass of perdition. He writes: “‘Little flock’ is said in respect to the many reprobate, as in Matthew 20: ‘Many are called but few are chosen.’ And to such people [in the little flock] God promises the Kingdom of heaven, as in Matthew 19: ‘Let the little children come to me; for such is the kingdom of heaven.’”36 Bonaventure makes a rare connection between rewards and election, which he parses here as a divine promise. This promise, however, does not merely 32. CL, 12:42. 33. The references to provisions for the journey would be especially pertinent to mendicant friars expected to beg for daily support. See Bert Roest’s Franciscan Learning, Preaching and Mission (Leiden: Brill, 2015), especially 83–110. See also Karris’s “St. Bonaventure’s Christology and Teachings on the Evangelical Life in His Commentary on the Gospel of Luke,” in Franciscans and the Scriptures: Living in the Word of God,” ed. Elise Saggau, 33–59 (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2006). 34. CL, 12:43. 35. Bonaventure clarifies that progress on the journey merits rewards; he writes: “Chrysostom says: ‘The Kingdom of God is recompense. Justice is the way (via) by which we come to the kingdom.’ And note that this promise is exceedingly just, for the person who seeks the Kingdom of God and its justice is God’s servant, God’s friend, and God’s son.” Bonaventure builds his idea of merit around divine promises which require human action (justice) and result in condign rewards of friendship and sonship (CL, 12:43). 36. CL, 12:44.

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signify the predestination of the elect; Bonaventure comments that Christ uses this promise in order to redirect human desire from sin to God: “For this super-excellence of the promised kingdom leads to hope, and by introducing hope, it leads to assurance (securitatem), and through this, it removes the pusillanimity of fear and the ardor of cupidity.”37 Echoing the language of Hebrews that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, Bonaventure presents the reward of eternal glory as an incentive promise that instills hope and reciprocally counteracts concupiscence. If Christ’s words convince his followers that the Kingdom of Heaven exceeds the measure of any other reward, then he successfully disposes them to sell their possession and seek everlasting treasure. The promise motivates the wayfarer, but the motivation arises from the character of the reward: “One cannot have unfailing treasure on earth. Therefore those who wish to have unfailing treasure disperse [their earthly goods] so as to abound in the treasure of heaven; the Psalmist says: ‘His dispersed and gave to the poor; his justice remains forever’ (111:9).”38 The reward’s character is purgative as well as illuminative. Their promise entices positive actions, and it also negates the pursuit of inferior or false goods. Because the treasure of heaven is superabundant—exceeding all human expectation—the affectus for this reward must also be overflowing and enacted through great effort. Bonaventure writes: “But a great effort ought to be made where the treasure is located, because there also the soul is located; for that reason Jesus adds ‘For where your treasure is, there also your heart will be.’ Treasure is that which the soul loves principally.”39 Bonaventure’s commentary moves into a hortatory mode, arguing that no one can accomplish this journey without the expenditure of great effort (magna vis facienda). As persons of desire, wayfarers must do what is in themselves and undertake works of perfection that befit such a promise. Absent from this conversation is reference to grace. Rather, significant conceptual space is established for meritorious human effort based on the superabundant promise of heaven. Bonaventure’s overall commentary frames rewards as incentive-promises. Reward texts (1) stir up desire, (2) negate or blunt the inclination to sin, (3) demand great effort, and (4) promise great rewards. 37. CL, 12:44. 38. CL, 12:46. 39. CL, 12:47.

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Luke 14:12–15—Invitations to a Household Banquet Bonaventure’s commentary on this passage is the second in a sequence of three addressing banquets and invitations.40 In all three, Bonaventure identifies Christ promising particular rewards in order to regulate human behavior. In this second example, Jesus warns against inviting guests whom the host knows will reciprocate. The Lord instead commends inviting the poor, maimed, lame, and blind who cannot offer repayment, reminding the host that he will be repaid in the kingdom of heaven. Bonaventure notes that those who invite “friends, relatives, neighbors, and the rich” are guided by carnal or earthly intentions because these groups of people in one way or another satisfy temporal desires for familiarity, comfort, and ease. Or worse, the host invites such guests in the hope of repayment. No good recompense can come from seeking these kinds of ends: “Because one who does works for earthly reward has nothing except earthly and temporal recompense. Indeed the eternal reward is changed into a temporal one on account of a love of glory.”41 The disordered desire for self-aggrandizement transforms the opportunity for an eternal reward. In keeping with his constant theme, a wayfarer must be a person of hierarchized desires who sees union with God as his primary and organizing object of love. Thus disposed, the wayfarer can earn eternal rewards. Bonaventure focuses on the guests whom Christ commends: the poor, maimed, lame, and blind. They lack any means by which to repay the host. The host can gain no temporal advantage from this work. Their invitation cultivates caritas: “And this is indeed right (recte) because mercy must be extended to those in misery and assistance to those who are penurious.”42 Practicing mercy and extending charity strengthens the wayfarer who grows in habitual virtue and corresponding action. Recall, for example, that a person may merit rewards through acts of love and justice. Inviting the poor, first, conforms the wayfarer in love and, second, merits repayment 40. Lk. 14:7–11, 12–15, and 16–24. Karris divides these passages respectively with the following subtitles: “Christ Instructs Those Invited to a Wedding Banquet,” “Christ Instructs those invited to the Banquet of a Household,” and “Christ Instructs Those Invited to the Eternal Banquet.” See Bonaventure, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, trans. Karris, 1328–72. 41. CL, 14:29. 42. CL, 14:30.

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from God; Bonaventure adds: “The text continues: ‘And blessed shall you be, because they have nothing by which to repay you.’ Therefore, it is necessary that someone else repay for them.”43 Bonaventure does not disavow the idea that recompense is attached to even charitable acts; rather, he uses the passage to stress cultivating virtue—conformity with Christ—in order to obtain an eternal reward. Bonaventure cites eleven biblical passages that connect acts of mercy and charity with divine rewards as authority for his position.44 He uses a reference from Sirach, which the editors note is repeated often throughout the commentary; Bonaventure writes: “Therefore the recompense of happiness is given maximally for works of compassion (pietatis); thus Sirach 17: ‘The alms of a person is like a bag of medicinal herbs (sacculum) and [God] will preserve the grace/kindness of the person as the apple of the eye, and afterward God will rise up and will render them their reward, to each one upon his head.’”45 The use of Sirach 17 aptly summarizes Bonaventure’s view of rewards. God recompenses virtuous actions that arise from grace not only by preserving the wayfarer (interim rewards) but also rewarding her (final rewards). Someone hearing Christ’s admonition responds “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God” (Luke 14:15). Bonaventure takes this response as attestation to the truth of Christ’s message; the listener is 43. CL, 14:31. 44. The list itself is impressive and moves thematically from the idea of mercy as a virtue to recompense for merciful acts to, finally, divine mercy. The references include in order: Prv. 19:17, “The person who has mercy on the poor lends to the Lord”; Rev. 20:6, “Blessed and holy is the person who takes part in the first resurrection”; Lk. 20:35–36, “Those who will be accounted worthy of that world and of the resurrection . . . will be equal to the Angels and are sons of God since they are sons of the resurrection”; Jn. 5:29, “They who have done good will come forth unto resurrection of life but they who have done evil unto resurrection of judgment”; Sir. 12:2, “Do good to the just, and you will find great recompense. And if not from him, then certainly from God”; Mt. 23:34–35, “Come, blessed by my Father, take possession of the kingdom. . . . I was hungry, and you gave me to eat”; Mt. 5:6, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy”; Sir. 17:18–19, “The alms of a man is like a purse with him and will preserve the grace of the person like the apple of the eye. And afterward he will rise up and will render them their reward. To each one upon his head”; Ja. 2:13, “Judgment is without mercy to the person who has not shown mercy”; Ps. 35:7–8, “Human beings and beasts you will save, O Lord. How you have multiplied your mercy, oh God”; and Tit. 3:5, “Not by the words of righteousness that we ourselves did, but according to his mercy he saved us.” See Bonaventure, CL, 14:31. 45. CL, 14:31. Modern translations use different language: “One’s almsgiving is like a signet ring with the Lord, and he will keep a person’s kindness like the apple of his eye. Afterwards he will rise up and repay them, and he will bring their recompense on their heads.”

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able to see that works of mercy lead to the heavenly banquet. The listener hears “with the ears of his heart,” and by referencing the kingdom of God, he demonstrates that one should prefer eternal rewards to temporal ones: “Blessed is the one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God, as if he said, it is a better reward that will take place in the resurrection of the dead than that which is in the present, because this [present] is misery but that [future] is blessed; thus the Psalmist: ‘Because one day is better in your courts than a thousand elsewhere’ (83:11).”46 In heaven the just will enjoy spiritual food consisting of the “bread of the Incarnate Word.” God repays the soul’s compassion and charity with Christ himself, reinforcing the strong Christological arc of the wayfarer’s desire, journey, and rewards.

Luke 18:28–30—Commendation of Poverty by Reason of Reward Luke 18:28–30 relates a conversation between Jesus and his disciples. Luke writes: “And Peter said, ‘Lord, we have left our homes and followed you.’ And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Truly I say to you, there is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.’” Bonaventure uses the passage to commend the virtue of poverty—a primary concern for the Friars Minor—but for the purposes of the present study, the argument’s framework is especially remarkable.47 Bonaventure’s first general point, that Peter confirms the apostolic practice of poverty, is interesting in itself, but he makes an important secondary point. He writes: “And note that [Peter] optimally joins these two: ‘we have left’ and ‘we have followed you,’ because we are not able to follow after Christ who runs ahead unless we run after him, and we are not able to run unless we have cast off [what holds us back].”48 Poverty orients and amplifies af46. CL, 14:32. 47. He divides the passage into four parts: “Concerning this description, [Luke] proceeds in this order. The height of perfect poverty is introduced as ‘authenticated’ through the observance of the apostles, as ‘approved’ through divine sentence, as ‘enriched’ through grace, and as ‘rewarded’ by glory” (CL, 18:47). 48. CL, 18:48. Bonaventure further connects “running after Christ” to Christ as object of desire; he writes: “So since all things could be desired, [the disciples] left all things when they left their desires behind. Peter also says this not in a boastful way to draw attention to himself, but in the manner of a sage who invites others to imitation” (CL, 18:47).

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fectus, and the meritorious discipline of poverty has an intrinsic relation to divine rewards. Bonaventure comments that relations to parents, brothers, spouses, and children all connote an “inheritance.” When ordered toward temporal desires or inheritances, such relations inhibit conformity and prevent wayfarers from seeking Christ as the eternal inheritance. They are changed from eternal to temporal rewards. Using Jesus’ language, Bonaventure reasons that wayfarers earn an eternal inheritance when, like Francis, they renounce temporal relations “for the sake of the Kingdom of God.” Christ promises two rewards for those trained in poverty—an interim and a final reward. His commentary on interim rewards is significant because it references grace as something provided in response to the wayfarer’s meritorious work. He writes: Insofar as the enrichment of poverty by grace, [Jesus] adds: “And who will not receive more in the present time” through grace, which is not to be understood of temporal things, as in having more wives, children, or biological brothers; rather, it is to be understood as of spiritual charismatic gifts of grace from which poverty is incomparably enriched without adding anything further; and this is through the gift of charity, which makes all things common.49

God provides graces that enrich the wayfarer’s virtues, especially poverty. Such rewards are arguably subsequent gifts of sanctifying grace that render the wayfarer and her work increasingly acceptable. The wayfarer who practices difficult virtues is progressively perfected by interim rewards of grace so that the suffering she experiences either ceases or no longer counts as privation; this is a natural parallel to the cruciformity commended in the prologues to the Itinerarium and LV. Thus, running unencumbered and fortified by grace, the wayfarer finally obtains the object of her desire. Bonaventure spends noticeably less time discussing the final reward, though he affirms the fittingness of eternal life and glory as proper recompense. He writes: “Thus eternal life is rightly called ‘glory’ because just as separation from the font of life is death and eternal damnation, so union with [Christ] is eternal life.”50 When one finally grasps the font of life, who is Christ, one enjoys the glory of the reward. While sometimes muted in the commentary on other reward texts, Bonaventure here outlines his basic view of grace, 49. CL, 18:50. 50. CL, 18:51.

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human action, and rewards. Proper desire, sanctifying grace, human action, and interim and final rewards fit together into a sequence that leads the wayfarer to God.

Luke 19:1–10—The Story of Zacchaeus Zacchaeus is a sinner who deserves punishment, but by the end of the story Christ is able to proclaim that salvation has come to Zacchaeus’s house. This movement from a state of sin into a state of grace, and finally, into a state described as “salvation” provides Bonaventure with a narrative by which to speak of the wayfarer’s journey in some detail.51 Zacchaeus’s riches represent the hump of the camel’s back, which makes it nearly impossible to enter through the narrow door. The tax collector is deformed by disordered desire, and conformity to Christ in virtue is needed for the transitus through the door by becoming Christo-form or deiform. Zacchaeus’s success comes from (1) eagerness, (2) hospitality, and (3) “liberality in distributing his goods.”52 Bonaventure uses the chronology of these actions to mark significant points in Zacchaeus’s journey to salvation. Beginning as a notorious tax collector (seeking temporal goods) who cheats others, Zacchaeus eagerly seeks to see Jesus as he passes through Jericho. This action would be inexplicable, given Zacchaeus’s primary desire for wealth, if one could not infer the operation of prevenient and gratuitous grace: “He would not be [trying to see Jesus] so studiously unless he loved, but he would neither love nor believe [in Christ] unless it was by prevenient grace, because John 6 states ‘No one may come to me unless my Father, who sent me, draws him.’ Jesus drew [Zacchaeus] so that he might be an example to others.”53 Bonaventure does not further define whether Zacchaeus prepared himself in order to receive the prevenient grace, but what is clear is that grace infuses the effect of love into the tax collector’s heart. He loves Jesus, longs to see him, and to do so, he exercises his 51. Bonaventure interprets the story of Zacchaeus at two levels. He comments on Zacchaeus’s personal movement to salvation, and he interprets Zacchaeus as a type for the Gentiles; just as Jesus sees, calls, and accepts Zacchaeus, so Jesus calls the Gentiles who were sinners cut off from salvation prior to the Incarnation. Bonaventure writes: “So Zacchaeus’s eagerness was both ‘an exemplar’ to be imitated and ‘a figure’ of the conversion of the Gentiles to Christ. Assisted by his faith, they are raised up to see him with contuition” (CL, 19:7). 52. Bonaventure repeats Christ’s “liberality in distributing goods” in his discussion of Christ as judge; see Breviloquium, V:2.5. 53. CL, 19:4.

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eagerness by fighting the crowds and climbing a tree. Bonaventure does not let the reference to climbing a tree pass without suggesting that Zacchaeus exemplifies spiritual ascent in the pursuit of seeing Christ.54 Fortified by grace and eager in desire, Zacchaeus rises above the disorderly crowds who threaten his ability to see Christ and advance on his journey. Christ tells Zacchaeus that he is coming to his house as someone who, prima facie, cannot repay him with honor. Zacchaeus welcomes the penurious guest to a banquet. At Jesus’ command, Zacchaeus makes haste and receives the Lord joyfully in his home. The work of hospitality deepens the communion that Zacchaeus has begun to enjoy with Christ; Bonaventure writes: “After [Luke] describes Zacchaeus’s eagerness and hospitality, he describes his liberality according to three conditions, namely, in view of Zacchaeus’s sufficient offering, of Christ’s acknowledged acceptance, and of the principle ratio of movement.”55 Zacchaeus finds salvation by liberally offering what he possessed to God—by giving it to those in need and those whom he had cheated. Bonaventure commends the virtue of charity, as in the other examples, and he notes that Zacchaeus also attempts to satisfy the debts of sins by exponentially restoring those he cheated. Having responded to sanctifying grace and having done what he could to serve others, Zacchaeus and his works are accepted by Christ; the language of acceptation is prominent. Christ accepts Zacchaeus’s works not on account of their concrete value but because God has drawn Zacchaeus to himself and Zacchaeus has responded acceptably.56 Zacchaeus is an example not only of eagerness, hospitality, and liberality but also of divine mercy. God shows the grace of undeserved mercy 54. Bonaventure writes: “Third, Zacchaeus’s eagerness attains its goal which is the height of the sycamore tree” (CL, 9:6). Later he describes the ascent thus: “For the foolishness of faith leads to the height of wisdom of Christ, and does so in six steps. For faith disposes one to prudence, prudence to knowledge, knowledge to counsel, counsel to understanding, and understanding to wisdom. And this is the throne of Solomon, to which one ascends by means of six steps as intimated in 1 Kgs. 10:18–19” (CL, 19:7). 55. CL, 19:12. 56. Bonaventure writes: “But Jesus said to him: ‘Today salvation has come to this house’ through the granting of divine grace, which was given with Christ’s presence and by which the Church is dedicated and sanctified” (CL, 19:13). Bonaventure adds: “And this salvation is owed to the predestined.” While the reference seems to pertain to the special predestination of Gentiles (for Zacchaeus, too, “is a son of Abraham”), the connection between predestination (which seems gratuitous) and salvation (which is “owed”) is telling. It again raises questions about Bonaventure’s understanding of the relationship between merit and predestination.

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to the cheating tax collector by calling him and providing prevenient grace. Zacchaeus nevertheless responds through virtue so that salvation comes to his house as a reward. Zacchaeus exemplifies that human beings must respond to divine mercy and grace through virtuous action, which not only reflects their election but also their merit.

Luke 19:11–27—The Parable of the Pounds Bonaventure uses Luke 19:11–27 as an opportunity to discuss the special charisms belonging to preachers and prelates. He argues that the nobleman in the parable is a figure for Christ who, after his ascension, shares the grace of the Holy Spirit with his followers. They are to use this grace to proclaim the gospel while he is away. The Son shall return at the end of time as judge in order to reward and punish them according to their use of grace and operation. Bonaventure emphasizes two key details early in the commentary. First, the nobleman gives “pounds” to his servants. God provisions those whom God calls with grace; specifically, God provides the grace of faith or knowledge, which allows preachers to effectively spread the gospel. Second, the nobleman commands the servants to “trade” the pounds so that they increase the grace provided. Trade (negotiamini) indicates the apostolic work of preaching; those who receive this charism must act on the gift. The provision of this grace—the gift of the talents—thus establishes the framework for judgment; God will judge wayfarers to the extent that they have freely and effectively handed on the grace they receive.57 As the nobleman calls together the servants for an accounting of their work, divine judgment begins with an open declaration of human merit, dovetailing with Breviloquium, VII:1. The successful servants multiplied their original pound to ten and five respectively. When their merits are declared, the nobleman judges them to be “good and faithful” stewards; Bonaventure writes: “For this servant is called ‘good’ because of working obediently and ‘faithful’ in serving and in managing his commission.”58 Bonaventure calls the third servant’s fear an excuse for the larger problem of being lazy and not handing on the grace he 57. Bonaventure explains: “Now he gave them wisdom to instruct the universal Church. And so the text adds: ‘And he said to them: “Trade till I come.”’ Trade, that is, by preaching and being fruitful” (CL, 19:20). 58. CL, 19:27.

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has received.59 God judges both the just and the wicked according to their works and recompenses them accordingly. As Bonaventure addresses the question of final rewards, he comments on the status of wayfarers. Trying to describe the reward of “ten cities,” which is given to the most faithful servant, he speaks of eternal rewards. He writes: “Note that those ten cities are understood to be beatified souls, just as the ten acquired pounds stand for the souls converted to Christ; they are called pounds in the state of the journey on account of their ability to change, but in the state of the heavenly homeland, they are called cities on account of their immutable glory.”60 The reward fits proportionally to the wayfarer’s work. The pounds correspond to cities and, in the case of preachers, the souls converted by their work correspond to levels or degrees of beatitude. Preachers thus receive a kind of beatitude that reflects the goodness of their work in converting souls. Their work attains the extra reward of an aureole suggested in the Breviloquium. The nature of final rewards nevertheless differs significantly from that of interim ones. Even as the original ten pounds, that is, the provision of sanctifying grace, is subject to corruption or loss, the rewards provided in eternal glory are unchangeable and everlasting. Bonaventure uses the parable to affirm the connection between human actions and divine rewards while parsing grace and glory as interim and final rewards.

Thomas: Passages from Matthew Commenting on scripture constituted the primary and regular task of Thomas’s labors as a magister and, even earlier, as a baccalaureus biblicus.61 59. Bonaventure writes: “Four things about this are introduced by the Evangelist, namely, the act of hiding [the pound] by the wicked servant, his wicked excuse, his righteous rebuke, and his just condemnation” (CL, 19:32). 60. CL, 19:28. 61. As a bachelor, a student’s first responsibility was to comment cursorily on the books of scripture, focusing on the literal text. It is widely held that Thomas performed this task during his studies in Cologne under Albert before arriving in Paris in 1252. On Albert’s recommendation, Thomas was sent to Paris under the direction “ad legendum Sententias,” and likely began immediately as a baccalaureus sententiarum. For a short review of Thomas’s biblical work in Cologne, see Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 45–46. Weisheipl notes: “Even from what little we know now, we can say that no Dominican ever lectured cursorily on the Bible when he came to Paris. A dispensation from this first lectureship was readily granted to Dominicans because they had already lectured for several years on the Bible and were already familiar with it. The purpose of the cursor biblicus was to familiarize himself and his students

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He leaves commentaries on no less than seventeen biblical books.62 They are classed either as expositio (sometimes referred to as ordinatio) or lectura; the former denotes commentaries edited (by hand or by dictation) by the author himself and possibly intended for public dissemination, while the latter consists of lectures recorded (as reportationes) as the master spoke. It was as he maintained this regular practice of lecturing on scripture that Thomas composed his summas and the compendium.63 Thomas’s Super Evangelium S. Matthaei lectura (SM) was likely offered in 1269–70 during his second stay at Paris.64 Many extant versions, which come to us as reporationes, are interpolated; however, most of the text is intact, and it provides an ideal opportunity to investigate Thomas’s discussion of reward based on representative passages.65 Those include his discussions of Mt. 5:1–12 (the beatitudes), Mt. 20:1–16 (the parable of the laborers in the vineyard), Mt 25:14–30 (the parable of the talents), and Mt. 25:31–46 (the parable of the sheep and the goats). Thomas’s commentary reveals a view of scripture that commands and rewards human action on the journey. with the text of Scripture. But every Dominican priory already had a lector whose purpose it was to lecture on the Scriptures” (Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 50). 62. See Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 2:54–74. In addition to his magisterial tasks, Thomas was appointed “preacher general” (praedicator generalis) for his province in 1260; for a description of duties associated with this task, see Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 145–47. 63. Prügl goes on to note that the commentaries also provide an excellent venue in which to address the training and distinctive needs of his fellow Dominicans; see Prügl, “Thomas Aquinas as Interpreter of Scripture,” 404. For the larger context in which Thomas produced commentaries, see Beryl Smalley’s The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 264–308. 64. The dating is significant because it coincides with his construction of the ST. Torrell places the rough dates of the ST as prima pars (up until September 1268 in Rome), prima secunda pars (1271 in Paris), secunda secundae pars (1271–72 in Paris), and the tertia pars (1272–73), beginning in Paris and being left unfinished in Naples); see Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:55–59 and 339. 65. Torrell explains that Thomas’s commentary on Matthew, as presently transmitted in official editions, is incomplete and interpolated. He writes: “It lacks Thomas’s commentary for a good part of the Sermon on the Mount, which his first editor, Bartholomew of Spina (1527) replaced with part of the commentary of Peter of Scala, who was a Dominican at the end of the thirteenth century. The interpolated passages extend in Matthew from 5:11 to 6:8 and from 6:14 to 6:19. The labors of the Leonine commission have allowed the discovery of a new manuscript that contains the complete text of Thomas’s commentary” (Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:339). See Jeremy Holme’s “Aquinas’s Lectura in Matthaeum,” in Aquinas on Scripture: An Introduction to his Biblical Commentaries, ed. Thomas G. Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating, and John P. Yocum, 73–97 (London: T&T Clark, 2005), for background on the commentary’s dating and manuscript tradition.

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Matthew 5:1–12—The Beatitudes Thomas’s scriptural commentary on the beatitudes overlaps significantly with its discussion in the ST.66 The two texts share concerns about a set of relationships: (1) the general relationship of the beatitudes to virtues and gifts, (2) the relationship of merit to reward within the beatitudes, and (3) the sequential relationship among the beatitudes themselves. The SM and the ST show general overall agreement on these points, but the SM affords Thomas space to expand and unpack certain points for his students, particularly, on the value of rewards, the progressive quality of the beatitudes, and the multivalent ways in which the beatitudes shape the wayfarer’s journey. Thomas’s divisio textus underscores his view of reward: “First, [the Lord] promises a reward, which follows upon those who accept this teaching.”67 The Sermon on the Mount is crafted so that the promise of rewards conditions or orders human behavior, cultivating virtue and progress on the journey. Pausing briefly on Thomas’s divisio is worthwhile because it underscores the point that Thomas sees reward texts not merely as proof texts for a systematic position; rather, they order the very shape of the commentary. As revealed by the word of Jesus, they are a priori rules for interpreting the texts which follow. Thomas thus begins by observing reward texts and constructs meritorious human action as a natural corollary. He writes: “Similarly, it should be noted that certain things are established as merits and certain things as rewards in these beatitudes, and this is so in every one [of the beatitudes]. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,’ behold merit; ‘for theirs is the kingdom of God,’ behold reward; and so on in the others.”68 Reward texts 66. Torrell puts the probable dating of the Matthew commentary in the academic year of 1269–70 and the prima-secundae pars in 1271, both during the second Paris regency. The dating would make the SM earlier by perhaps one year, with the two accounts sharing important points of near-verbatim commonality. 67. Super Matthaeum (SM), 403. Translations are mine and taken from Thomas Aquinas, Super Evangelium S. Matthaei lectura, 5th ed., ed. Raphaelis Cai (Turin: Marietti, 1951). The commentary will be referred to as SM, and all citations will be noted according to paragraph number as found in the Marietti edition. 68. SM, 409. As Thomas goes on to explain how the virtues commended in the beatitudes are meritorious, he notes that the acts of the virtues themselves may deserve reward or such actions may be perfected by further gifts of grace; Thomas writes: “Therefore these merits are either acts of the gifts or acts of virtue according as they are perfected by the gifts” (SM, 410). Here again, actualization of habits is vital to earning rewards. In speaking of rewards specifically, Thomas also confirms that rewards may

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explicitly regulate the commentary on the beatitudes, guiding the wayfarer into the proper mode of meritorious action. A point of notable distinction between the SM and ST treatments of the beatitudes is Thomas’s ratio for their order. Whereas Thomas divided the seven beatitudes according to the sensual, active, and contemplative stages in the ST, he uses a more general taxonomy in the SM: “For the virtue [of the beatitudes] does three things: it removes one from evil, it operates and makes one to operate in good works, and it disposes one to what is best.”69 Thomas’s order still pursues a movement away from evil, operation in good works, and a perfection of human nature and action, but it does so with less distinction among sensual, active, and contemplative habits. Thomas, in fact, stipulates that any of the beatitudes may promote movement away from evil, operation in good works, and disposition toward perfection. The journey need not be sequentially progressive to be successful. To be sure, Thomas thinks that later beatitudes, such as purity of heart, dispose one toward perfection more than earlier ones, but only in the sense that the preceding ones are themselves still perfecting: “For what is caused by poverty of spirit, by mourning, by meekness, except that one has a clean heart?”70 While retaining a sense that all beatitudes progressively perfect, Thomas speaks with ease, for example, of the power of meekness to become a surpassing virtue—something itself beyond human nature (and, already, a reward). He writes: “Now [meekness] could be done through virtue, namely, that you are not angered except by a just cause, but moreover if you have just cause [to be angry] and you are not provoked, this is above the human mode, and therefore [the Lord] says ‘blessed are the meek.’”71 Proper practice of the beatitude can advance human nature in its natural capacity to be meek, but it can also perfect one’s nature so that it already participates—inchoately—in the supernatural virtue of meekness. Thomas unpacks each of the beatitudes in the commentary be inchoate or perfect: “And it ought to be noted that these rewards, which the Lord touches upon here, can be had in two ways, namely, perfectly and as fully consummated, as only in the heavenly homeland, or inchoately or imperfectly as they are on the journey” (SM, 413). In these ways, the SM shares significant overlap with the ST. 69. SM, 414. 70. SM, 437. 71. SM, 419. Thomas goes on: “And note that this consists in two things. First that a person is not angered, and second, that if angered, he tempers his anger.”

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for the way in which they may merit both interim and inchoate final rewards along the journey. The commentary approaches the beatitudes in order to unpack and explore varieties of ways in which one acts well and abounds in good works. Prügl underscores this vital fruit of Thomas’s exegesis; he writes: “Depending on opportunity, Aquinas’ interpretation of the Scriptures occasionally puts more effort into a theological subject in an attempt to do justice to the spiritual or affective dimension of Scripture than is the case with the exclusively argumentative method of the quaestiones disputate or the Summae.”72 Unlike the ST, which is more concerned to clarify critical concepts and relationships concerning the beatitudes, the SM pauses to unpack the spiritual and practical implications of the beatitudes. For instance, when addressing “blessed are the merciful,” Thomas defines mercy as “to have a heart of misery for the misery of others: for we have greater mercy for the misery of others when we think of them as our own.”73 Thomas’s working definition demands, for example, that the wayfarer be attentive to the misery of his neighbor without which it is difficult to abound in mercy and progress on the journey. Mercy must be further attuned to both the temporal and spiritual dimensions of mercy—the wayfarer must have misery in his heart when persons suffer because of lack of goods and because of struggles with sin.74 The SM translates the concept of mercy into its concrete praxis, taking time to show how the beatitude of “blessed are the merciful” translates into the reward of “for they will be shown mercy.” After reflecting on how the wayfarer may show mercy in the temporal and spiritual concerns of the neighbor, Thomas describes how being “shown mercy” is a reward: “This mercy is inchoate in this life in two ways. First, because it looses (relaxantur) sins . . . second, because it removes temporal defects . . . yet it will be perfected in the future when every misery, both guilt and punishment, will be removed.”75 72. Prügl, “Thomas Aquinas as Interpreter of Scripture,” 404. 73. SM, 430. 74. Thomas writes: “And the misery of the neighbor is twofold. First in temporal things, and for this we ought to have a miserable heart, 1 Jn. 3:17: ‘he who has the substance of this world and sees a brother in his need, and shuts up his innermost [good] from him, in what way does the love of God remain in him?’ Second, when a person is made miserable through sin, because, just as there is beatitude in the works of the virtues, so there is a proper misery in its vices” (SM, 430). 75. SM, 431.

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Thomas exposits the reward of mercy concretely. Wayfarers will experience it on the way as the forgiveness of sins and as relief in temporal challenges and, ultimately, at judgement, those who show mercy will receive mercy in the remission of guilt and punishment. Thomas repeats this same exercise for all the beatitudes, unpacking the spiritual and affective dimensions of the journey and, with each one, he connects virtuous human action to rewards as ordered by Jesus himself.

Matthew 20:1–16—Laborers in the Vineyard The pericope of the laborers in the vineyard, at first glance, may seem like an anti-reward text. Persons are paid for their work but paid disproportionally and without equal correspondence to their work. Further, Christ uses the story to remind his readers: “So the last will be first and the first will be last,” which, at face value, implies that some works bear no reliable effect on one’s progress and final reward. Thomas reads the story of the laborers in the vineyard as a simile for God’s unfolding of salvation history, and rewards operate differently according to God’s providential direction of that history. The landowner, whom Thomas recognizes as God the Father, calls laborers to work in his vineyard, the church, but the call unfolds over the course of the day. God call persons “early in the morning” to work all day and promises them the “usual daily wage” for their laborers. Following this first agreement, the landowner calls workers again at 9 a.m., 12 noon, 3 p.m., and 5 p.m.76 Those called early are promised a “day’s wage” for their labors, but the rationale for payment changes over the course of the day. It moves from one of strict justice with the first laborers to one of generosity or quasi-gift to those called in the final hours.77 God fittingly waits to call the remaining laborers (glossed as Gentiles) until the time is appropriate: “Whence the Lord knew that if he called them before, they would not have stood up (stetissent) [and followed]. So they are led [by God] when they will consent and rise more effectively; thus the Lord says ‘you also go into my 76. Thomas comments that these five calls signify God’s call to eternal life at successive stages in human history: (1) Adam to Noah, (2) Noah to Abraham, (3) Abraham to David, (4) David to Christ, and (5) the age of Christ. 77. Thomas aligns those people in the last hour with the Gentiles in the age of Christ. He writes: “If we refer to the state of an age, then these [people] signify the Gentile people who do not serve God but idols. Yet they are excused because they did not have prophets like the Jewish people” (SM, 1634).

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vineyard.’”78 God calls the remaining laborers in the last hours, shortly before judgment; mercy is stressed. Thomas divides the payment section of the parable into three stages: the people are paid for their labors, some complain, and God provides an answer to the perceived injustice. Christ executes judgment, and he first repays those most recently called into the vineyard. Thomas explains that these workers have been infused with grace. He writes: “Beginning from the last,” that is, from those who are imbued with the sacraments. Hence a greater grace is given to them than the first [laborers]; Eph. 3:5 “which in other generations were not known is now revealed to his holy Apostles.” Thus it was conferred more abundantly to them, although some persons in the Old Testament have had a greater grace in some way.79

The Gentiles’ final rewards depend first upon an unmerited gift of grace. God calls and moves them—those standing around at the end of the day— in spite of their lack of merit, providing them with gifts, here connected to the sacraments of the new law, which dispose them to work in the vineyard. Thomas’s focus on God’s call harkens to predestination, that is, the reward given to the Gentiles originates in their unmerited but efficacious election. They have hardly “done what is in themselves” to prepare for the call into the vineyard. God does not merely call the Gentiles; God also instructs them to labor in the church. As such, they may still be rewarded on account of their labors, even if the reward is not strictly equivalent to the amount or type of the labor. Those who are called and equipped by grace must nonetheless labor in the vineyard, even if under different conditions, and their work leads Thomas to conclude “Thus there follows the execution [of the command] ‘when they came who had come around the eleventh hour,’ whether Christians or persons in a decrepit state, they received the single denarius. The Apostle [says] in 1 Cor. 3:8: ‘every person will receive a reward according to their labor.’”80 Thomas reasons that even the labor of the Gentiles, whose call began with a gift, culminates in reward. God predestines some to eternal life; they receive grace in order to merit glory as a reward; and then under an allowance-like system, they earn what God has given them the power of 78. SM, 1634. 79. SM, 1638. 80. SM, 1639.

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operation to accomplish. Thomas concludes his comments with the maxim, many are called (vocati sunt) but only a few are chosen (electi). He elaborates by pairing the “called” with all people who have faith, but the elect are those who do good works in light of the call.81 Thomas thus integrates a potentially difficult pericope on reward with his larger teaching so that what seems to be a parable about how human works cannot be used to determine one’s final wage is read in such a way that human works flow from one’s status as predestined and directed to God by grace.

Matthew 25:14–30—Parable of the Talents Like Bonaventure, Thomas offers a comprehensive presentation of reward in his lecture on the “parable of the talents.” Jesus seems to imply that the slaves who wisely invest and increase their master’s possessions are rewarded with praise, further gifts, and entrance into the master’s joy.82 He identifies Christ as the master of the house who leaves on a journey; the most obvious explanation of the journey is Christ’s ascension to heaven and promise to return as just judge.83 While the master is away, however, he bestows his goods on his slaves, and Thomas notes that the giving is significant in three ways: “First the liberality of the giver is touched on, second the diversity of the gifts, and likewise the discretion of giving.”84 As to the liberality of gifts, the master calling the slaves together reflects the effects of divine pre81. This follows a notion of fides formata, that faith, as a gift/call, is completed by good works. Thomas writes: “But someone may be able to say: ‘will all the first ones [who were called] be saved?’ Jesus says ‘many are called but few are chosen,’ because all who believe by faith are called, but those who do good works are chosen (electi), and these are few, as said above (7:14) ‘the way is narrow which leads to life, and they are few who find it’” (SM, 1649). 82. Thomas divides the text into three parts: (1) the distribution of gifts, (2) their use, and (3) judgment of their use; he writes: “Above, the Lord sets down a parable concerning judgement in which someone is reproved for not preserving the spiritual good received intrinsically, but here [the Lord] sets down a parable in which someone does not multiply the goods he has received; whence [the parable] is divided: first he treats (agit) concerning the distribution of gifts, second concerning their use, and third concerning the judgment of those who using them” (SM, 2034). 83. Thomas connects this aspect of the parable to the larger theme of journey, noting that Christians are as foreigners in an alien land traveling to the heavenly homeland. He writes: “[The journey] is likewise able to be understood spiritually: for he travels away from us now, yet we are to travel to him, as in 2 Cor 5:6 ‘while we are in the body, we are pilgrims [away] from the Lord.’ Yet when we see him, then we not will be like pilgrims but like citizens and domestics of God” (SM, 2035). 84. SM, 2034.

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destination; God gives gifts to those whom God chooses and calls.85 Other slaves were presumably not called. Because of providence’s movement toward maximal goodness, Thomas reasons that the master can bestow a diversity of gifts, which fit the character of the different servants. He writes: “These talents are the diverse gifts of grace; for just as the weight of metal is called a talent, so love is the weight of the soul.”86 The talents incline their souls with love and dispose them to act; habitual grace and auxilium are implied. Christ gives gifts to recipients according to their nature so that grace augments and perfects nature.87 Thomas addresses a question naturally surfaced by the biblical text: whether grace has its beginning in God or human beings. It goes hand-inhand with the question of the facienti. Thomas writes: “Likewise there was another error which said that the beginning of grace (initium gratiae) was from us.”88 Does the master’s knowledge of the servants’ abilities effect his decision to provide them with varying talents? Because God is creator of all things and wisely orders the cosmos, Thomas reasons that God’s predestination of some—and the grace that flows on account of it—precedes any action or knowledge of action concerning the elect. He writes: “But if you question why one has more grace than another, I say that there is a proximate cause of this thing and a first cause: the proximate cause is that this [slave] tried harder than that one; the first cause is divine election. . . . and what is the reason for this? Note that one is the universal agent and the other the particular agent.”89 God alone is the principle of divine election and the effects that follow. Predestination and grace cause the slave to do good works just as wayfarers respond to their election in grace in particular ways. Thomas thus uses an argument for the ordo of salvation as rooted in divine 85. Thomas writes: “Whence he ‘called to his servants,’ not them to him; thus Jn. 15:16: ‘you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,’ [and] Rom. 8:29: ‘Those whom he foreknew he also predestined’” (SM, 2035, emphasis mine). 86. SM, 2036. Here again there is a connection between love and weight, with love as a pondus anchoring and directing the wayfarer’s charity. 87. Thomas writes: “If this is referred to that [interpretation] in which the talents are spoken things, the exposition is plain, because the [talents] ought to be given according to the greater capacity . . . However, if we refer [the talents] to the good of graces, it ought to be known that some have said that he gave gratuitous goods according to the natural goods” (SM, 2039–40). 88. SM, 2041. 89. SM, 2042.

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predestination to resolve the original question. Having done so, he can subsequently demonstrate the appropriate place of grace, human efforts, and rewards in the narrative. The slaves who properly cooperate with gifts become eligible for rewards upon the master’s return.90 Thomas notes that “the Lord gives the person a long space of time for the sake of doing well,” which makes the judgment by the master all the more just and exemplary.91 Coming to the slave who has most multiplied his talents, the master praises his virtues. Thomas recounts the servant’s distinctive characteristics: “On the part of the first [slave] he sets down security, faithfulness, humility, and strenuous effort or solicitude.”92 The slave has a mind secure in faith, which is reflected in his watchful vigil for the master’s return. His fidelity is further manifested by his return of all ten talents to their original source or owner. Acknowledging that the talents belong properly to the master demonstrates the slave’s humility; all good things belong properly to God. Finally, Thomas cites the industrious multiplication of the talents as evidence of the slave’s strenuousness or solicitude even as the increase is only possible on account of the master’s original gift: “Whence the slave rightly says with the Apostle: ‘the grace of God in me has not been in vain.’”93 The first slave’s behavior models how human beings ought to approach the gift of grace, cooperative action, and potential rewards. The master’s judgment illumines the nature of God’s judgment in four distinct ways: (1) congratulations, (2) commendation of merit, (3) the equality of judgment, and (4) the magnitude of the reward.94 First, the master’s 90. Thomas argues that the slave receiving five talents has already progressed in virtue through cooperation in good works. He writes: “The progress of virtue is designated here; Ps. 83:8: ‘they will go from virtue to virtue.’ . . . For virtue advances through the exercise of [good] works” (SM, 20145). Speaking of the need to “communicate” or share one’s virtues, Thomas writes: “Whence if you share what you have received, you profit just as much. Thus [the Lord] says that he ‘gained another five’; because one would scarcely give to another what one did not have” (SM, 2045). 91. See SM, 2049. The language of “bene agendum” resonates with the “proemium” of ST I-II:109, which posits that grace is given as an extrinsic help for recipients to “act rightly” (prout ab ipso per gratiam adiuvamur ad recte agendum). Also interesting is Thomas’s stress on “a long time” making the judgment just; there must be opportunity for cooperation in order for there to be reward. The stress here balances with Thomas’s argument in the Laborers in the Vineyard that those called late in the day receive grace and ultimately their reward as an act of mercy as much as reward. 92. SM, 2051. 93. SM, 2051. 94. See SM, 2052.

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warm congratulations, “well done, good and faithful slave,” illustrates God’s happiness and praise for the successful wayfarer. Second, God also approves the wayfarer’s particular merits; faith, humility, and good works earn the reward. The threefold commendation suggests that judgment is specific and focuses on the use and actualization of distinct gifts. Third, Thomas argues that equality of judgment is evident in the master’s evaluation of the servant. Because the servant was trustworthy in small things, he may be placed in charge of greater things; Thomas writes: “Those few things are all those which are in this life, because they are like nothing in comparison to heavenly things. Whence he wishes to say: because you have been faithful concerning the good things which are of the present life, ‘I will set you over many things,’ that is, I will give to you spiritual things, which are above all those goods.”95 The ratio of divine ordination is stressed in the words of judgement. The slave’s work is not simply accepted on the basis of a promise; rather, he is rewarded in proportion to his cooperation. Final rewards involve deep joy and, ultimately, peace: “Thus joy is nothing other than the rest of the soul in the good attained; therefore joy is called a reward by reason of the end.”96 Thomas uses the difference in talents between the first and second slave to explore why the master rewards the first two slaves equally when the first has provided a larger aggregate return. Thomas writes: “[It] is understood, according to Origen, that the one who receives a small gift from the Lord and uses it well as one is able, receives and merits as much as the one who receives a greater gift. For the Lord requires only this from every one: that a person serves God with his whole heart, as it is held in Dt. 5:6.”97 Full cooperation is central to progress more than the outcome of the cooperation itself; the wayfarer who loves God with her whole heart properly uses whatever gifts God gives, and so, merits reward.98 This emphasis on use as 95. SM, 2052. 96. SM, 2052. 97. SM, 2055. 98. In lecturing on Mt. 12:33–37, Thomas advances a similar argument. Speaking of what “makes a tree good,” he writes: “And it ought to be said that the principle of merit consists in charity, and it follows in the other virtues. For merit regards the essential reward, according as charity is considered. So, whatever work is done in greater charity has greater merit. Only charity has God as object and end. Whence the merit of charity corresponds to substantial reward and the merit of other virtues to accidental reward” (SM, 1042).

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opposed to aggregate return, however, can raise doubts about the justice of rewards. For example, if one person was given a greater infusion of charity and cooperated in such a way as to gain greater perfection than a person who received a smaller infusion but nonetheless used it well, should not the first person receive a greater reward according to the discussion of proportional justice outlined by Thomas in ST I-II:114, 1? Thomas argues that the gifts that God gives can vary in their effects: “And for that reason, one ought to make a distinction; there are certain goods which perfect, elicit the act of the will, and incline [it to action], but there are others which do not. The gift which inclines the will and elicits the act is charity. Therefore it is not possible that one has more charity and does not make a greater effort, and a better one.”99 It would seem, then, that the talents that the master gives in the parable are not gifts of charity. Thomas writes: “But there are other gifts which a person is able to use according to greater or lesser charity, such as knowledge and the like: in such things, the one who tries more merits more as regards the reward; whence it is said that the poor woman threw more into the offertory box than those who placed more [in it], because she used [her gift] according to her whole ability.”100 The extent to which one uses those gifts that flow from charity regulates the kinds of rewards one deserves. In the case of the slaves, both slaves served the master with whole hearts and charity, but the effects of such love emerge through their secondary gifts. According to these secondary gifts, Thomas reasons that the first slave may deserve a greater reward. Thomas’s student can already assume certain things about the third slave’s judgment. The slave has failed to cooperate with even his singular talent. Further, he regards the master differently, as a hard man who reaps where he does not sow. Thomas presents the slave as blasphemous for holding three false opinions of the master: “First, that God is not merciful, second that something would be added to God by our good, and third that not all things are from God.”101 The slave casts aspersions on the master such as reaping what he does not sow or gathering where he did not scatter seed. 99. SM, 2056. 100. SM, 2056. At several points in his Pauline commentary, Thomas unpacks what it might mean to make a “greater effort” and how this might shape final rewards; see especially his exegesis of 1 Cor. 3:8–15, 1 Tim. 6:18–19, and 2 Tim. 2:11–13 in the appendix. 101. SM, 2059.

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Thomas traces all of these opinions back to a single root: the slave fails to see God as his ultimate “master”—a deficiency in faith. The slave instead regards the master as hard, avaricious, and evil, which are qualities in utter opposition to divine nature; he remains in a state of obdurate sin or corruption.102 He lacks faith, charity, and in this case, the ability to recognize God’s mercy; his desires are disordered and detached from his highest good. In fact, Thomas argues that the slave is himself “hardened” by sin so that he ironically personifies the sin that he attributes to the master. Preserving the plain meaning of the slave’s words, however, Thomas also argues that the master can indeed be reckoned as “hard” in his judgment of sinners even as he is merciful to those who do good.103 The master can be said to reap and gather what he did not sow and scatter if the latter means the works of the just. Thomas explains: “Similarly, when he says ‘you reap where you did not sow,’ it has a certain truth, because a person sows and God gathers, as in Jn. 4:37, ‘it is one who sows and another who reaps. I have sent you to reap where you did not labor.’ For a person sows by his works, and God reaps to his glory.”104 God gathers the good done by those whom God prepares, and presumably God gathers justice in the judgement of the third slave. However, the slave twists this idea to mean that the master unjustly seizes what does not belong to him. The slave’s disordered and sinful state leads to an unfounded fear of the master such that he hides his talent, originally received from the master, in the ground. Following the formula for judging the first two servants, the master (1) vituperates the sinful servant, (2) extends his equality of judgment, and (3) punishes him.105 First calling 102. In a practical aside, Thomas likens the third slave to those with gifts who turn away from the status religionis, specifically, mendicant life; he writes: “Likewise, some estimating him to be hard, withdraw themselves from their [the master’s] service. Whence some, who are able to accomplish much, say ‘if I heard confessions and preached,’ something bad would perhaps befall me,” such persons consider God [to be] hard. Likewise, some say, if I were to enter religious life, I perhaps would sin and be worse’; those consider God [to be] hard who believe if they cling to God that God would fail them. Such men are like those who despair of God’s mercy” (SM, 2060). 103. Thomas writes: “Therefore [God] is hard with sinners and merciful to the good. . . . But insofar as he is merciful, we ought to hope that if, someone gives himself to God’s service, that he will not fail, and if he falls, he will rise” (SM, 2061). In the reference to “giving oneself to God’s service,” one sees Thomas working at two levels in the commentary, speaking of the Christian life broadly and the religious life more narrowly. 104. SM, 2063. 105. Thomas writes: “And just as with the other servants he first commended them, then set down

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him “evil and lazy” (male et piger), the master condemns the actions of the slave. The slave ought to have multiplied the talent in some form, at least by investing it so that the master would receive interest. The complete lack of multiplication, that is, cooperation, condemns the slave to punishment because it indicates a failure of “good use.” Thomas stresses the importance of multiplication to the point that one could regard it as a measure of progress toward final reward. One need not be cognizant of every good one does, but one should strive to cooperate through good works. The master takes the third slave’s talent and gives it to the first as a sign that those who abound in good works will receive multiplied and unexpected rewards. Thomas identifies a duplex punishment based on the slave’s failure to do good.106 He is cast into darkness, which represents damnation by being cut off from knowing God. And the place of darkness includes wailing and gnashing of teeth, which Thomas takes as confirmation that the final punishment will be tactile as well as intellectual. Thomas lectures at length on the parable of the talents; in the Marietti, his comments run from sections 2031–77. He uses the occasion to exposit a near-complete treatment of how God will judge and reward human beings on the basis on their actions. God calls those whom he wishes to reward with eternal life; the master predestines that the first two slaves will receive the reward of eternal life. As a result of this call, the master gives them certain gifts, which Thomas identifies as graces, which dispose and move them to act justly and merit interim and final rewards. Prior to any discussion of reward, Thomas carefully lays the groundwork of predestination and the priority of grace. An extended commentary follows on the rationale of divine rewards. The slaves’ actions are rooted in charity and augmented by other gifts; thus disposed, they are able to seek and love God as final good. The resulting actions along the journey—the time while the master is away—can be attributthe equity of judgment, and thereafter the reward, so with this one, he first vituperates him, he second sets down the equity of judgement, and third, punishment” (SM, 2066). 106. Thomas sees scripture demanding that believers abound in doing good. The lack of good works is ground for punishment; he writes: “And note that [the third slave] is punished not because he has done evil things but because of the good things which he failed to do; thus as above ‘every tree which does not bear good fruit will be cut down.’ And elsewhere in Jn. 15:2: ‘every branch in me that does not bear fruit [the Father] will take away.’ And he is called a ‘useless slave’ because he does not spend the good he has for the utility of others: as if he had understanding but did not spend it in good use by teaching others; or if he had money and did not exercise a work of mercy” (SM, 2075).

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ed to God as first actor and human beings as authentic and secondary actors in their salvation. Thomas’s commentary on the parable offers a microcosmic exposition of his macrocosmic magisterial teaching, in the treatise on grace and elsewhere. It additionally includes comments on final judgment that were left incomplete in the ST.

Matthew 25:31–46—Parable of the Sheep and the Goats Thomas divides his commentary on the parable of the sheep and the goats into three principal areas: (1) the coming of judgment, (2) the gathering together of those to be judged, and (3) the judgment itself.107 Those brought to judgment are people extending from Adam to the end of the world. Thomas divides this group thus: Therefore one ought to note that not all of those are gathered together for the same thing, but there will be a fourfold genus of those who will appear at the judgment. For some will appear to be judged according to an examination of merit, but of these some will be damned and some will be saved. However some will receive a sentence without an examination. For to be judged is said in two ways, namely either to receive a sentence, because everyone will be either rewarded or punished; or to be judged is said to give back the reasons [render an account] through an examination of merits. And this examination will not be necessary for everyone, because the sins and merit of those joined to Christ by faith will mainly be examined: for those who are totally alien to Christ need no examination, according as it is said in Jn. 3:18: “he who does not believe is already judged.”108

Thomas outlines a double set of categories by which to class persons at the final judgment. The first category includes those who are judged according to their merits; some will receive rewards and others punishments based on a discussionem meritorum. Thomas adds a further category of persons who receive a sentence sine discussione. An identifiable lack of faith already determines their status as alienated from Christ. At first glance, this taxonomy seems unnecessarily complicated and potentially redundant. When read in light of Thomas’s systematic discussion of justification in ST I-II:113, how107. Thomas writes: “Above the Lord sets out diverse parables pertaining to judgement; but here he treats clearly concerning his judgement; and he does three things: first he treats of the advent of the judge, second of the gathering of those to be judged, and third of the judgment [itself]” (SM, 2078). 108. SM, 2084.

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ever, the double division makes greater sense. The first step in justification is an infusion of operative grace and the application of auxilium causing the soul to move to God in faith. Without these gifts, a person cannot achieve remission of sins and move from a state of sin into a state of grace; there can be no merit apart from justification. Certainly, those who lack faith remain in a state of sin and alienation from Christ; as such, they are goats sine discussione. Those with faith are already conjoined to Christ. Justification—as an operative effect of grace—thus moves the wayfarer into a state of grace and so advances the journey, which thereafter depends on the cooperation.109 Those in a state of grace ought to be judged or recompensed per discussionem meritorum. Working from this classification, Thomas outlines categories based on the effects, or lack thereof, of operative and cooperative graces. The fourfold categorization of judgement therefore conforms to Thomas’s systematic depiction of the journey. Christ invites the sheep to reward and links this to their meritorious work. That the sheep are called “blessed by my Father” already signifies a twofold reward. First, because the reward of glory is eternal and beyond finite human nature, it arises from grace; Thomas writes “Whence we find a temporal and eternal cause of salvation; the temporal cause is posited of glory, and this is touched on by ‘Come you, blessed by my Father.’ . . . His blessing is the infusion of grace; thus he says ‘Father,’ because [the cause of salvation] is not from us but from God.”110 The reward is given by the Father who has poured grace into the recipient. Thomas notes a second reason for reward. God provides grace as an effect of predestination: “Likewise the other cause is the predestination of God; and this is noted when he says ‘the kingdom prepared for you.’ Hence the Apostle [says] in Rom. 8:30 ‘those whom he predestined he also called.’”111 God prepares a kingdom from the foundation of the world for the sheep whom God has chosen, and God provides grace to those whom God calls. Thomas thus prefaces any discussion of reward for human action with the double reminder that predestination and grace establish the possibility of reward. Coming to the reward itself, Thom109. As a parallel, recall Thomas’s connection between many being called (being given faith) with the few who are chosen (those who advance in grace through charity) in the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. 110. SM, 2094. 111. SM, 2094.

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as aligns the kingdom prepared by the Father with the kingdom of heaven.112 Possession of the kingdom depends primarily on God’s agency: “But we have this [right] ex ordinatione divina, likewise, by Christ’s acquisition, who acquired this [right] for us, by his grace; Eph. 1:14 ‘Who is the pledge of our inheritance.’”113 Rewards depend doubly on divine ordination and Christ’s saving action in the economy. Here one glimpses Thomas’s larger doctrine of adopted sonship and Christ’s critically central role in meriting salvation on behalf of others.114 The sheep cooperate through the exercise of their free will, and when human beings freely and deliberately choose to do good—in this case to undertake the corporal works of mercy—they deserve rewards. Thomas writes: From this we ought to consider that the cause of beatitude is twofold, one part from God, that is the blessing of God, and the other part from us, that is, the merit that is from the free will: for persons ought not be idle but ought to cooperate with the grace of God, as it is said in 1 Cor. 15:10: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and the grace of God in me was not in vain.”115

Cooperation, in some cases, keeps God’s grace from being given in vain; the position underscores the priority of grace as well as the indispensability of human free choice and action along the journey to eternal beatitude. Thomas parses cooperation in terms of the works of mercy performed by the sheep, though in other places, it has been the beatitudes, the good use of talents, or more generally, the works that arise from the principal virtue of charity. When sheep serve the least of their brothers, they humble themselves, which provides the opportunity for God to reward such humility through exaltation.116 112. Thomas writes: “But what is that reward that he touches on: ‘possess the kingdom prepared for you’? And what is this kingdom? This kingdom is the kingdom of heaven; Ps. 144:14 ‘Your kingdom, O Lord, is the kingdom for all ages’” (SM, 2095). 113. SM, 2095, emphasis mine. 114. See the discussion of Thomas’s commentary on Jn. 15:1–7 (I am the vine), below, and the treatment of Phil. 3:12–14 in the appendix for examples of the cause of merit being found in Christ. See Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace, 142–50 and 192–207, and Somme, Fils adoptifs, 87–90, for a fuller exposition of the topic. 115. SM, 2096. 116. Thomas writes: “[The king] satisfies this admiration, because when a person humbles himself God also raises him up; when a person vilifies oneself, God praises him; whence ‘as long as you did it for one of these, the least of my brothers, you did it for me’; as above: the one who receives you, receives me,’

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Whereas the sheep deserved reward on account of predestination, grace, and free cooperation, the goats deserve punishment through no causal action on God’s part. God’s agency is restricted to allowing sinners to freely sin and so incur just punishment. Thomas observes this difference in the way that the parable refers to the goats. While the sheep had been blessed by the Father—benedicti Patris mei—the goats are cursed—maledicti—without reference to God as the cause.117 The kingdom provided to the goats is prepared by the devil. Thomas affirms the justice of the sentence given to the goats.118 God punishes sinners because they persist in a state of sin, willfully exclude themselves from the company of God, and turn away from true charity. As fitting recompense, death interrupts the sinner who would otherwise sin eternally; it removes the sinner from God’s presence, and recognizes the sinner’s lack of charity. This merciful punishment again manifests a telling degree of divine goodness. Thomas maintains the plain meaning of this reward text: human beings will be judged according to their actions and will receive corresponding recompense. He makes no attempt to soften the passage’s affirmation of the influence and importance of human action. As he maintains the basic meaning of the passage, he integrates technical commentary to explain the fittingness of the reward text and so situates the actions and rewards of the sheep into because the head and the members are one body” (SM, 2103). He uses the image of the body to exposit the meaning of the text. When someone cares for the least of Christ’s brothers, they care for Christ in the same way that attending to a lower part of the body shows care and solicitude for the head. Union between head and members not only demonstrates how persons may care for Christ; it illumines how members enjoy the merits of Christ’s headship and passion. Through union in the body, members have communion with the Son so that Christ’s merit flows to them and their actions increase in merit by their connection to Christ. See Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace, 192–98, and Somme, Fils adoptifs, 88–90. 117. Thomas writes: “This sentence differs from the first, because he said in the first, ‘Come you, blessed by my Father,’ etc.; but here he does not say ‘[you,] cursed by my Father,’ because our blessing is from God, but our cursedness is from us” (SM, 2107). 118. Thomas observes that the parable collapses some of the corporal works of mercy into couplets rather than enumerating them separately, arguing that God renders punishment more quickly while God rewards more lavishly and with greater joy. He writes: “Here there is nothing to say except that he speaks to the good and to the wicked differently: for above he said each thing explicitly on its own, while here he joins many [condemnations] together; wherefore ‘sick and in prison.’ And since he joins those two, one ought to say that he proceeds in the mode of a good judge who condemns reluctantly and rewards lavishly; whence he enlarges the words of reward and abbreviates the works of condemnation” (SM, 2107).

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the framework of predestination and grace. God acts primarily and human beings act secondarily. This secondary action is nevertheless free and worthy of reward. The commentary anticipates Thomas’s teaching in ST I-II:114, where he affirms the possibility of human beings meriting reward while tempering it with the precondition of God’s primary agency.

Bonaventure: Passages from John Bonaventure’s Commentarius in Evangelium S. Ioannis (CJ), which Bougerol calls a postilla, differs from the commentary on Luke.119 One of the most striking differences has to do with length. While the John commentary is by no means short, the commentary on Luke is more than twice its length.120 The John commentary originates as a cursory exposition of the literal text produced as a baccalaureus biblicus. Bonaventure later adds 414 quaestiones, which act as a different tool for elucidating John’s meaning. These questions typically follow the commentary of a given passage and they entertain an objection or potential contradiction about the text, which Bonaventure then clarifies with a respondeo.121 Their inclusion gives the commentary a magisterial character and may indicate its use for the classroom rather than the pulpit. Scholars date the hybrid and final form of the commentary to around 1256, which places the commentary in Bonaventure’s relatively short quasi-magisterial period, along with the Luke commentary and Breviloquium. The commentary’s divisio textus divides the gospel under two main headings: the Word in se (1:1–5), and the Word united to the flesh (1:6–21:25). Under the latter heading, Bonaventure subdivides the text into three categories: the Incarnation (1:6–11:46), the passion (11:47–19:42), and the resurrection (20:1–21:25). He does not parse the text to focus on Christ’s public ministry, as in the CL. Rather the Word teaches by his own Incarnation, passion, and resurrection; this order parallels the organization 119. The commentary is found in the Quaracchi edition, Opera omnia, 6:237–530. See Bougerol, Introduction, 94–98, for an overview of the place of the John commentary in Bonaventure’s larger exegetical corpus. For an extended introduction to the postilla on John, see Monti’s “Bonaventure’s Interpretation,” 105–48. 120. The CJ consumes 293 (double-column) pages in the Quaracchi edition, whereas Luke consumes 601 pages. 121. See Robert Karris’s “Questions,” in the introduction to Works of Saint Bonaventure, ed. Robert J. Karris, 11:8–12 (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2007).

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of scripture in the LV. The commentary includes less focus on reward texts and instead stresses Christ’s exemplarity. In general, reward texts are more prevalent in the synoptic gospels than in John, and this means that Bonaventure has fewer natural opportunities to comment on divine rewards. We nevertheless encounter Bonaventure affirming divine rewards as promises to God’s followers particularly at Jn. 14:1–10 (many dwelling places), 14:15–24 (keep my commandments), and 15:12–17 (love one another).

John 14:1–10—Many Dwelling Places In Jn. 14:1–10, Christ promises the disciples (1) that the Father’s house includes many dwelling places, (2) that he goes ahead to prepare a place for them, and (3) that he is “the way, the truth, and the life.” Bonaventure uses the pericope to exposit three corresponding topics: (1) predestination and merit, (2) the virtue of faith, and (3) Christ as beginning, middle, and end of the journey. The notion that God has already prepared different dwelling places raises the topic of predestination. Christ proclaims that he is going ahead of the disciples to prepare a place for them; it presents a problem inasmuch as the Father has already provided the dwelling places. What, then, can be the meaning of Christ going to prepare a place for them? Bonaventure writes: Where it says “were is not so,” [Chrysostom] says “if it were not so,” that is, if they had not been prepared through predestination; “I (Jesus) would have told you because I go to prepare a place for you.” But this is impossible that I prepare them in this way, because it is impossible that I should predestine someone anew, just as Augustine says. And for that reason, I have said that “there are many mansions in my Father’s house” already prepared through predestination, but they are still to be prepared by the merit of faith, which has its greatest merit in [my] absence.122

The rooms of the Father’s house are prepared from the foundations of the earth according to God’s predestination, but their occupancy is filled according to merit. The relationship of predestination to human merit nevertheless remains ambiguous. Bonaventure stipulates that God has predestined certain persons to occupy certain dwelling places through their good 122. CJ, 14:2. Translations are mine and taken from Commentarius in Evangelium S. Ioannis, vol. 6 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1895); citations note the chapter and paragraph of the commentary enumerated in the Quaracchi edition.

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use of sanctifying grace, but he does not suggest that God has determined or caused certain persons to come to certain dwelling places. God’s role is muted; the merit of faith is stressed as a cause of the wayfarer coming to her predestined end. Bonaventure arguably leaves open the question of the cause of predestination. This follows the slight ambiguity of the Sentence Commentary, including the possibility that foreknowledge of merit has something to do with predestination. As Christ prepares the disciples to persevere through his passion, he commends the act of faith: “believe in me.”123 Christ thus prepares the dwelling places by withdrawing from the disciples: “Therefore, he exhorts them to faith while he is absent, since he absents himself for this purpose that they may have the merit of faith.”124 The virtue of faith enkindles love or desire—a desire for possession of Christ—yet this seems to shift the act of preparation onto the faithful who desire Christ and so prepare themselves for a dwelling place. Quoting Augustine, Bonaventure writes: “For thus a place is being prepared if a person is living by faith. [Christ] being believed in, let him be desired, so that, being desired, he may be possessed; for the desire of love is the preparation for the mansion.”125 Bonaventure sustains his position by arguing that “prepares” (parare/praeparare) has to do not with the creation of the dwelling places but with their inhabitation through meritorious action. Dwelling places connote both a gift of predestination and a reward for human action; God gives and establishes dwelling places and human beings inhabit them. Bonaventure’s commentary might have been better served if he had not initially tried to align the dwelling places with predestination but instead defined them as something like the divisions of beatitude that can be enjoyed according to human merit. This is only possible, however, if merit is proportional so that the proportions may differ to merit in heaven. If all merit is essentially condign, then it is difficult to differentiate the rooms in God’s mansion. 123. Bonaventure establishes the centrality of faith when he treats Jn. 1:12–13: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not from blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God.” Bonaventure argues that faith merits adopted sonship; see CJ, 1:27. 124. CJ, 14:3. 125. CJ, 14:3, quoting Augustine On John, Tractate 68n3. See Augustine, In Iohannis evangelium tractatus CXXIV, ed. by R. Willems, Corpus christianorum, Series latina 36 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954).

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John 14:15–24—Keep My Commandments John 14:15–24 conveys several promises that may be categorized into two principal groups. First, Christ promises to send “another advocate” in the Holy Spirit to support and sustain his followers. Second, he promises to reward those who “keep his commandments.” The Father will “abide in” and “love” those who do so. Bonaventure divides the passage thus: “First Jesus exhorts them by promising help, second he promises comfort, third reward, and fourth he expresses the merit of these things.”126 Noting that Christ first exhorts the disciples to “keep my commands,” Bonaventure writes: “John states: ‘This is love: that we walk according to his commandments.’ To those who do, he promises help (auxilium); therefore: ‘I will ask the Father and he will give another Paraclete to you.’”127 God sends the gift of the Spirit as a promised reward to those who do what they can to observe the commands, especially the exhortation to love.128 Through the consolation of the Spirit, wayfarers advance in keeping Christ’s commandments, and as they do so, God “loves” them. Bonaventure glosses divine love: “This third thing is touched on, namely a reward is promised for observing the commandments. And the reason for this is because, those who observe the commandments are loved by God, and on account of that are beatified and glorified.”129 The reward of divine love anticipates the final reward of glory. In the biblical text Judas asks how or why Jesus reveals himself to the disciples but not to the whole world. Christ answers that God loves those who keep God’s word. Bonaventure writes: “This expresses a fourth point, that there is merit in observing the commandments. . . . And the Lord responds to [Judas] that the cause is merit because those [in the world] do not observe the commandments, which is the merit of seeing [the Lord].”130 The disciples already merit Christ’s self-disclosure 126. CJ, 14:24. 127. CJ, 14:24–25. 128. Bonaventure clarifies that the initial mission of the Spirit cannot be seen as a reward because it makes merit possible, but the increased or full possession of the Spirit can nevertheless be reckoned as an interim reward on the condition of Christ’s promise. He responds: “I answer that it has to be maintained that they have the Holy Spirit so that they may love and keep the commandments, but the Spirit was promised by the Lord, so that they might have the Spirit more fully and with greater effects” (CJ, 14:34). 129. CJ, 14:30. 130. CJ, 14:31.

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because they have earned it through discipleship and adherence to Christ’s doctrine. Christ now generalizes the commandment to all people who may merit final rewards through the work of keeping the commands. Bonaventure commends the disciples as examples of persons who already merit interim and final rewards, and in doing so, he demonstrates that these same rewards are open to all who follow Christ’s commands.

John 15:12–17—Love One Another In John 15:12, Christ affirms the foundation of divine rewards: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (1:12). Jesus later calls the disciples his friends, as opposed to servants, and encourages them to bear fruit that will last “so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name” (1:16). Bonaventure writes: “After the Lord exhorts them to the love of God, he here secondly exhorts them to the love of brothers and friends, and he does so in this mode: first, he binds them to fraternal love through the perspective of obedience; second through the perspective of divine friendship, and third through the perspective of eternal reward.”131 Christ’s command to love one another includes the promised incentive and interim reward of his friendship. Just as he extends this gift to the disciples immediately (“I call you friends”), so this promised reward is extended to all wayfarers on the journey. Bonaventure writes: “[Jesus] promises something great when he promises friendship. Augustine says: ‘The Lord’s dignity is great when he has dignified us by call us friends,’ because friend is a name of equality.”132 God promises to view wayfarers as friends—equals in a sense— if they practice the virtue of love. This is rooted in a sense that love aligns the divine and human wills so that there is an equality of willing between God and the wayfarer.133 It also advances a sense that God accepts as friends those who love God; acceptation establishes equality, a kind of condign reward, where it could not otherwise exist. Such friendship nevertheless depends on human cooperation or action for acceptance: “This love is proven through works, therefore Jesus says: ‘You are friends if you do the things which I com131. CJ, 15:19. 132. CJ, 15:21. 133. The Quaracchi editors indicate that Bonaventure is drawing on Cicero’s idea of friendship involving mutuality of will; cf. CJ, 15:21n1.

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mand.’”134 The promise of reward motivates the work of obedience, which leads to the further and final reward of eternal life.135 Loving according to Jesus’ command can be the only reward that a properly hierarchized wayfarer can ask of the Father. Bonaventure’s John Commentary stresses that human action—particularly faith and love—conforms wayfarers to Christ who is the very way of the journey. Bonaventure thus adapts his discussions of human action and reward to fit his overarching vision of John’s Gospel, which depicts the Word united to flesh and wayfarers progressively united and conformed to the Word.

Thomas: Passages from John Scholars typically date the composition of Thomas’s Lectura super Ioannem (SJ) to sometime between 1270 and 1272. Set alongside the estimated dating of Matthew (1269–70), Torrell suggests that Thomas commented on biblical texts in canonical order.136 The text of the lectures comes as a reportatio edited by Reginald.137 In the prologue to the commentary, Thomas notes that the context of revelation shifts from the mysteries of Christ’s hu134. CJ, 15:21. Bonaventure subsequently makes a telling reference to predestination. Responding to Christ’s words: “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” he writes: “Here in a third point he exhorts them to love from the perspective of eternal reward to which they have been called through eternal predestination. They have not made their way there on their own” (CJ, 15:23). 135. Bonaventure writes: “‘And that your fruit should remain,’ for your salvation and consolation through divine reward: ‘So that whatever you ask the Father in my name,’ that is, that which is for your salvation, ‘he will give to you.’ But that which is to be asked for is our salvation . . .’ And from the perspective of this reward, they ought to observe the commands of Christ” (CJ, 15:23). 136. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:198–99. He writes: “To all appearances, Thomas took the books of the New Testament in their canonical order. In passing directly from Matthew to John, he must have thought that Matthew took the place of the two other Synoptics, while John had something special to say” (Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:199). For a series of essays on theological topics addressed in Aquinas’s John Commentary, see Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering, eds., Reading John with Saint Thomas Aquinas: Theological Exegesis and Speculative Theology (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005). See in particular, John Boyle’s “Authorial Intention and the Divisio Textus,” 3–8; Bruce Marshall’s “What Does the Spirit Have to Do?” 62–77; and Michael Sherwin’s “Christ the Teacher in St. Thomas’s Commentary on the Gospel of John,” 173–93. 137. Torrell argues that it is unlikely that Thomas himself edited the volume; see Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:198–99. The sheer length of the lectures is stunning. For example, while the Leonine edition has not yet been published, the Parma edition (v. 10) gives 366 double-columned pages to the John commentary, whereas the Lectura super Matthaeum, itself an extensive commentary, consumes 278 pages.

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manity in the synoptics to those of his divinity in John.138 The reward texts in John are fewer and subtler. Thomas sees John instructing readers in the contemplative life, and this hermeneutical shift also shifts his exposition of rewards.139 Four examples provide engaging commentary on reward.140 They include: Jn. 1:11–12 (the power to become children of God), 14:1–7 (many dwelling places), and two lectures from Jn. 15:1–17 (Christ’s “I am the vine” discourse). These examples show notable overlap with Bonaventure; both writers explore Jn. 14:1–7 and 15:1–17 to address divine rewards; and even with Jn. 1:11–12, Bonaventure cursorily comments on the rewards implied in the passage.

John 1:11–12—Power to Become Children of God In the gospel’s first chapter, John writes: “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born not of blood or of the will of man, but of God” (1:11–12). Thomas argues that becoming children of God means becoming “like God,” per assimilationem 138. Following Augustine, Thomas observes the unique contemplative dimensions of John’s gospel, and he reasons that the fourth gospel addresses Christ’s divinity most effectively: “Therefore in his way from what has been said, the material of the gospel is understood; because while the other Gospel writers treat principally of the mystery of Christ’s humanity, John makes known, especially and principally, the mystery of Christ’s divinity, as was said above. Nevertheless [John] does not pass over the mystery of his humanity; he did this because after the other Gospel writers had written their Gospels, heresies arose around the divinity of Christ, which erred that Christ was purely [and solely] human, as Ebion and Cerinthus falsely opined” (prologue to SJ, 10). Translations are mine and taken from Thomas Aquinas, Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura, 6th ed., ed. Raphaelis Cai (Turin: Marietti, 1972). The commentary will be referred to as SJ, and all citations will be noted according to paragraph number as found in the Marietti edition. 139. For instance, in the prologue to his commentary on John’s gospel, Thomas begins by referencing Is. 6:1: “I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the whole house was full of his majesty, and the things that were under him filled the temple.” Thomas comments: “These are the words of a contemplative [that is, Isaiah], and if we grasp them as spoken from the mouth of John the Evangelist, they pertain well to revelation of this Gospel. For as Augustine says in his work, On the Agreement of the Evangelists: ‘The other Evangelists instruct us in their Gospels on the active life; but John in his Gospel instructs us also on the contemplative life.’ The contemplation of John is set down in three ways according to the threefold manner in which he contemplated the Lord Jesus. It is described as high, full, and perfect” (SJ, 1). 140. At several other points in the work, Thomas comments cursorily on divine rewards without making them primary subjects of exposition. Three good examples include: Jn. 4:36, 5:25–29, and 10:1–10.

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Deum, in three ways: (1) by infusion of grace, (2) by perfection of human actions, and (3) by attaining glory.141 Becoming a child of God involves God’s prior and primary action but also requires perfected human action. A proper understanding of grace unlocks the passage’s meaning. He writes: If we accept the power to become sons of God insofar as the perfection of action and the attainment of glory, the words present no difficulty, because when he says “he gave them power,” the power of grace is understood, and when a person has [this power], he can do works of perfection and win glory; since as is said in Rom. 6:23, “the grace of God is eternal life.” And according to this mode [of understanding] it is said “he gave them” to those who received him “power,” that is, the infusion of grace, “to become sons of God,” by acting well and attaining glory.142

Grace is the exterior principle perfecting human nature and its operation. The emphasis on grace affirms that human beings can become like God without affirming that they accomplish this end themselves “because it is not in our power to be made sons of God, since it is not in our power to have grace.”143 If human beings lack the power to possess grace of themselves, then the power to become like God begins as an extrinsic movement whereby they are helped by God to act well (bene operando)—the definition of grace set out in the proemium to ST I-II:109. Thomas entertains whether human beings justify themselves as part of becoming children of God. Because justification would seem to require the movement of the free will, he entertains the objection that human beings cause their likening to God by their free actions. The response to this objection comes as no surprise, yet it constitutes a powerful text affirming the operative character of conversion; Thomas writes: However this does not suffice, since even the free will requires the help (auxilio) of divine grace to be moved to receive grace, not merely habitual grace but the grace of movement (moventis), and for that reason, [the grace of movement] gives power by moving the free will of a person to consent and receive grace, as in Lam. 5:21 “convert us, O Lord, to you” by moving our will to your love “and we shall be converted.” And in this way is named an interior call (vocatio) of which it is said in Rom. 8:30 141. Thomas writes: “For evidence of this, it should be understood that persons become sons of God by being made like to God, and so persons are sons of God according to a threefold likeness to God” (SJ, 150). 142. SJ, 151. 143. SJ, 152.

  Reward in the Scripture Commentaries  185 “those whom he called,” by inwardly inciting the will to consent to grace, “he justified,” by infusing grace.144

Operative auxilium orients and moves the recipient’s free will so that it accepts the infusion of grace. To Thomas’s proximate concern about God giving persons the power to become children of God, auxilium precedes human action and moves the will; a subsequent infusion of habitual grace capacitates nature to become adoptive children. More remotely, Thomas affirms the operative character of justification through a stress on the effects of grace moving the will to accept grace. Grace preserves the person in a state of grace. The power to become children of God requires the ongoing maintenance of grace, an effect that Thomas aligns with operative auxilium in the ST; he thus concludes: “Therefore ‘he gave them the power to become sons of God’ through sanctifying grace, through the perfection of their works, and through the attainment of glory, and [God does] this by preparing, moving, and conserving grace.”145 To be clear, Thomas affirms the human potential to become like God; human beings are capax Dei. His chief concern in the lecture, however, is to limit the ways in which people can speak of the human power to become like God. To that end, gifts of operative auxilium and habitual grace are outlined as limitations.

John 14:1–7—Many Dwelling Places in the Father’s House Like Bonaventure, Thomas pauses on John 14:1–7. Jesus suggests that there are “many dwelling places” in heaven and that Christ himself has prepared them, raising questions about different potential rewards and the place of predestination. Thomas argues that the Father’s “house” is nothing other than God’s very self, into whom God gathers the faithful: “But the house of the Father is not only where he lives, but he himself [is this house] because he exists in his very self. And it is into this house that God gathers us.”146 Thomas aligns the notion of dwelling places with “union” in God—a shar144. SJ, 154. This passage speaks not only to the priority of grace and a double affirmation of habitual grace and the grace of auxilium; it also addresses modern disputes about the operative nature of conversion. The passage seems to affirm that operative grace moves the will as a thing moved (movens moventis), which fits Thomas’s definition of operative grace in ST I-II:111, 2. 145. SJ, 156. 146. SJ, 1853.

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ing in God’s nature—yet the prospect of “many dwelling places” is potentially confounding. How can people who earn glory possess it differently, particularly in view of divine simplicity? Thomas responds: “In this house, that is, in glory, which is God, ‘are many rooms,’ that is, diverse participations in beatitude, because the [person] who knows more will have greater place. Therefore, the diverse participations in knowledge and enjoyment of God are the diverse rooms.”147 Participation in final rewards may vary, and Thomas probes its plausibility: “But there is a question whether one person is able to be happier than another. It seems not. For beatitude is an end, and the perfect is not received more or less; therefore it cannot be had [enjoyed] more or less.”148 The initial objection holds that all people, having their nature perfected by grace, enjoy God as final and perfect reward so that their enjoyment cannot differ. Thomas’s respondeo distinguishes that perfection can be understood in absolute and relative senses (simpliciter et secundum quid). In the absolute sense, God as final end is nothing other than God’s self and cannot differ from one person to another. So, when God’s dwelling place is examined as a destination in itself, there can be no varied dwelling places. Divine simplicity mediates against it. When God’s dwelling place is examined relative to the way in which human beings inhabit it, however, perfection can vary secundum quid. A person who inhabits God experiences the dwelling place according to her disposition. Thomas writes: “But in a certain sense, that is, considering certain conditions of time, of nature and of grace, one person can thus be happier than another according to the attainment of this good and the capacity of each person.”149 The capacity of persons for enjoying God differs according to the state of nature and to the effects of grace. This is significant because, as Thomas suggests in the ST, persons may be given varied habitual graces and in different measures. Further, the free will may cooperatively actualize these gifts in different ways according to the individual nature of the person and the distinct vicissitudes of the wayfarer’s journey.150 Grace does not per147. SJ, 1853. 148. SJ, 1854. 149. SJ, 1854. 150. See Thomas’s commentary on 2 Tim. 2:11–13 in the appendix for the ways in which Thomas regards the work of teachers, martyrs, and virgins as disposing them for varying experiences of beatitude. See also his commentary on 1 Cor. 3:8–15.

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fect every nature identically; rather, God graces the elect differently and for different ends so that Peter may enjoy God differently than Paul. Thomas makes his argument more concrete by suggesting that final happiness is experienced in two ways: as vision and as enjoyment. Vision connotes purity of heart—harkening back to the beatitudes and the fruits of the contemplative life. The extent to which one is pure can vary among those in a state of grace—some may struggle with concupiscence more than others— and so their final beatitude can vary according to that disposition. Thomas relates enjoyment to love. The more one loves an object, the more one enjoys possession of it: “Likewise [happiness consists in] the delight of enjoyment and one is disposed for this through love, and for that reason, the one who has a heart of more fervent love for God will delight more in the enjoyment of God.”151 Love is enkindled by cooperative acts of the will, and so human efforts to love edify the possession and enjoyment of that love.152 Thomas integrates the teaching on the many rooms of final rewards into his larger scheme of predestination. He notes a potential contradiction in the words: “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also (Jn.14:3).” Why would Christ now prepare a place for human beings if, by God’s eternal nature, the place was prepared? To resolve this tension, Thomas employs a distinction made by Augustine and repeated by Bonaventure: “The Lord prepared [places] by eternal predestination and he prepared by executing [his predestination].”153 Using the distinction differently from Bonaventure, Thomas distinguishes between providence and predestination being in the 151. SJ, 1854. 152. In this discussion of various rooms, Thomas explicitly acknowledges the instance of the laborers in the vineyard receiving the same, single reward. He suggests that Matthew’s parable illumines one dimension while John’s speaks to another. Matthew’s confirms something utterly equal about final rewards: vision of God as the absolute end of final beatitude. Nevertheless, this singular end can be received differently according to one’s capacity to receive it. He writes: “It ought to be said that the reward of eternal life is both one and many. Indeed, many according to the diverse capacities of those participating, and according to this there are many rooms in the Father’s house; yet [the reward is] one in three ways. First, according to the unity of the object; for it is the same object which all the blessed see and which all enjoy; and for that reason [there is] one denarius, but it is seen and loved in diverse ways. . . . And it is like a spring of water available to those who drink as they wish; the one who has a larger cup will receive more and the one who has a small cup less. Therefore the fountain is one on its own part, but not all receive in equal measure” (SJ, 1855). 153. SJ, 1858.

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mind of God and governance being its willful execution; similarly, this twofold reading of Christ’s role in predestination shows the Word as active not only in the election of the predestined but also in the effects of the call.154 Christ executes predestination through his ascension or going ahead of them to prepare a place in five ways: he (1) increases faith by his absence; (2) shows them the way by his ascension; (3) prays for them to the Father; (4) attracts them to what is above; and (5) sends them the Holy Spirit to complete their perfection.155 Thomas enlarges his teaching on predestination by indicating ways in which God not only calls but also unfolds the way to eternal life through the external missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit.156 The conceptual language of predestination is here united with concrete biblical evidence revealing the divine persons as active and primary agents in wayfarer’s journey to final glory and beatitude.

John 15:1–8—“I am the vine” In John 15, Christ proclaims “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.” As branches connected to Christ, his disciples must bear fruit or risk being pruned from the vine. Notably in this scenario, Christ is not identified as the judge. The Father dresses vines so that they bear greater fruit while he removes, bundles, and burns the fruitless branches. The Son sustains the branches and makes it possible for them to bear fruit; he is the means of union and adoption. Christ can thus command: “Abide in me as I abide in you.” The necessity of bearing fruit and the reward of positive or negative pruning indicates that God recompenses human actions. Thomas focuses on the action of the vinedresser who promotes the growth of good branches and removes those that bear no fruit. Nonbearing branches signify believers who fail to produce appropriate goods; they fail the examination of merits. He writes: It is clear from this that not only are some cut off from Christ for doing evil, but also because they neglect to do good; 2 Cor. 6:1: “We entreat you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”. . . And in Mt. 25:28 it is said that the talent was taken away 154. See ST, I:23, 2, for the parallel argument. 155. See SJ, 1859. 156. See Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace, especially chapters 3–4, where she argues for the effects of the external missions in the deification of the wayfarer.

  Reward in the Scripture Commentaries  189 from him who did not bear fruit with it but hid it instead; and the Lord ordered the fruitless fig tree to be cut down (Lk. 13:7).157

Not only the obviously wicked—those in a state of sin—are cut away from the vine but also believers who fail to produce good acts. An unfruitful believer emerges as a theme in certain reward passages. Faith as belief in the articles of faith or in God as highest good is not itself adequate; one must also act well in order to deserve rewards; fides formata is vital. In other places Thomas will describe the “pruned” believers as possessing “unformed faith” ( fidem informem) or a faith that lacks the charity.158 He enumerates the punishment as (1) being cast forth, (2) withering, (3) being gathered together with the wicked, (4) being thrown into the eternal fire, and (5) eternal burning.159 Pruning prepares and disposes the branches to bear more fruit; to those who act well, God augments their efforts with further gifts of habitual grace and auxilium. “Pruning” implies the clearing away of goods that distract or conflict with the wayfarer’s ultimate good. Thomas writes: “For if a person is well-disposed and conjoined to God, yet inclines his desire (affectum) to diverse things, his virtue is reduced, and he becomes more inefficient in doing the good.”160 Mixed desires parallels Thomas’s discussion of purity of heart and enjoyment in the previous pericope; wayfarers can dilute their desire and love for God with competing goods. God sends “troubles and trials” that purify and cleanse a person’s love. Such pruning cooperatively actualizes the wayfarer’s habitus for virtue, particularly charity, which in turn cultivates virtuous human action and corresponding reward.161 Pruning parallels the 157. SJ, 1984. 158. For example, in the commentary on John, Thomas says “For those who have only an unformed faith do not believe in his name because they do not work unto salvation” (SJ, 159). Again: “But will there by many believing sinners who will not be damned? I answer that it should be said that some heretics have said that no believer, however great a sinner he may be, will be damned, but he will be saved by fundamental merit, namely faith, though he may suffer some punishment. . . . But this is clearly contrary to the Apostle in Gal. 5:19: ‘It is obvious what proceeds from the flesh: those things which are fornication, lust, and sexual impurity; those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.’ Therefore we must say that the foundation [of salvation] is not unformed faith, but formed faith through which one does works of charity” (SJ, 486). 159. See SJ, 1994. 160. SJ, 1985. 161. See Thomas’s commentary in the appendix on 1 Cor. 3:12–13 for a similar discussion of hardship as a way of refining human nature, this time in the context of gold, silver, and precious stones.

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beginning works of the beatitudes, which focus on self-denial leading to rightly ordered love of neighbor and God. The image of Christ as the vine reveals that human beings gain their power to flourish and live well through union with Christ who makes their fruits possible.162 The effects of grace are communicated through union with Christ, allowing Thomas to cast the journey more concretely. For instance, he can speak of maintaining union through prayer and use of the sacraments.163 Christ’s gifts to wayfarers liken the branches to the vine himself so that wayfarers become increasingly Christ-like on their journey. Thomas contrasts the view of participation in Christ’s nature with classic Pelagian views that see human nature as intact and naturally holy.164 He writes: For behold what the Lord says, that without him we are not able to do anything great nor anything small, in fact, nothing at all. . . . If [our good works are] from the power of nature, then, since every movement (motus) of nature is from the Word of God, no nature is able to move to doing anything without him. If [our good works are] from the power of grace, then, since he is the author of grace, because “grace and truth came to be through Jesus Christ,” as it is said above in 1:17, then it is manifest that no meritorious work is able to be done without him.165

Whether nature or grace produces good works, both derive their power, here glossed in the language of movement, from God in and through the Word. Thomas bypasses a potentially artificial distinction between those things moved by nature versus those things moved by grace. Christ efficiently causes both. In the image of vine and branches, Thomas retains his teaching on 162. Thomas uses the passage to map his discussion of grace, action, and reward onto the saving action of Christ. He writes: “Therefore [Christ] first says: I say that it is not only necessary for a person to remain in me in order to bear fruit, it is also efficacious, ‘because he who remains in me,’ by believing, obeying and persevering, ‘and I in him,’ by illuminating, helping and giving perseverance, this person and not another, ‘bears much fruit’” (SJ, 1992). 163. See Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace, on the notion of “Christ’s Grace as Principle of Participated Perfection,” 179–90, and her explicit discussion of “Christ’s Sacraments and Participation in the Divine Nature,” 190–92. 164. Thomas writes: “But the reason for this efficacy is because ‘apart from me you can do nothing.’ In this way he instructs the hearts of the humble and blocks up the mouths of the proud, especially the Pelagians, who say that they can do by themselves the good works of the virtues and of the law without the help of God, although by which they wished to maintain our free will, they much more cast it down” (SJ, 1993). 165. SJ, 1993.

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rewards including the priority of grace for human action, but he foregrounds union with Christ, parsed elsewhere as adoptive sonship, as the means by which human growth and potential reward are possible.166

John 15:12–17—Abiding in Love After exploring how human beings bear good fruit, Thomas introduces a new reward: friendship. Christ no longer calls his disciples servants but friends, and Thomas reasons that servitude is not opposed to friendship; it simply reflects a different kind of relationship. Persons are God’s servants under the law but God’s friends under grace. The apostles keep Jesus’ commands, which in turn makes them his friends.167 Thomas writes: “For the observation of the commandments is the effect of divine love, not only of the love by which we love, but also of the love by which God’s very self loves us. For by this, God moves (movet) us and helps (adiuvat) us to fulfill his commandments, which we cannot do without grace.”168 Expositing “I no longer call you servants,” Thomas stresses the cooperative dimension of charity with emphasis on human agency; the apostles keep the commandments “ex propria voluntate per amoroem inclinata.” Graced recipients cooperate through wills inclined to love, and in doing so, they attain friendship with God. Friendship indicates that a person both “is loved” and “loves.”169 In Christ’s words, “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit that will last” (15:16), the origin of the disciples’ friendship is made explicit; God has chosen and appointed them.170 The choice of friends unfolds both eternally and temporally. Thomas calls the eternal choice pre166. In addition to the explicit discussion of adoptive sonship in Jn. 1:11–12, see Thomas’s discussions of Rom. 4:4–5, 5:1–5, 2 Cor. 6:11–18, and Eph. 1:3–6 in the appendix. 167. Thomas writes: “Now the apostles, as was said, were moved by themselves to do good works, that is, they were moved by their own will inclined through love. And so the Lord revealed his secrets to them” (SJ, 2015). 168. SJ, 2002. 169. Thomas stresses the necessity of grace and parses its effects as those that move and help the recipient to fulfill God’s commandments to charity; he writes: “Similarly, those whom God loves keep the commandments of God insofar as conferring God’s grace on them helps (adiuvat) them to keep the commandments; for by loving us, God makes us lovers of God, as in Prv. 8:17: ‘I love those who love me’ not as if they were loving first but because God makes them lovers by loving them” (SJ, 2011). 170. Thomas writes: “And excluding this, the Lord says, ‘you did not choose me’ as if he is saying: ‘Whoever has been called to the dignity of friendship attributes the cause not to himself, but to me, who chose him for this” (SJ, 2019).

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destination, something accomplished before the foundation of the world even as grace accomplishes the divine will in the economy of salvation.171 God chooses differently from human beings who select from among relative goods: “Wherefore God pre-chooses one person to another insofar as he infuses more good into one than another.”172 God’s choice confers goodness; it is not based on the other’s goodness. Whatever God confers on people is good; so even the reprobate experience and manifest divine goodness, yet in the elect, God infuses more good. But why does God show more love or more goodness to one person than another? Thomas returns to divine goodness as manifested maximally through diversity: “And for that reason God infuses more good into one than another, so that the order of things shines forth, just as it appears in material things.”173 The differences between elect and reprobate—just as between servants and friends—show forth God’s goodness in its variegation and order: “And so a diverse order appears: while the mercy of God shines forth in those who are prepared for grace apart from any preceding merits, the justice of God [shines forth] in those who, when because by their own guilt, God assigns punishment, though short of condign punishment.”174 With the elect, God manifests varying degrees of mercy, and with the reprobate, God manifests varying degrees of justice so that goodness is maximally evident in creation and refers back to its creator. Thomas’s lectures on Jn. 15 fit under the umbrella category of divine goodness. In Jn. 15:1–18, he stresses that the branches of the vine must bear good fruit through charity, yet such produce is only possible through union 171. He writes: “Yet the love of God is twofold. One [is] eternal by which we are predestined; Eph. 1:4 ‘he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.’ Another [is] temporal by which we are called by him, which is nothing other than the execution of eternal predestination, because those whom he chose by predestining he also chose by calling” (SJ, 2020). Thomas further reaffirms that divine election cannot be on the basis of human merit because it disrupts the proper sequence of causality; see SJ, 2021–23. 172. SJ, 2024. Speaking of divine love vis-à-vis predestination, Wawrykow writes: “Divine loving, on the other hand, is causal of good. God loves, and therefore there is good. . . . Yes, God does love the better thing more. But, the reason is not because there is already or apart from God’s loving, more good in that thing, which would elicit greater love from God. Rather, the better thing is better—possessed of more good—as a result of God’s love. God wills more good to the better thing” (Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 199–200). 173. SJ, 2024. 174. SJ, 2024.

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with Christ and the action of the vinegrower. Those abiding in Christ must love one another or risk eternal punishment. Thomas balances human responsibility with the necessity and power of grace in these lectures. In his commentary on Jn. 5:12–17, on friendship, Thomas integrates these two realities under providence and predestination. God calls the elect (God’s friends). God grafts them onto the vine through which they receive grace. This grace perfects human nature so that it may freely bear fruit and deserve final rewards. In fact, in the commentary on friendship, Thomas steps beyond the frame of human salvation to remind his readers that divine rewards have the ultimate ratio of glorifying God. The lectures collectively attest to the wise order of human salvation that preserves primary agency for God and secondary causality for human beings.

Conclusion Bonaventure and Thomas exposit reward texts in order to demonstrate that wayfarers earn rewards from God as part of a larger and totalizing journey into union with God. Their exegesis of biblical rewards sets the conditions for a theological account of merit, which, in turn, is set into an overarching vision of life as a journey that includes meaningful, free human action that makes progress to union with God possible. Conformity with Jesus through love that branches out into a virtuous life provides significant common ground for the ways in which Thomas and Bonaventure exposit reward texts. For Thomas, love is the primary metric by which progress is gained on the journey. In his commentary on Mt. 25:14–30 and 25:31–46, Thomas consistently reduces meritorious works back to love of God and love of neighbor.175 Similarly, Bonaventure sees charity as key to exemplarity and conformity with Jesus; the commentary on Luke 14:12–14 and 19:1–10 stresses charity as the root for all generous and selfless actions that draw the wayfarer to Christ. Thomas and Bonaventure both make careful use of John 15 to stress that love is what unites the wayfarer to God, particularly through adoption in Christ. Charity, however, stretches out into other vir175. Thomas carries the same stress on love into the Pauline commentary; note, for example, the discussion of charity and cooperation in his discussions of Rom. 5:1–5, 1 Cor. 3:8–15, and 2 Cor. 9:1–7 in the appendix.

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tues. Thomas therefore treats the beatitudes and corporal works of mercy as extensions of the gift of love; charity enlivens other gifts such as poverty, mercy, or purity of heart. Likewise, Bonaventure explores justice as an outcome of charity in Luke 6:20–26 and the way in which poverty unfolds in dynamic relationship with charity in Luke 18:28–30. Charity cultivates desire and hierarchizes the soul. The incentive-promises of scripture focus the wayfarer’s mind and direct her will so that she develops meritorious habits, the kind that express themselves in acts of faith, justice, and prayer. Love and its branching out in the virtues fundamentally relate the wayfarer to Jesus—a third common theme in the commentaries. For Bonaventure, conformity with Christ is at the foreground of several passages such as Luke 14:12– 14, 18:28–30, and John 14:15–24, in which responses to incentive promises liken the wayfarer to Jesus. Such likening becomes not only the means to reward but the reward itself. The stress on conformity parallels the discussion of the ways in which grace and human action promote similitudinem with Christ in the Breviloquium and are achieved by imitation in works like the LV. While Thomas at times references conformity with Christ through adoption in the systematic works, the biblical commentaries provide greater generic space to make more immediate connections. The Matthew commentary presents Jesus as the central figure in the journey through his role as the landowner (20:1–16) or the master of servants (25:14–30), but in the John commentary, Thomas exploits images of Jesus as the vine (15:1–8) and Jesus calling the disciples friends (15:12–17) to stress that rewards flow through adoptive sonship. While Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s biblical commentaries share remarkable common ground on divine rewards, they nevertheless employ distinctive theological frameworks to exposit them. Bonaventure frames reward texts as “incentive promises,” which is critical to their value and place in his theological system. As incentives, reward texts invite free human action by promising super-abundant rewards, and Bonaventure uses the zither effect to illustrate diverse incentives running throughout the biblical books. As promises, reward texts signify an ordered agreement between God and human beings concerning human action. Rewards become one part of a pact or agreement whereby God entices person to act. The conditions of the pact determine the value of human work so that it may or may not, for example, be

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proportionate to the reward. Bonaventure’s stress on conformity shows that the incentives of scripture—set in terms of a pact—also produce intrinsic effects; they perfect the wayfarer’s image of the divine exemplar. By the nature of this agreement and its outcome, the distinction between congruent and condign merit loses its force. It becomes conceptually possible to attribute very high value to human agency so that it seems worthy of supernatural and transcendent rewards. Frequently absent from this sequence of explanations is a prior, dispositive, or causal role for grace.176 The muted attention to grace leaves the relationship of grace to human nature and action less defined.177 It may be the case that Bonaventure restricts his commentary to the literal meaning of the reward text that does not mention grace, or it may be that Bonaventure chooses to foreground the confidence provided by incentive promises in order to exhort persons to virtue and imitation of Christ.178 It is certainly the case that Bonaventure’s framework sees the pact or agreement itself as gracious condescension by God so that its incentives are appropriately focused on the free response of the wayfarer. Thomas similarly appreciates that Christ’s public ministry establishes divine rewards in places like the beatitudes or the corporal works of mercy, but he is markedly more concerned to show that these rewards are ordered to congruent human action and reliant on grace. Confidence in divine rewards is secured by demonstrating the ratio and ordo of divine rewards within the larger framework of divine ordination. He regularly exposits the prior causes of divine election, predestination, and grace (operative and cooperative) in order to set divine rewards in their proper context.179 Recurring references 176. See, for example, his commentary on Lk. 6:20–26 or 12:29–34. 177. Bonaventure’s commentaries on reward also tend to deemphasize predestination. Predestination is not often a naturally related topic to reward texts, yet in an example like the Father’s many dwelling places (Jn. 14:1–10) where Bonaventure introduces predestination, he does not speak of it as God’s ordering human beings to eternal life through the causes of grace and human action. Instead, he argues that predestination does not eliminate or destroy the occasion for divine rewards. When coupled with ambiguity concerning prevenient grace in reward texts, the causal and ordering power of predestination regresses in explanatory importance, or further, it seems intentionally limited by a stronger emphasis on divine promises and their status as agreements between God and the disciples. 178. Bonaventure’s commentaries include examples where he intentionally inserts brief affirmations of grace and its role in capacitating human nature to act; see especially Lk. 18:28–30, 19:1–10, and 19:11–27. 179. See the commentaries on Mt. 25:14–30, 25:31–46, Jn. 1:11–12, 14:1–7, as well as passages on Rom. 2:5–10, 4:4–5, 5:1–5, 1 Cor. 13:1–3, 2 Cor. 5:1–10, and Eph. 1:3–6, all in the appendix.

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to the whole sequence are striking and indicative of Thomas’s intent. When he senses a danger that his reader may isolate the notion of rewards from its dependence on predestination or grace, he is quick to reference the predisposing power of grace and the causal nature of divine election. Thus, in passages like the parable of the talents, which explicitly affirms divine rewards, Thomas inserts an entire discussion of predestination and grace to ensure the context of those rewards.180 His tendency is to qualify human action so that it cannot seem independent or even coequal with divine action on the journey. Finally, the manner in which Thomas and Bonaventure describe rewards varies according to their stress on perfection versus exemplarity. While Thomas sometimes references adoption in Jesus and the divinizing effects of grace, he tends to characterize rewards according to the way in which they perfect human nature on the journey and in the heavenly homeland. In Mt. 5:1–12, he speaks of increases in charity or other virtues as interim rewards and inchoate participation in final rewards with careful reserve to speak of final perfection only in the heavenly homeland. Bonaventure’s appreciation for exemplarity leads to more robust affirmations of divine rewards. The wayfarer is already Christ-like in critical ways because she has been accepted as such by Christ and conformed to the exemplar by grace and cooperation. When the wayfarer invites the poor to her banquet, she is already Christ-like in ways that allow her to enjoy seemingly final rewards in this life; or in Luke 6:20–26, those who weep already laugh because the weeping has conformed them to Christ. While Thomas and Bonaventure both reserve full perfection or full conformity to final union with Christ, their depiction of interim and final rewards differ along the way. Examining the biblical commentaries brings the student of Bonaventure and Thomas full circle to the very purpose of theology. The faithful student must strive to understand, as much as possible, the content and fittingness of divine revelation, particularly as it illumines the articles of Christian faith. Thomas’s and Bonaventure’s scriptural views on reward do just that, 180. As something of an inverse parallel, see Thomas’s commentary on Rom. 4:4–5 in the appendix; Thomas affirms the operative character of justification suggested by Paul’s letter but is careful to set this part of the journey in a larger context that also recognizes the value of free human actions as worthy of reward. Thus, when a passage stresses the operative character of divine action, Thomas shows similar concern to contextualize it within a larger account of divine and human agency.

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though they do so distinctively. Their approaches to reward texts are sophisticated and more than mere proofs for their systematic positions. Rather, reward texts contribute to a dynamic system of human action that includes a value-laden and genuine role for human agency. Reward texts establish the wayfarer’s responsibility to make progress through cooperation and virtuous action. As Bonaventure stresses in the LV, “a great necessity is imposed upon us to be good, since all our actions are within the view of the all-seeing judge.”181 Proper exegesis of scripture insists on reward for human work. 181. LV, 41.

The Mendicant Controversies

4

R E WA R D S A N D CH R I S T I A N PE R F E C T ION I N T H E M E N DIC A N T CON T ROV E R S I E S

Among the crosscurrents of Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s careers, their involvement in the mendicant controversies at the University of Paris yields a set of writings that actively defend the prerogatives and charisms of their orders. Their efforts to secure the vows and charisms of their orders, including the roles of evangelical poverty and preaching, give rise to broader discussions of Christian perfection and the human actions that promote that end. These polemical works provide practical expressions of Thomas’s and Bonaventure’s views on divine and human action. Ultimately, both men argue that the friars represent a class of wayfarers who, for the sake of religious perfection, undertake a series of reward-worthy actions, which advance their journeys toward final union with God. Bonaventure argues that mendicant life progressively conforms wayfarers to Christ as their exemplar, while Thomas aligns mendicant life with the virtue charity and the act of latria as the means to perfection. Thomas’s and Bonaventure’s polemics (1) situate the mendicant lifestyle in the larger context of Christian life, (2) demonstrate a high regard for human action in wayfarer’s return to God, and (3) substantiate their positions by marshalling reward texts to support the religious state of mendicants. The events of the mendicant controversies, which played out in a special way at the University of Paris, span roughly two decades and include two particularly fraught periods.1 The first lasts from 1252–57, and falls during 1. Douie’s “St. Bonaventura’s Part” introduces the mendicant controversies, particularly as they were engaged by Bonaventure; see also Kevin Hughes’s “Bonaventure’s Defense of Mendicancy,” in

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the period when Bonaventure and Thomas sought admission into the consortium of masters. The second, unfolding between 1267–71, again engages Thomas and Bonaventure in the debate, but they now enter as mature and influential figures within their orders. Scholars suggest that Thomas was perhaps sent to Paris a second time in order to engage the reemergence of this controversy, while Bonaventure joins the controversy through active preaching and writing in Paris.2 The first period saw the initial and concerted effort by the secular masters at Paris to reduce the ascendancy and influence of the mendicant orders particularly in the university but also in their ministry in the environs of Paris. Led by the secular master William of St. Amour, who composed two important anti-mendicant works, the Liber de Anti Christo (1254) and Tractatus de periculis novissimorum temporum (1256), the masters sought to reduce university privileges and the number magisterial chairs held by the Dominicans and Franciscans. On a larger scale, however, William’s works argued that the lifestyle of the mendicants, particularly their active apostolates and reliance on begging, was contrary to the gospel and signaled the rise of orders fundamentally opposed to the Christian church.3 As one A Companion to Bonaventure, ed., Jay M. Hammond, J. A. Wayne Hellman, and Jared Goff, 509–42 (Leiden: Brill, 2014). Both Weisheipl and Torrell provide overviews of the mendicant controversies, particularly as they involved Thomas; see Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 80–110, 263–72, and Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:75–95. See also Torrell’s “Seculiers et mendicants ou Thomas d’Aquin au naturel,” Revue des sciences religieuses, 67, no. 2 (1997): 19–40, and Michel-Marie Dufeil’s Guillaume de SaintAmour et la polémique universitaire parisienne, 1250–1259 (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1972). 2. See Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 236–39, for a discussion of the reasons for which Thomas was sent to Paris in 1269. 3. Douie describes the popular or practical objections to the practices of the mendicants in “St. Bonaventura’s Part,” 586–87. By 1254, the friars had acquired three of the eight chairs in the faculty of theology by the conversion of seculars to the Dominicans (who held two chairs) and Franciscans (who held one); they attracted more pupils; and they introduced new modes of discourse, particularly Aristotelian learning, into the classroom. In the larger sphere, the seculars rejected the mendicant practices of preaching and hearing confessions in parish territories without the permission of the local ordinary; these practices reduced the stole fees collected by the secular clergy as well as death bequests frequently given to a dying penitent’s confessor. The seculars also identified the mendicants as undermining the ecclesiastical order of the church; Torrell writes: “William’s sincerity is probably not to be doubted, since he seems to have ended believing in the dangers he was denouncing. But his theological conservatism drove him to defend the established hierarchy, without the proper and necessary nuances, against the invasion of ‘the papal militia.’ (His position often seems a Gallicanism before the fact.) This stance made him misunderstand the newness of Spirit at work in the history of that time. Without entering here into an evaluation of the underlying ecclesiologies behind the respective positions, we may still think that one reason for the (temporary) defeat of the seculars lay precisely in this theological rigidity

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consequence of the controversy, neither Bonaventure nor Thomas were allowed to incept as masters until 1257, long after they had formally qualified, and six months after Bonaventure had been elected Minister General of the Minors. Bonaventure initially resisted William through academic disputations, composing a series of disputed questions, which were collected as the Quaestiones disputate de perfectione evangelica (1255); the topics of these questions can be correlated to William’s De periculis.4 In the spring or summer of 1256, Thomas also prepared a response to William entitled Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem; this work first offers a constructive discussion of religious life and subsequently rebuts the main points of De periculis.5 Thomas’s work was actually made public after William’s fate was determined at the papal court.6 Alexander IV ultimately ordered the reinstatement of the Dominican and Franciscan chairs at Paris, specifically mentioning Bonaventure and Thomas by name in his bull Quasi lignum vitae (April 1255), which also threatened excommunication to those who resisted the declaration.7 De periculis was eventually condemned by the new pope, Alexander IV, in his October 5, 1256 bull Romanus Pontifex. William was banished to his native village of St. Amour in early 1257, and most of his followers publicly recanted and accepted Alexander’s bull. A tenuous peace which hindered William and his associates from seeing the growing importance of the papacy” (Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:80–81). William’s works can be found in The Opuscula of William of Saint Amour. The Minor Works of 1255–56, ed. Andrew Traver (Munster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2003); English text translation may be found in William of Saint-Amour: “De periculis novissimorum temporum,” ed. and trans. Guy Geltner, Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations 8 (Leuven: Peeters, 2008). 4. See Jay M. Hammond’s “Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior,” in A Companion to Bonaventure, 472– 73, for a helpful outline of Bonaventure’s initial engagements with William. A more detailed timeline of the disputed questions’ construction may be found in Dufeil, Guillaume de Saint-Amour, 174–80. Schlosser’s “Bonaventure: Life and Works,” 21–22, provides context for Bonaventure’s disputed questions De perfectione evangelica. 5. See Thomas Aquinas, Contra impugnantes Dei cultum religionem, in Opuscula theological, ed. Raymundo Spiazzi, 2:5–110 (Turin: Marietti, 1954). 6. In the summer of 1256, Alexander IV commissioned four cardinals, Oro of Castro, John of Telleto, Hugh of Saint-Cher, and John of Gaietano, to review William’s De periculis; noting that Hugh was a Dominican and that John of Gaietano was a protector of the Franciscan order, Douie concludes that condemnation of the William’s work was “inevitable” (Douie, “St. Bonaventura’s Part,” 599). William presented his own defense before the papal curia (called the Responsiones), but this too failed to succeed. 7. For Romanus Pontifex, see Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, ed. Heinrich Denifle (Brussels: 1964), vol. 1, n. 228, p. 331; and for Quasi lignum vitae, see Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, vol. 1, n. 247, p. 279.

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followed for about a decade until the death of Clement IV and the subsequent three-year vacancy in the Chair of Peter. In 1266–67 Gerard of Abbeville, a long-standing secular master and correspondent with William of St. Amour, reintroduced the main theological questions of the original controversy, arguing that the mendicant lifestyle, particularly its active charisms, practice of begging, and introduction of youths into the order, contradicted scriptural revelation on these subjects. He actively preached against the orders, held quodlibetal disputations on the mendicant lifestyle and ultimately composed Contra adversarium perfectionis Christianae (summer 1269).8 This phase of the controversies did not require the kinds of papal and episcopal intervention that marked the first; rather, Weisheipl notes that it ends without decisive resolution.9 Douie suggests that the controversy dissipates, in part, because the mendicants reacted with greater and more immediate vigor to the new threat; this can be seen in Thomas’s to return to Paris and in Bonaventure’s active work, now as Minister General of the order. Without doubt, the university-driven dimension of the controversies winds down in part because both William and Gerard die in 1272.10 Both Aquinas and Bonaventure responded to Gerard with force. Thomas entered the debate as quickly as possible. He used his quodlibets (Lent/ Easter 1269, 1270, and 1271) as opportunities to respond to Gerard in kind; in fact, the Easter 1269 quodlibet was the earliest chance to do so following his return to Paris.11 Thomas also composed two treatises that engaged Gerard’s positions, particularly as expressed in Contra adversarium. In 1270 8. Weisheipl describes the second period thus: “One interesting feature of the second phase of the controversy, which continued until December 1271, is that it did not arouse the populace of Paris; there were none of those riots, physical assaults, and insults that characterized the first phase, which required royal archers to protect Saint-Jacques. The second phase, though extremely bitter and vociferous, was conducted through the university media of Advent and Lenten quodlibets, sermons, and polemical treatises. . . . The main issue, however, remained the same: the right of mendicant friars to exist in the Church” (Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 264). 9. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 271–72. 10. See Douie, “St. Bonaventura’s Part,” 610. 11. See Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 265–71, for the timeframe of Thomas’s disputed questions and treatises in this period. See Kevin White, “The Quodlibeta of Thomas Aquinas in the Context of His Work,” in Theological Quodlibeta in the Middle Ages: The Thirteenth Century, ed. Christopher Schabel, 49–134 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), for a contextual discussion of the way in which Thomas approached quodlibetal disputation, his use of authorities, and the way in which quodlibetals relate to his other magisterial writing.

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Thomas wrote De perfectione spiritualis vitae, and in 1271 he produced Contra doctrinam retrahentium a religione (Contra retrahentes), which addressed whether young boys can promise (or be promised) to enter religious life. In addition to preaching, Bonaventure wrote his Apologia pauperum (1269), which not only defended the mendicants from Gerard’s general charges but also focused on the special role that evangelical poverty plays in attaining religious perfection. Bonaventure’s Apologia pauperum and Thomas’s De perfectione aptly reflect their developed insights on the nature of human action and divine rewards. Thomas’s and Bonaventure’s mature polemics demonstrate the ability to apply systematic insights about divine and human action to concrete questions about Christian life, particularly questions about the possibility of meriting divine rewards, including union with God.

Spiritual Perfection Perfection in the De perfection At the foundation of Thomas’s and Bonaventure’s presentations is the contention that the mendicant orders promote perfection—the goal of human life vis-à-vis God. The term “state of perfection” (status perfectionis), while related to Christian perfection, is by no means treated as synonymous with it; rather, status perfectionis acts as a technical term for those living religious life or under religious vows and it overlaps with the term status religionis.12 As a religious state, it connotes a special and permanent condition wherein persons commit themselves to the pursuit of perfection through religious vows. Both Thomas and Bonaventure discuss this concept because it distinguishes religious life from secular priesthood; having established its legitimacy and value, they can proceed to treat the distinctive way in which mendicant life enacts the status perfectionis. Thomas begins the De perfectione by defining the term “perfection.” He argues that a thing may be called perfect simply (simpliciter) or relatively (secundum quid). A thing is simply perfect when it attains the end for which it was made according to its nature, and a thing is relatively perfect when it 12. Weisheipl explains the medieval concept of “state of perfection”: “To take on a state of perfection means to bind one’s self totally and permanently to the pursuit of perfection with the aid of three vows. Since all religious take these three vows, they are constituted in a permanent status” (Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 267).

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enjoys perfection in one or more qualities of its nature. A human person is simply perfect when she reaches the end that God desires for her—eternal union. She is relatively perfect when she perfects some part of her nature in order to achieve its ultimate end, for example, perfection in the power or virtue of faith, patience, or mercy. Thomas argues that a person achieves simple perfection in the spiritual life when she attains final glory or beatitude—the very thing for which she was made. In the interim, however, she progresses in the spiritual life by perfecting her natural powers. Thomas reduces all perfection in the spiritual life to charity; following St. Paul in 1 Cor. 13:2, the wayfarer achieves relative and simple perfection by perfecting her love and ultimately enjoying the perfect love of God. Thomas writes: “Hence the spiritual life consists principally in charity, for the one who has no charity is said spiritually to be nothing.”13 Following his position in the ST I-II:114, 4, charity acts as the root virtue for perfection and progress not only in the religious state but for anyone who wishes to advance in her spiritual life.14 Thomas further treats charity according to Christ’s twofold command in Mt. 22:37; Jesus says: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Christ enjoins this twofold commandment on all believers, and perfection can therefore be measured and disciplined by its content. In the first half of the command, believers are to love God completely. Thomas, however, argues that perfect love of God can only be practiced by God’s self inasmuch as such love would be infinite, an end exceeding human nature. He concludes: “Therefore it is possible for the rational creature to love God perfectly in only this mode, which belongs on the part of those who love, that is when a rational creature loves God according to all his power; and this is expressed clearly in 13. Thomas, De perfectione spiritualis vitae, I. Translations are mine and taken from De perfectione spiritualis vitae, vol. 41 of Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P.M., ed. H. F. Dondaine, (Rome: Santa Sabina, 1970). Quotations in the notes are taken in translation from The Religious State, the Episcopate, the Priestly Office, trans. John Proctor (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1950). 14. Recall Thomas’s position; he writes: “Now the human mind’s movement to the fruition of the Divine good is the proper act of charity, whereby all the acts of the other virtues are ordained to this end, since all the other virtues are commanded by charity. Hence the merit of life everlasting pertains first to charity, and secondly, to the other virtues, inasmuch as their acts are commanded by charity” (ST I-II:114, 4 c).

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the commandment of divine love.”15 Perfection is had in the proper use of human nature under the divine command to love. When one turns one’s heart, soul, and mind to God so that one’s nature is wholly directed (totam suam virtutem) toward love of God, then one has achieved spiritual perfection in the mode that is possible for human beings. But is such perfection possible for those on the journey? Thomas writes: “But this mode of perfect love is not for wayfarers but for comprehensors.”16 Not unlike Thomas’s discussion of the beatitudes in the ST, the wayfarer cannot perfectly enjoy love of God while still in the state of grace, though he may anticipate and foretaste this end. It belongs to comprehensors only: “Therefore this is the second mode of perfect divine love which is for the blessed in heaven.”17 Having noted two kinds of perfection that are for God and comprehensors, Thomas outlines a third type of perfection appropriate to wayfarers.18 Thomas writes: “We love God in another way with the whole mind, heart, soul, and strength if there is nothing in us, whether in habit or in act, which we do not give over to God; and a commandment is given to human beings for the perfection of this kind of divine love.”19 Thomas shifts from absolute perfection to perfection secundum quid; wayfarers achieve relative perfection when their love of God is free from distraction or competing loves. The language of absolute and relative 15. Thomas, De perfectione, IV. 16. Thomas, De perfectione, IV. Thomas goes on to describe the experience of final beatitude: “In heaven, the understanding and will of every rational creature is turned to God; since it is in the fruition of the Godhead that the beatitude of Heaven consists. For beatitude exists not in habit, but in act. And, since the rational creature will in Heaven cleave to God, the Supreme Truth, as to its last End, all activities will, by intention, likewise be directed to that Last End, and will all be disposed toward the attainment of that End. Consequently, in that perfection of happiness, the rational creature will love God with its whole heart; since its whole intention in all its thoughts, deeds, and affections will be wholly directed to him” (De perfectione, IV). Final perfection is perfection in act not merely in habit. Comprehensors actively love the God they see. 17. Thomas, De perfectione, IV. 18. Just as with the third stage of the beatitudes, it is theoretically possible for wayfarers to experience final beatitude or perfection on the journey. While Christ is uniquely and simultaneously a wayfarer and comprehensor, Thomas leaves room for those who are “like Christ.” He writes: “This, then, is the third degree of perfection of divine love, to which all are bound of necessity and by precept. But the second degree is not possible in this life, save to one who, like our Lord Jesus Christ, is, at the same time, both traveling on the road to heaven, and enjoying the happiness of the Blessed [nisi simul fuerit viator et comprehensor]” (De perfectione, V). 19. Thomas, De perfectione, V. Note the double stress on the commandment to love in both habit and act (quod actu vel habitu).

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perfection runs parallel to the concepts of “interim” and “final” rewards— those things that human beings receive from God as rewards for their works either on the way to God or at the consummation of the journey. The primary difference is that interim rewards need not signify perfection of a given power or virtue, only increases in its habitual form and action. Wayfarers grow in relative perfection by increases in charity, and comprehensors express perfect charity, in act in the beatific vision.

Perfection in the Apologia pauperum Like Thomas’s De perfectione, Bonaventure’s Apologia pauperum engages Gerard’s polemics against the mendicant lifestyle under the heading of Christian perfection. Whereas Thomas’s treatise begins with a constructive of account of Christian perfection (chapters 1–19) and then addresses Gerard’s criticisms specifically (chapters 20–26), Bonaventure’s Apologia oscillates between positive and negative arguments throughout its twelve chapters. In the opening chapters, he rebuts Gerard’s view of perfection (chapters 1–2) and then moves to present his own definition (chapter 3). Both the negative and positive positions are edifying. Bonaventure argues that Gerard fundamentally misunderstands the nature of Christian perfection, regardless of its connection to the religious state. While Gerard is correct that not all of Christ’s operations in the economy are intended for imitation, Christ still condescends to teach followers as their ultimate exemplar. Bonaventure introduces two vital ideas that also circulate in his systematic works. First, Christ is exemplar not only as God’s eternal Word but also as the incarnate Son and way of return to the Father. After explaining that the Word is the eternal exemplar for all creation, Bonaventure turns to his unique exemplarity in the Incarnation; he writes: Yet insofar as he is the incarnate Word in the actuality of his assumed humanity, he is the exemplar and mirror of all graces, virtues and merits, to whom the tabernacle of the Church militant should be erected in his example, just as Moses mysteriously says: “Look and make it according to the exemplar that was shown to you on the mountain.”20 20. Bonaventure, Apologia pauperum, II:12. Translations are mine and are taken from Apologia pauperum, vol. 8 of Opera omnia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1898). Quotations in the notes are taken in translation from Defense of the Mendicants, trans. Jose de Vinck, vol. 4 of The Works of Saint Bonaventure (Paterson, N.J.: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1966).

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Christ incarnate exemplifies perfection in grace, virtue, and merit in his humanity. He also performs all sorts of actions that are outside the scope of human imitation; included here would be supernatural actions, magisterial teaching, and acts of “condescension,” which manifest God’s will and action in inimitable ways. The Apologia classifies six different kinds of action revealed by Christ, but only one of these types may be appropriated by believers seeking to imitate Christ: “Revelation of the Perfect Life.”21 Bonaventure writes: Thus manifold actions shine forth from Christ as from the exemplar and origin of our whole salvation. Some [actions] pertain to the revelation of the life of perfection such as observing poverty, maintaining virginity, subjecting himself to God and other human beings, keeping prayer vigils in the night, praying for those who crucified him and offering himself to die in highest love even for his enemies.22

Only this last category—those things pertaining to the perfection of life— represents actions that ought to be imitated. Gerard’s definition of perfection errs fundamentally by failing to distinguish acts of imitation from the varied sum of Christ’s words and deeds. For Bonaventure, understanding the nature of Christ’s condescension is critical to successfully following the savior, and it represents the second theme in his rebuttal. The Incarnation itself discloses, among other things, “the perfect life” to human beings. Christ stoops down through acts of poverty, chastity, obedience, prayer, and death so that human beings may ascend by these same actions.23 Perfection and spiritual ascension go hand-in-hand, and they are most fully realized when 21. See Bonaventure, Apologia, II:13; the six categories include: loftiness of power, light of wisdom, severity of judgment, dignity of office, condescension, and revelation of the perfect life. 22. Bonaventure, Apologia, II:13. 23. Bonaventure’s language of God “condescending” in order to elevate humanity runs throughout his systematic and spiritual works. It stresses that God as exemplar descends so as to reform God’s image in human beings. In the CS, he uses the language of God “possessing human beings” through sanctifying grace so that human beings may in turn possess God as their homeland (2 Sent., 27.1.3). This reinforces the movement of divine condescension that reflexively leads to human ascension. The Breviloquium further expands the idea; Bonaventure writes: “If then, the rational spirit is to become worthy of eternal happiness, it must partake of this God-conforming influence. This influence that renders the soul deiform comes from God, conforms us to God, and leads to God as our end” (Breviloquium, V:1.3). The Itinerarium and Lignum vitae promote reditus by following the path revealed by Christ’s condescension. See also Ewert Cousins’s Bonaventure and the Coincidence of Opposites (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1978), 51–52.

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the wayfarer contemplates and imitates Jesus. Gerard fails to read Christ as liber, leading to a misunderstanding of mendicant charisms. Not unlike Thomas, Bonaventure begins his constructive treatment of perfection with the basic proposition that spiritual perfection is achieved through love; he calls it the “root,” “form,” “purpose,” “fulfillment,” and “bond” of perfection. Love, however, can be practiced and achieved in varying degrees of excellence. Bonaventure writes: “Yet love itself has three states: the first is lower and consists in observance of the legal commandments; the second is middle and consists in the implementation of the spiritual counsels; and the third is highest and consists in the enjoyment of eternal happiness.”24 Two types of perfection emerge from this division; there is intermediate perfection, which Bonaventure subdivides according to commands and counsels, and there is final perfection through which the person enjoys eternal happiness. In the intermediate stage, wayfarers are commanded to love God and neighbor, thereby growing closer to the exemplar, but wayfarers may also undertake counsels that can advance their journey through supererogatory works. Bonaventure compares interim and final perfection in the following way: “Therefore the first and second [states of] perfection differ from the third as merit differs from reward.”25 The interim states of perfection earn and anticipate the rewards of final perfection. When focusing on the intermediate states of perfection, Bonaventure distinguishes between the goods of following commands and the goods of choosing to observe counsels. Both commands and counsels cultivate the habit of charity, yet the difference between compulsion and choice distinguishes the latter as more effective than the former. Counsels are naturally more perfecting—and thus more meritorious—because the wayfarer’s acts arise freely from charity. In particular, Bonaventure identifies the virtues of resisting evil, pursuing good, and enduring trials as the greatest types of counsels personified by Christ.26 He writes: 24. Bonaventure, Apologia, III:2. 25. Bonaventure, Apologia, III:3. 26. Bonaventure divides evangelical perfection into three parts and he describes them thus: “The first part of evangelical perfection consists in this threefold and supererogative refusal of the threefold origin of all evil. . . . Now, the second part of [evangelical] perfection consists in pursuing good more eagerly than is required by precept. . . . Finally, the third part of evangelical perfection consists in bearing trials more perfectly than is required by precept” (Apologia, III:5–7).

208  The Mendicant Controversies Since therefore we are speaking of evangelical perfection according to common acceptance, we understand this as a middle kind of perfection. And we are able to gather a certain notion of this perfection from the preceding, namely, that it is the conformity of the wayfarer to Christ through the habit of virtue, by which, in a supererogatory way, evil is avoided, good is pursued and adversity is borne. For in these three ways, the three parts of evangelical perfection consists.27

Spiritual or evangelical perfection is rooted in imitation of Christ who does more than observe the precepts of the law; rather, Christ performs supererogatory works that demonstrate affectus and love for God and others. Bonaventure’s argument in the Apologia pauperum parallels the ascending conformity commended in Bonaventure’s spiritual works. All believers are called to perfection through Christ who “climbs down” to model the successful wayfarer’s lifestyle. This general picture affirms the centrality of human action in the reductive movement to God as final end.

The Merit of the Mendicant Lifestyle Mendicant Merit in the De perfection Thomas uses the first five chapters of De perfectione to establish that all wayfarers are required to seek relative perfection through the virtue and practice of charity so that they may ultimately obtain simple perfection as comprehensors of final beatitude. For Thomas, however, the mendicant lifestyle and the state of religious perfection are special instruments for perfecting the virtue of charity and advancing in perfection. Because the mendicant lifestyle advances this end, it is both theologically legitimate and commendable. The challenge falling to Thomas is to demonstrate that the mendicant life advances love of God and love of neighbor (relative perfection) more effectively than other kinds of secular or monastic lifestyles. Thomas begins his defense of mendicant life with the simple assertion that wayfarers attain perfection and arrive at glory through the virtue of charity. Charity is most effective when it loves God as its ultimate end without the distraction of other desires. Thomas writes: “It is manifest that the human heart is more intensely carried to one thing, insofar as it is drawn away from a multiplicity of desires. Therefore, the more that a person is removed from 27. Bonaventure, Apologia, III:4, emphasis mine.

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temporal concerns, the more perfectly he will be carried to love of God.”28 Thomas subsequently describes those desires that distract from charity as concupiscence, and he reasons that every divine counsel is fundamentally directed toward increasing charity and decreasing concupiscence.29 Divine counsels, as an extension of divine providence, direct human beings according to their nature following a particular order. Persons desire things that are extrinsic, things that are both extrinsic and intrinsic, and things that are intrinsic to their nature. Those which are most intrinsically essential to human nature are the most difficult to properly order according to charity. God reveals three main types of counsels that assist in the ordering of human desire. God first counsels the renunciation of earthly possessions—those extrinsic objects—that can distract the mind and will. Thomas writes: “But it is more useful for eternal life to renounce riches than to possess them, because those who possess riches enter the kingdom of heaven with difficulty; for it is difficult to prevent desire for possessing riches, and such a desire makes it impossible to enter the kingdom of heaven.”30 God also counsels that human beings forego marriage inasmuch as marriage directs the wayfarer’s desires toward an extrinsic object in a spouse whom he then takes to himself as an intrinsic possession. This kind of union with another unavoidably “engrosses persons’ hearts” and “entangles persons in earthly concerns” that threaten to displace love of God as the unifying virtue that forms human desire. Thomas also notes that renunciation of marriage is more difficult than abandoning possessions because of its extrinsic/ intrinsic status.31 Above these two counsels, however, God demands that wayfarers abnegate their wills; Jesus’ submission of his will in the garden exemplifies this act. Because the submission of the will entirely to God is 28. Thomas, De perfectione, VI. 29. Thomas writes: “Hence, all the counsels which lead all men to perfection tend to withdraw his affections from temporal objects; so that, his soul is enabled more freely to turn to God by contemplating Him, loving Him, and fulfilling His will” (De perfectione, VI). Recall the parallel with the Father’s pruning of the vine in Thomas’s commentary on Jn. 15:1–8; Thomas writes: “For if a person is well-disposed and conjoined to God, yet inclines his desire (affectum) to diverse things, his virtue is reduced, and he becomes more inefficient in doing the good” (SJ, 1985). 30. Thomas, De perfectione, VII. 31. After emphasizing the increased difficulty of chastity, Thomas uses chapter 9 to recommend “aids to chastity.” He promotes physical and mental discipline even as he exhorts his readers to avoid external circumstances that might encourage marriage.

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an utterly interior or intrinsic aspect of human nature, this counsel is more difficult to perfect. Already, then, one can see some distinction between Thomas and Bona­ venture. Thomas stresses obedience as greater than poverty while Bonaventure cites poverty as the best measure of perfection. Thomas explains: “Concerning these things, the more a certain thing is loved according to its nature, the more perfect it is to despise it on account of Christ. But nothing is more beloved to a person than the freedom of his own will. For through the free will, a person is a lord over others; through it he is able to use or enjoy things; and through this he is lord over his own actions.”32 Wayfarers who are able to sacrifice that which is most central to their freedom more nearly approach simple perfection. Thomas presents interim and final perfection as possible only when human nature freely chooses to cooperate with divine counsel by ordering all its desires toward God as final end. Counsels provide ideal contexts for meritorious action and corresponding reward. Thomas allows that the counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience can surely be practiced by wayfarers outside of religious life. Yet, undertaking these virtues as parts of religious vows increases their meritorious character and reliability as a means to perfection. Thomas stresses the sacrificial nature of vows, and he frames it in the language of divine worship or latria. The highest form of divine worship is sacrifice, and religious vows allow for whole or complete offerings of one’s self to God. Thomas goes beyond the language of sacrifice (sacrificium) and employs the language of holocaust (holocaustum) to express the nature of this kind of worship; he writes: “Therefore, just as a holocaust is a perfect sacrifice, so a person makes perfect satisfaction to God through a promised vow, by which the person offers a holocaust of exterior things, of his body, and of his spirit.”33 A holocaust offering is burnt up and consumed in the fire; this image informs the nature of religious vows, particularly obedience, for Thomas. Religious perfection may lead to complete erasure of self-interest and thus concupiscence by sacrificing those things that a person retains as most dear and unique to themselves for the sake of loving and worshiping God. Burning up one’s possessions and free will also consumes much of the distraction that keeps one’s full love from God. A person 32. Thomas, De perfectione, X. 33. Thomas, De perfectione, XI.

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cannot freely make a perfect sacrifice of her life or her person unless she wholly loves the object of her worship, and so, the sacrificial vows of religious life cultivate ultimate charity for God even as it preserves her from distraction. Thomas offers a twofold rebuttal of Gerard’s contention that vows diminish merit by reducing the voluntary character of virtue. First, observing basic scriptural precepts such as the twofold command to love God above all things and to love one’s neighbor selflessly is not opposed to merit; the free will is still involved in the consent to love. Commands and vows do enjoin the free will but it must still freely choose to observe them. Thomas concedes that Gerard is not all-together wrong inasmuch as certain free actions—particularly those based on counsels—can have a greater character of merit than those commanded by precept. Second, Thomas establishes a basic maxim by which he defines the merit of a given act. He writes: “Likewise, the more excellent the virtue by which any act proceeds, the more laudable [meritorious] it is, since all the laud [merit] of an action is from the virtue [which causes it].”34 Thomas’s position here is consistent throughout his works: the more excellent the virtue that motivates an action, the more meritorious the action. In the ST and De perfectione, charity constitutes the preeminent virtue that directs the wayfarer to God; thus, one would expect Thomas to simply affirm that religious vows amplify charity. Thomas instead speaks of latria as maximally virtuous: “For it is greater to worship God than to order oneself right to one’s neighbor or oneself.”35 Embedded in any true act of worship is love of God. If religious vows represent a sacrificial act of worship that directs a person’s love to God, then this foundational virtue generates greater merit through the actions that arise from it, including the specific vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, which all wayfarers can practice. Thomas thus concludes that religious vows are most meritorious because (1) they arise from the act of latria; (2) they promote perfection through charity; and (3) they reduce those objects that distract from divine worship and love of God. While the De perfectione stresses the merit that arises from loving God 34. Thomas, De perfectione, XII. Thomas presents the anti-mendicant (and anti-religious) position thus: “For they contend that an act is meritorious in proportion as it is voluntary, and that, if such an act be less voluntary in proportion as it is more necessary, good works done at a man’s pleasure, without the constraint of obedience or vow of any kind, are worth more than such as are performed under the obligation of a vow, either of obedience or of some other nature” (De perfectione, XII). 35. Thomas, De perfectione, XII.

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above all things, it also commends the perfections that come from loving of one’s neighbor. Because love of neighbor, however, is subordinate to love of God, it perfects when it orders all acts of charity to God as ultimate good.36 Wayfarers are first obliged to love others as themselves, and Thomas adds that fulfilling this precept means that one’s love must be “sincere,” “rightly ordered,” “holy,” and “practical and fruitful.”37 These distinctions provide concrete instruction on the nature of love, thus directing the wayfarer’s progress on the journey. The De perfectione divides and subdivides the ways that one can love one’s neighbor.38 The three main categories include (1) the comprehensiveness of love; (2) the intensity of love; and (3) the value of love for the recipients. These divisions provide a way for Thomas to discuss in practical terms how the wayfarer may advance in the perfection of her love. For example, under the category of “intensity,” the wayfarer may be more or less sacrificial; she may give up certain material possessions for the sake of another or she may sacrifice her life. Here again, one can apply Thomas’s maxim that the extent to which the act arises from virtue (charity) determines its meritorious value. Differences in intensity of love can therefore serve as metrics for the state of a wayfarer’s perfection.39 Thomas allows that non-mendicants may complete the journey more effectively than defective mendicants. He writes: “However, some not under 36. Thomas writes: “There is a certain perfection of this virtue which is a matter of precept, and which is necessary to salvation. There is, further, a supererogatory perfection, which is a matter of counsel” (De perfectione, XIII). 37. With each of the four categories, Thomas explains that love advances the wayfarer’s perfection. For example, he defines “order” as desiring goods for others by wishing or seeking “higher goods” on their behalf; this love moves in order from extrinsic goods to intrinsic ones. Thomas explains: “Now we are commanded to observe the same order in the love of our neighbor that we ought to observe in the love of ourselves. Hence we must desire his welfare in the same manner as we ought to desire our own, that is, first his spiritual good, secondly his physical prosperity, including in the latter category such goods as consists in extrinsic possessions. But, if we wish our neighbor to have material goods harmful to his health of body, or physical welfare opposed to his spiritual benefit, we do not truly love him” (De perfectione, XIII). These sorts of guideposts describe the sincerity, order, holiness, and utility/ fruitfulness of human love and provide practical direction as well as reasonable grounds on which to direct one’s love to one’s neighbor. 38. See ST II-II:26, 1–12 and 27, 1–8 for a similar ordering of charity. 39. For example, when discussing the sacrifice of one’s life for love of a neighbor, Thomas writes: “Hence, a man, who, for the love of another, delivers himself to bondage, practices the same perfection of charity, as he who exposes himself to death. Nay, we may say that he does more; for slavery is more abhorrent to our nature than is death” (De perfectione, XIV). Thomas’s comments stress that the charity of human actions can be measured so that one can also gauge the actor’s perfection.

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vows do works of perfection and others do not fulfill the works of perfection under which their whole lives are obliged by vows; wherefore it is clear that some persons may be perfect who are nevertheless not in the statum perfectionis whereas others may not be perfect who are in the statum perfectionis.”40 Having made this provision, however, Thomas argues vigorously that total perfection secundum quid is only possible under religious vows because they provide conditions for the greatest possible merit. Thomas concludes that the religious state, by virtue of its greater potential for worship, provides wayfarers with a more efficacious (if also more difficult) path to perfection and the reward of final glory. Given the De perfectione’s status as a polemic in defense of the mendicant lifestyle and its prerogatives, Thomas is noticeably reticent in his discussion of the distinctive components of Dominican life, most particularly, preaching and teaching. Thomas does argue that members of the religious state may accept the duties of secular clergy such as preaching, hearing confessions, and teaching as ways of loving God and others. Mendicants who are also priests grow in perfection both according to their religious vows as well as the supererogatory charitable work of their priestly ministry. Thomas writes: “Thus it is not demonstrated that the state of a cleric entrusted with the cure of souls is more perfect than [those in] the religious state; for a religious is able to take up the cure of souls while remaining in their prior religious state.”41 In the last chapter of his work (chapter 26), Thomas briefly addresses whether those in a religious state may do active works. He begins by arguing that he has already addressed this topic in another work, and then goes on to refute the authorities and arguments claimed by Gerard. Despite these rebuttals, he does not construct an argument in favor of the mendicant charisms.42 This 40. Thomas, De perfectione, XV. This allowance permits Thomas to argue that the secular clergy can attain perfection and, sometimes, perfection that exceeds that of those in the religious state. For example, in chapter 20 he writes: “It may, however, happen, as we have already observed, that a man who does not live in a state of [religious] perfection may perform works of perfection, and may be perfect according to the habit of charity. Thus, archdeacons and parish priests may be perfect according to the habit of charity, and may share in certain offices of perfection, though they are not living in the perfect state” (De perfectione, XX). 41. Thomas, De perfectione, XX. 42. Thomas writes: “It remains, now, for us to consider which are the works befitting those living in the religious state. We have already fully treated of this matter elsewhere. We will, therefore merely add a few words, in the hope of putting the calumniators of religious to silence” (De perfectione, XXVI).

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makes his reference to another work all the more intriguing. He may be referring to Contra impugnantes—though this was written more than a decade earlier—or he may be referencing the quodlibet questions of his second regency; Contra retrahentes is ruled out inasmuch as scholars establish a posterior date for this work.43 Another possibility for this reference could be Thomas’s treatise on “The Religious Life,” which completes the secunda pars of the ST (II-II:186–89). Weisheipl indicates that Thomas is writing much of the secunda pars during his second Parisian regency, and he further posits that Thomas writes his treatise on the religious life during the controversy with Gerard.44 This is significant because the treatise in the ST contains an explicit treatment of the “proper realm” (question 187) and “variations” (question 188) of religious life, which Thomas references only in passing in the De perfectione.45 For our purposes, the lack of discussion of distinctively mendicant charisms in De perfectione presents no problem because the relationship between human action and the divine reward of perfection is of chief concern. That said, a concise summary reveals that the same mode of argument in the De perfectione extends into ST II-II:186–89. Orders can be distinguished or evaluated by the goals of their mission and the means employed to attain these. Purely contemplative (cloistered) orders have the end goal of personal salvation, while purely active orders seek the salvation and well-being of others (in the latter category Thomas mentions orders that run hospitals, fight battles, or ransom captives). Because the mendicants first contemplate divine 43. Torrell fixes the De perfectione to early 1270 and Contra retrahentes between Lent and Christmas 1271 (given its reference to the Lent 1271 quodlibet); see Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:347. In Contra impugnantes (1256), Thomas eagerly constructs a defense of the active charism of the mendicants. He addresses the distinctive characteristics of mendicant life in chapters 2–7. He argues that religious may teach (ch. 2), may belong to a college of secular teachers (ch. 3), may preach and hear confessions without being a parish priest (ch. 4), are not bound to manual labor (ch. 5), may relinquish all personal and private property (ch. 6), and may live on alms (ch. 7). See Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:82–84, for a review of the central ideas in Contra impugnantes. 44. See Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 261–63. Torrell also indicates that one can observe a relationship between De perfectione and ST II-II:186–89: “[In the De perfectione] Thomas wishes to present objectively here the doctrine of religious life and Christian perfection. This opusculum thus prepares the way for the treatise that will find a place at the end of the IIa-IIae” (Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:347). 45. The article headings of ST II-II:187–88 raise the central questions of the mendicant controversies but differently than the De perfectione does; for example, the headings for question 187 include the following: (1) Is it lawful for them to teach, preach, and do like things? (2) Is it lawful for them to meddle in secular business? (3) Are they bound to manual labor? (4) Is it lawful for them to live on alms? (5) Is it lawful for them to quest? (6) Is it lawful for them to wear coarser clothes than other persons?

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revelation and then convey its content through preaching and teaching, they attain greater perfection than either the purely contemplative orders (who do not share the fruits of contemplation) or the purely active orders (who serve without contemplation). Thomas summarizes: “For just as it is better to illumine [others] than to shine alone, so it is better to hand on the fruits of contemplation than solely to contemplate. . . . Therefore those orders ordained to teaching and preaching hold the highest rank among religious orders. They are closest to the perfection of bishops.”46 The ST thus argues that mendicant orders, particularly the Dominican order, which is committed to the apostolate of preaching, attain greatest perfection and, in turn, future rewards, because they actively bring others to salvation with the fruits of their contemplation (contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere). This hybrid ministry, a hallmark of Dominican identity, reflects greater virtue and, returning to the De perfectione’s maxim, such virtue is grounds for greater merit. That these questions come at the end of the secunda pars is telling; they aptly demonstrate how wayfarers may attain relative perfection through the full actualization of natural and supernatural virtue.

Mendicant Merit in the Apologia pauperum Bonaventure similarly affirms that perfection according to the counsels is more perfect than that of the precepts, and he uses this premise to defend the value of mendicant life. While all interim works of spiritual perfection advance the wayfarer toward final reward as the journey’s end, such works are most effective when they arise from a steady disposition or habit of virtuous action. Habitual perfection is required for final perfection. Sanctifying grace heals and elevates the forms of the soul, yet Bonaventure stresses that spiritual progress is realized when the wayfarer habitually observes the precepts and undertakes counsels.47 The mendicant lifestyle promotes these counsels, and so interim spiritual progress, most effectively. The religious state and mendicant lifestyle do more than simply observe 46. Thomas, ST II-II:188, 6 c. 47. Bonaventure divides evangelical perfection into three parts and he describes them thus: “The first part of evangelical perfection consists in this threefold and supererogative refusal of the threefold origin of all evil. . . . Now, the second part of [evangelical] perfection consists in pursuing good more eagerly than is required by precept. . . . Finally, the third part of evangelical perfection consists in bearing trials more perfectly than is required by precept” (Apologia, III:5–7).

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the precepts associated with resisting evil, doing good, and enduring trials. They offer wayfarers the opportunity to freely and habitually practice supererogatory virtue—the kind that leads to a higher state of interim perfection and deserves greater final reward. Bonaventure, for example, returns to the framework of the beatitudes as a guide, and he divides them into two categories; the first three (poverty, meekness, and mourning) signify the vows that all religious take, while the latter four (justice, mercy, purity, and peacemaking) connote further spiritual “adornments” in the soul, which advance the wayfarer in perfection.48 Echoing the language of conformity found in the Itinerarium and Lignum vitae, Bonaventure describes the beatitudes’ counsels: “Therefore in the first three, a person is crucified to the world; in the following three he is made to conform to God: just as a six-winged seraph, he is elevated above the things of the world and carried up to the divine.”49 In this division, the beatitude’s first three precepts discipline while its next three counsels conform. Mendicant life follows the arc of the beatitudes and so qualifies as the most efficacious way to spiritual perfection. The further reference to the seraph reminds readers that Francis remains the secondary exemplar of Christian perfection, and his spiritual children continue that lifestyle. Bonaventure writes: “For the holy poor one [Francis] served and taught perfectly the perfection of the gospel, and Christ impressed the appearance of the seraphic stigmata as sign of his approbation over against the dangerous darkness of final days; by this sign we may return to Christ, the exemplar and end of perfect virtue, and through [him] may we learn how to attain perfection if we learn not to set our mind on high things but to feel with the lowly.”50 Francis embodies the mendicant lifestyle, and Christ 48. Bonaventure uses the term ornatus to convey the adorning effect of the last four beatitudes. He writes: “And, in the next [four], there is a kind of adornment when these same powers are returned to God in order that their existence may become beautiful and perfect” (Apologia, III:9). 49. Bonaventure, Apologia, III:10. 50. Bonaventure, Apologia, III:10. Bonaventure draws close correspondence between the Franciscan lifestyle and the Beatitudes. The Legenda maior regularly quotes the beatitudes to gloss Francis’s actions; for example, at one point, Bonaventure portrays Francis thus: “God’s servant replied: ‘My lord, I have shown you great honor in honoring a greater Lord. For the Lord is pleased with poverty and especially with that poverty which involves voluntary begging for Christ. This is the royal dignity which the Lord Jesus assumed when he “became poor” for us that he might enrich us by “his poverty” and establish us as heirs and kinds of “the kingdom of heaven” if we are truly “poor in spirit”’” (Legenda maior, 245). The beatitudes are offered as a means of conformity to Christ who has condescended in order that wayfarers might ascend to God. Francis’s Admonitions themselves often take the hortatory form

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attests to Francis’s perfection—almost final perfection—through the imposition of the stigmata. Bonaventure here elides the books of scripture and Francis to demonstrate that “evangelical” and “Franciscan” spirituality go hand-in-hand; those who wish to follow Francis’s mendicant way will concomitantly find the perfection counseled by scripture and personified in Francis. To be clear, these rewards, while inspired by Francis and the gospel texts, nevertheless depend on virtuous and habitual human action rooted in charity.51 Bonaventure deploys Francis as a model for all Christians seeking to advance in perfection. Those who freely imitate his virtue—which is the virtue of the beatitudes—advance in merit and perfection, but Bonaventure argues that another path of Franciscan imitation is also available. The wayfarer may undertake the habits and lifestyle illustrated in the beatitudes through religious vows, thus entering into the religious state. Refuting the notion, advanced by Gerard, that a vow devalues the free and meritorious nature of spiritual counsels, Bonaventure argues that vows represent deeper or more complete attempts to avoid evil, do good, and endure hardship. He writes: “Such a [vow] does not diminish perfection but adds to it a further height, because a vow makes something eternal that was temporal, because it is illicit to resist a vow, and it makes something of ours divine; for the person who dedicates not only his action but also his will to God is offering his whole self and is placing himself under divine law.”52 In a loose parallel with Thomas, a voluntary vow constitutes a higher form of submission and self-offering because it commends the wayfarer’s very will to God. It binds the wayfarer to certain actions whereas, before, she could freely choose the counsels that seemed most salutary. Religious vows, as particular and permanent instantiations of evangelical counsels, thus offer a particularly reliable way in which to ascend to the second level of spiritual perfection or conforof the beatitudes. See Cousins’s study of Francis’s image for monastic life in “St. Bonaventure’s Life of Saint Francis and the Monastic Archetype,” in Blessed Simplicity: The Monk as Universal Archetype, ed. Raimundo Pannikar, 135–41 (New York: Seabury Press, 1982). 51. Immediately following his commendation of Francis, for example, Bonaventure reminds his readers: “We have demonstrated earlier that evangelical perfection, which is the object of this discussion, consists in things supererogative. It follows that these things are related not only to the charismatic gifts, but truly also to the practice of the virtues; for unless the habits of the virtues have been developed, no degree of perfection is possible” (Apologia, III:11). 52. Bonaventure, Apologia, III:11.

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mity to Christ. They habituate the good works of counsels by submitting the person’s will entirely to their direction. Bonaventure argues that vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience collectively impose conditions of difficulty on the wayfarer that promote interim and final perfection. His general argument is that the difficulty of religious vows winnows those things that inhibit conformity. Three kinds of difficulties bring about this effect. First, poverty, chastity, and obedience restrict human freedom to choose or follow varying desires. For example, when a person must regularly submit in obedience to another, she becomes less attached to desires that distract from such obedience. Training in habitual action under difficult conditions is consequently meritorious. Bonaventure writes: For there is a threefold difficulty [in religious life] which arises from the arduousness and nobility of this kind of work, just as when one cuts oneself off from all sexual intercourse, and foregoes all one’s possessions, and submits oneself to the will of another for the sake of God. And these difficulties without doubt increase merit, according to Matthew: “Enter through the narrow gate.”53

The difficulties presented by religious vows (shared by both monastics and mendicants) conform the wayfarer’s nature so that she is actually able to pass through the narrow door. Recall, for instance, Bonaventure’s commentary on Zacchaeus who begins the story burdened with riches such that he is hump-backed and unable to enter through the narrow gate. Bonaventure adds that vows can introduce initial “misery,” which in turn gives way to greater joy—a joy arising from charity. For example, someone who struggles with avarice will find poverty particularly miserable, but as she distances herself from wealth and practices the habit of generosity, she finds it increasingly easy and joyous to give to others. Difficulty increases beatitude by increasing habitual charity. Third, “the conjunction of external circumstances” can present difficulties; Bonaventure explains that religious will find it difficult to renounce external or worldly experiences that conflict with their vows and desire for perfection. For example, mendicants will find it difficult to fast when, through their external ministry, they are offered food and hospitality. The confraternity or community of religious life nevertheless makes 53. Bonaventure, Apologia, III:15.

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these temptations easier to resist when compared with someone who faces them independently and frequently. Vows can therefore preserve those in the status religionis from temptation, allowing them to progress on their journey by way of merit while others succumb to temptation without the assistance that comes through the submission of the will through vows. Bonaventure sees vows as constituting a kind of self-emptying or condescension that conforms the religious to Christ and facilitates spiritual ascent. Reductio ad Deum requires self-emptying, and vows augment the work of condescension, which gives way to perfection. Even as he commends them, Bonaventure argues that religious vows do not fully encompass the counsels of the beatitudes or the lifestyle of Francis. The topic of poverty is not without special controversy for Bonaventure, given (1) the attitude of Francis, codified in his final testament, toward poverty; (2) the unique view on ownership of property taken by the Franciscans; (3) the internal tensions between spiritual and conventual Franciscans; and (4) the explicit attack on strict poverty (and its relation to begging) wielded by the secular masters.54 Bonaventure devotes nearly half of the Apologia to the subject, constructing an argument for poverty’s relationship to perfection, citing numerous authorities in his favor, and fielding counterarguments, particularly those raised by Gerard. The entire defense of Franciscan poverty rests on a constructive extension of spiritual perfection to include and affirm the practice of strict poverty. Bonaventure thus begins by affirming that faith formed in charity lies at the heart of perfection. Cupidity represents the fundamental obstacle to this process; he writes: “But covetousness (cupiditas) is directly opposed to this foundation or root, of which it is written by Timothy: ‘The root of all evil is covetousness, which some, in their appetites for it, have strayed from the faith.’”55 Covetousness is a root evil because it disorders human love and seeks ends (as objects of desire) oth54. See Douie, “St. Bonaventura’s Part,” 586–87; Cousins, Bonaventure, 6–7; and Timothy Johnson’s The Soul in Ascent: Bonaventure on Poverty, Prayer, and Union with God (Quincy Ill.: Franciscan Press, 2000). 55. Bonaventure, Apologia, VII:1, emphasis mine. Bonaventure’s use of “foundation” and “root” connote charity as the primary virtue that is undermined by covetousness. Douie comments: “After this Bonaventura came to his main subject, the defense of evangelical poverty. This was the remedy for greed, the chief obstacle to perfect charity and had two sides, the abdication of property and the restricted use of things, later termed by the Franciscans the ‘usus pauper’” (Douie, “St. Bonaventura’s Part,” 605).

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er than union with God. Progress in perfection can therefore be marked by progress against or away from greed or covetousness. Bonaventure in some ways doubles Thomas’s metric for perfection in charity; it measures (1) positive growth in love for God and others as well as (2) negative withdrawal from cupidity through poverty. Christ’s exemplarity acts as the antidote to the root evil of cupidity. Bonaventure writes: “Jesus Christ, the origin of all good things and the founder and foundation of the new city of Jerusalem . . . embraced with eagerness the very opposite of covetousness, demonstrating it by example and preaching by word.”56 This twofold exemplarity signifies the way of reform as well as the central Franciscan charism. Christ’s practices the habit of poverty in his example, shunning lifestyles and occasions whereby persons are tempted to covet goods other than God. At the same time, Christ preaches against coveting because the mind must also be conformed with knowledge (formed faith) to its proper end and object of desire. Bonaventure reinforces the scriptural nature of this counsel by returning to the beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Vowed or obligatory poverty imposes the self-emptying of possessions while at the same time cultivating the habits of love and affectus for God as proper end. He quotes Jerome, who wrote: “To sell everything and to distribute it to the poor is the height of apostolic perfection and perfect virtue, and thus made light and quick, they fly up to heaven with Christ.”57 For Bonaventure, however, the Franciscan practice exceeds the basic perfection of a religious vow; indeed, “strict poverty” offers a path to greater interim perfection. To clarify the special nature of Franciscan poverty, Bonaventure suggests that things can be possessed in two ways, through “ownership” and “use.” Ownership more readily occasions greed. Bonaventure writes: Now two come together to consider the possession of temporal goods, namely, ownership and use, and because the use is a necessary condition of the present life, evangelical poverty consists in renouncing the dominion and ownership of earthly things but not their use which must be restricted according to what the apostle said to Timothy: “Having food and sufficient clothing, let us be content with these.”58 56. Bonaventure, Apologia, VII:2. 57. Bonaventure, Apologia, VII:3, from Jerome’s “Vita sancti Hilarionis eremitae,” 11. 58. Bonaventure, Apologia, VII:3.

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Wayfarers must use temporal goods, particularly those necessary for subsistence, to continue their journey, but even this is limited to objects such as food and clothing. “Use” of goods implies that someone must own such goods, and Bonaventure concludes that two options lie open on this front: common or private ownership. In the former, not unlike the members of the early church, a religious community may own things in common, which spares individuals from the covetousness that may arise from personal ownership. Monastic communities follow this practice. Bonaventure, however, argues for a stricter and more meritorious option: “But in the other, a person abdicates all dominion over temporal things, both those of his own and those in common, and is sustained not by his own things but those of an outsider; that is, his sustenance is kindly and justly gathered together by another.”59 This second kind of poverty, which is akin to begging, is stricter in the sense that the wayfarer again offers total submission to God, empties herself of even common goods, and depends on outsiders for support. Bonaventure suggests, for example, that total renunciation exposes one to greater difficulty and perseverance—expressions of self-emptying and conformity to Christ. He substantiates this claim through Christ’s example and counsel when he sends the Apostles forth to preach without purse and the bare minimum in clothing (Mt. 10:9); he writes: “Therefore in these words the Lord imposes upon the Apostles and preachers of truth a form of extreme and penurious poverty to be observed by renouncing not only material possessions but even money and other moveable things by which a community’s life is generally sustained and held together.”60 Bonaventure foregrounds Christ’s exemplarity concerning poverty, which falls under the category of Christ’s “Revelation of the Perfect Life”—the category he identified as worthy of imitation in chapter 1. Four positive and theological reasons for poverty’s promotion of perfection follow; strict poverty (1) destroys sin, (2) habitually trains wayfarers in virtue, (3) provides internal peace, and (4) makes the preacher a credible witness to the lifestyle he promotes. A lifestyle of severe poverty mediates against the vice of avarice and covetousness, and because the mendicant lives within a community bound by a rule, the 59. Bonaventure, Apologia, VII:4. 60. Bonaventure, Apologia, VII:5. Scholars concur that Francis found this same scriptural text compelling, and by 1210 had used it as the foundation of his Propositum vitae, which preceded and likely informed the Regula non bullata (1221) and Regula bullata (1223).

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occasions for sin are significantly reduced.61 Poverty also develops habitual virtue in wayfarers. Bonaventure reasons that it “tests” virtues through suffering; it “preserves” virtue by renouncing things that might inhibit virtues such as charity or purity of heart; and it “develops” virtue because the poor more easily intend and seek God through charity. He writes: “If therefore the voluntary privation (penuria) of temporal things can test, preserve, and expedite virtue, it is manifestly clear that the height of poverty contributes in many ways to the exercise of perfect virtue.”62 Strict poverty offers a particularly efficacious way to perfection.63 As Bonaventure culminates his argument against the secular masters, he adds that poverty advances religious perfection because gospel teaching becomes more credible. Like Francis himself, Franciscans preach most effectively when they manifest virtue and Christ’s example in their person. Citing the apostles as preeminent examples, Bonaventure reasons that many recognized the truth of the gospels in the lifestyles of the apostles who possessed nothing themselves and carried no money, staff, or sandals as they ministered. As Bonaventure draws these four effects of strict poverty together, he concludes: Therefore what has been said shows that voluntary and strict poverty has four incomparable merits, each one multiplied by three. Such poverty is properly designated not only by the single pearl of the gospel but also because of its immense value and amazing beauty, by the twelve most brilliant pearls in the gates of the New Jerusalem, “coming down out of heaven,” to which the names of the twelve poor in spirit, that is, namely, the twelve apostles are gathered together in the foundation [of these gates].64

The theological defense of poverty rests on its reward-worthy character. Moving away from sin, growing in virtue, producing spiritual fruits, and embodying apostolic ministry through poverty collectively earn rewards including the pearls that cover the gates of heaven—an image of the wayfarer’s end. As such, the Franciscan and mendicant lifestyle reveals a pathway of 61. See Apologia, IX:14–16. 62. Bonaventure, Apologia, IX:17. 63. In addition to producing external security and consolation, poverty “is useful for the fruition of inner joy by reason of expected reward” (Apologia, IX:19). 64. Bonaventure, Apologia, IX:23.

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reward by which the wayfarer’s actions lead toward ascending union with God. Bonaventure’s Apologia thus presents yet another liber by which to find union with God. In addition to the books of scripture, nature, and Francis, the Apologia offers the book of mendicant life as a ladder providing access to ultimate rewards.

Reward as Means and Ends At the heart of Thomas’s De perfectione and Bonaventure’s Apologia lies the question of perfection and its relation to the religious state. Perfection has to do with human beings obtaining the end for which God creates them, and this becomes consequential inasmuch as the religious state can be said to uniquely advance that end. Even as Bonaventure and Thomas speak of intermediate and final perfection (Bonaventure) or relative and simple perfection (Thomas), they note that these states experience and anticipate divine rewards. Talk of perfection always supposes attainment of interim or final rewards as the ratio for perfection. Thus, when Bonaventure and Thomas find themselves arguing that the mendicant orders are part of the status perfectionis, they do so by connecting the charisms of the orders to divine rewards. For Thomas, religious vows perfect charity by rooting it in divine worship so that when a person acts charitably under a vow, he acts more meritoriously than if he acts as a matter of mere precept or counsel. For Bonaventure, religious vows promote increased conformity to God so that the Franciscan wayfarer more perfectly imitates Christ as exemplar and advances toward final cruciform union. The discussions of perfection in Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s polemical works relies on an understanding of human action as capable of divine rewards. An important difference stands out in the way that Thomas and Bonaventure relate perfection to reward. For Thomas, perfection and the actions that cause it are means to an end. His basic and initial definition of simple perfection is telling: “An absolutely perfect thing is that which attains to that end for which it is made.”65 The end to which God calls the elect, however, is the perfect love that will be enjoyed ultimately in final beatitude. Those things that advance perfection, including vows, are therefore instru65. Thomas, De perfectione, I.

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mentally meritorious of the end, but they are not ends in themselves.66 Given charity’s role as the final end of human life, it also becomes the primary regula for perfection and progress so that latria is presented as the pinnacle of supererogatory love. Final perfection for Bonaventure is more closely aligned with the goal itself, and so, intermediate perfection is also an experience of final perfection. The example of Francis is paramount; in his intermediate and final perfection, he resembles Christ and experiences this perfection as his reward, not simply as a means to it. Those things that mark his state are therefore perfections in themselves. The most obvious example is the stigmata, but also perfect is his poverty. Whether or not other Franciscans can actually attain the “cruciformity” and ecstatic union that Bonaventure recognizes in Francis, it remains the case that Bonaventure aligns perfection with progress in conformity. Strict religious poverty is therefore not so much a means to an end as an experience and anticipation of final perfection. Merit and rewards coincide more closely together: one merits through strict poverty and one experiences perfection through strict poverty. This difference between perfection as a means versus an end leads Thomas and Bonaventure to defend mendicant poverty differently. For Thomas, poverty is one of several charisms that advance the wayfarer’s perfection and merit of reward. It has value only inasmuch as it perfects charity, which is the principal means to final rewards. This makes strict poverty less burdensome for Thomas to defend because he classifies it with other charisms promoting charity, and he can even classify it as fundamentally less perfective than chastity, obedience, charity, or latria, which are more intrinsic to human nature. Given the distinctive place of poverty in the Franciscan tradition, Bonaventure necessarily develop a more positive framework for poverty; it is coterminous with perfection. He thus argues that poverty uniquely conforms the wayfarer to God and that this conformity is a simultaneous reward. It is possible, however, to overemphasize this difference between Thomas and Bonaventure. Thomas also affirms relative perfection as “the perfection of one of those qualities which are concomitant to its own nature.”67 Thus, various qualities of human nature may be perfected in the 66. Thomas’s position resembles Augustine distinction between use and enjoyment in De doctrina christiana, (Book I:3–5); see Wawrykow’s “Reflections on the Place of Augustine’s De doctrina.” 67. Thomas, De perfectione, I.

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effort to attain the final end. Evangelical poverty taken as a counsel, can be practiced as supererogatory and meritorious by a Dominican, and he may pursue its perfection (through habitual charity) as part of his journey. Thus, poverty can be esteemed as a particularly effective means of perfecting charity. Second, while Bonaventure sees poverty as perfection in itself, it is only the case insofar as it destroys cupidity as an obstacle to unfettered love. The measure of poverty, then, is tied to desire for love of God as final end; charity and poverty are inextricably linked in terms of perfection.

Reward Texts Both the Apologia and De perfectione use scripture extensively in their positive and negative arguments. The two most pervasive themes are (1) scripture’s sustained revelation of divine precepts and counsels, and (2) the argument that both categories imply rewards. At a general level, commands must be done in order to preserve salvation whereas the practice of counsels earns the rewards of growth in holiness and eternal life. Because perfection is connected intimately with the attainment of salvation, both authors unhesitatingly use reward texts to defend mendicant prerogatives. It is worth noting that the validity of reward texts or the possibility of earning rewards was itself not at issue in the mendicant controversies; Bonaventure and Thomas both assume that the secular masters accept them as a matter of fact. The application of reward texts to the mendicant lifestyle, however, lies at the heart of the dispute. A noticeable difference emerges between Bonaventure and Aquinas in the way that they deploy reward texts. Bonaventure deploys texts in an evidentiary style that resembles the zither effect of the scriptural commentaries. He tends to link several passages together for greater resonance. This conveys the sense that scripture applies rewards to the mendicant pursuit of religious perfection. Thomas, on the other hand, is more sparing in his citations, deploying them in the midst of larger arguments as the rationale for a particular point of doctrine; this is especially true with passages addressing love. This difference does not so much reflect varying views of scripture’s presentation of rewards as it does use of sources in polemics. Bonaventure and Thomas both see God commanding and counseling human beings to actively pursue perfection and the promise of interim and final rewards. Bonaventure deploys reward texts perhaps most illustrative-

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ly in his use of the beatitudes as a ladder for spiritual ascent.68 The most straightforward argument in this section is that Jesus attaches a reward to a series of habitual actions that perfect the wayfarer. Bonaventure drives this point home in the last beatitude where Christ promises the kingdom of heaven; he writes: “[Christ] returned to the origin, as if making a circle from the beginning, because in this [last beatitude] the sum of all things is accomplished. Thus, the sixfold perfection of the ‘small world’ [of human beings] in the order of restoration and grace corresponds directly to the sixfold creation of the whole fabric of the world in the order of nature.”69 The beatitudes counsel wayfarers to religious vows and mendicant lifestyles, and the perfection of these actions is indicated or marked by the rewards of the beatitudes themselves. A second example from the gospels that Bonaventure prefers for obvious reasons is Christ’s admonition to the rich young man: “If you wish to be perfect, go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor” (Mt. 19:21). Bonaventure considers the pericope an example of Christ counseling strict poverty, and sees Christ attaching the specific reward of perfection to it.70 The example reinforces Bonaventure’s particular view that the wayfarer is herself perfected by actions such as poverty. Thomas premises and organizes the whole of the De perfectione on Christ’s summary of the commandments in Mt. 22:37. He repeatedly stresses that totalizing love of God and selfless love of neighbor perfect and so merit glory; as such, the passage grounds and directs the wayfarer’s habitual action. When Thomas describes the rewards of the blessed, he uses Paul’s language as proof of the need to pursue or actively seek perfection; he writes: “Hence, St. Paul writing to the Philippians says (3:12) ‘Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect; but I follow after, if I may by any means apprehend.’”71 Thomas glosses “attain” as following and seeking (consequendo and insequendo) or the fundamental action of the wayfarer. Again, 68. The beatitudes are the preeminent example of the way in which human beings attain spiritual perfection through supererogatory human actions; Bonaventure writes: “In token of this, when Christ sought to teach such perfection to His apostles, He went up onto a mountain, not speaking to the imperfect crowd, but to those whom He had decided to exalt to the summit of this perfection, and there He exposed the six points indicated above, in the order in which we have explained them” (Apologia, III:8). 69. Bonaventure, Apologia, III:8. 70. Bonaventure cites the passage no less than four times in the chapter III of the Apologia. 71. Thomas, De perfectione, IV. See Thomas’s commentary on Eph. 3:12 in the appendix for greater detail.

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perfection is presented as a reward that depends on the habitual and active seeking of God in charity. Stepping out of De perfectione and into Contra impugnantes for a moment, Thomas uses reward texts in another creative manner worth noting. In chapter two he argues that mendicants are by no means restricted from teaching by some divine counsel; God does not reveal counsels that some people must avoid. Thomas writes: The first argument, namely, that the Lord counseled his disciples not to be masters is, clearly false for several reasons. First, because the works of supererogation, about which the counsels are given, have an eminent reward, as is clear from what is said in Luke 10:35: “And whatever you shall spend, over and above, I will repay to you at my return.” The gloss exposits these words as counsels of supererogation. Hence, to abstain from works that ought to be especially rewarded cannot fall under the counsels. But, teachers are owed an eminent reward, just like virgins, namely an aureole, as in Daniel 12:3: “Those who instruct many others to justice,” the gloss says by work and example, “[shall shine] as stars for all eternity.” Therefore just as it is unfitting to deny that virginity or martyrdom fall under the counsels, so it is unfitting to say that abstaining from the act of teaching falls under the counsels.72

Thomas argues for the active mendicant charisms by examining the meaning of certain divine counsels. Counsels are recognizable by the promise of reward attached to a particular set of habitual actions, and so one may assume that God invites wayfarers to undertake them for the sake of their perfection. Mendicants are not especially restricted from general counsels, and moreover, the charism of teaching is fitted to rewards as demonstrated by Daniel 12:3. In Thomas’s works, reward texts play a double role. They help to structure the overall theological arguments, as with the command to love, and they provide evidence for mendicant charisms, as with the commendation of teaching.

Absent Themes Reward as a scriptural and theological concept runs strongly through the polemical writings of Thomas and Bonaventure. Given the context of the controversies and the background of their systematic and biblical works, the 72. Thomas, Contra impugnantes, II. Translation taken from An Apology for the Religious Orders, trans. John Proctor (London: Sand and Co., 1902).

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strong causal link between human actions and divine rewards comes as no surprise. And given our study of the magisterial works and biblical commentaries, what is perhaps more striking are the conceptual elements missing from the polemics, particularly an insistence on the roles of predestination and grace. Both authors largely forego arguments concerning predestination, which seemed part and parcel of their magisterial positions, particularly in Saint Thomas. The occasions for these works provides critical context for their presentations of rewards. Bonaventure and Thomas enter the questions of the mendicant controversies in polemical style, and the main question before both writers is the licitness of the mendicant lifestyle, particularly as it pertains to Christian perfection. This lifestyle consists of a series of actions. For Bonaventure, those actions can be summarized by the beatitudes and the example of Francis. For Thomas, those actions can be summarized as the most reliable means for observing God’s commands and counsels to love. Questions of predestination and grace are not in dispute with their opponents. The seculars and the mendicants would generally agree that grace is necessary to transfer a person from a state of sin into a state of grace and, moreover, that grace informs habitual and virtuous human action. The question at hand is whether the mendicant lifestyle is meritorious and perfective. It makes sense, therefore, that Thomas and Bonaventure focus their arguments on the reward-worthy character of mendicant life. The Apologia and the De perfectione adopt the character of a disputed question more than a systematic text. While the omission of predestination and grace is noticeable in the polemics of Thomas and Bonaventure, exclusion need not be understood as a weakness. Rather, the narrow focus illustrates that both men can effectively present discussions of human actions and divine rewards in a controversial context. They are able to detach an integrated aspect of their systematic presentations of human salvation in order to clarify the nature of Christian perfection as it applies discretely to the mendicant lifestyle. If their presentations of human agency and God’s rewards differed from their systematic positions, that would raise concern. As it is, Bonaventure maintains the roles of exemplarity, conformity through habitual action, and reductio in his presentation in the Apologia. Thomas, likewise, describes human beings as freely able to undertake charitable actions that promote their movement to

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God as final end. Furthermore, both writers use reward texts to demonstrate the meritorious character of mendicant charisms. Thomas and Bonaventure maintain lines of arguments continuous with those found in the systematic and biblical works, but they restrict their scope to fit the very real and disputed topics at hand.

Conclusion Bonaventure and Thomas demonstrate a willingness to defend the mendicant lifestyle as the preeminent way to complete the Christian journey. Their polemical conclusions reinforce a second and generalized theme that human agency is decisive for determining interim and final rewards. Human actions must be rooted in charity in order to deserve or attain rewards. Whether this is set in the language of exemplarity or virtues, both writers look to the charitable intent of any action in order to determine its relative merit. Finally, both thinkers see scripture commending divine rewards for human action. God calls all persons to this end through biblical precepts and counsels. The writings of the mendicant controversies thus provide a rich source of insight for Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s doctrine of human action and divine rewards. In refuting the secular masters, they detach their doctrine from its context in the systematic and biblical works in order to defend the Franciscan and Dominican orders from attack. This would not be possible if they were not confident that human actions play an indispensable role in attaining interim and final rewards from God.

Bonaventure and Thomas in Relief

5

B ON AV E N T U R E A N D T HOM A S I N R E L I E F

Thus says the Lord: Keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; for there is a reward for your work (Jer. 31:16) Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Mt. 5:12)

These passages from Jeremiah and Matthew stand out as favorite reward texts for Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas.1 Texts like these play a vital role in their theology because God discloses the way to eternal salvation through scripture. Thomas notes “in order for the salvation of persons to be proven more fitly and with more certainty, it was necessary that they should be instructed about divine things by divine revelation.”2 Bonaventure takes a similar position: “For [the sacred scriptures] are writings whose words are of eternal life; they were recorded, not only that we might believe, but also that we might possess that life everlasting in which we shall see and love and our desires will be completely satisfied.”3 For Thomas and Bonaventure, expositing scripture revelation of human salvation constitutes the primary task of sacra doctrina, and both thinkers develop theological accounts to that end. They understand scripture to include a series of reward texts consequen1. Thomas cites Jer. 31:16 at least four times, including ST I-II:114, 1; ST III:84, 9; SJ, 20.2; and twice in SEP, I Cor. 3.2; and he cites Mt 5:12 at least six times, including ST I:68, 4; ST I-II:4, 7; ST I-II:109, 5; Cat. Lc.6.5; Cat. Lc.6.8; and SJ, 6.4. Bonaventure cites Jer. 3:16 at least twice in his CL at VI:56 and VII:38; he cites Mt 5:12 at least six times, including Coll. in hex, c.23; Coll. in Joannem, c.17; CL, VII:10; Serm de Temp., c. 10; and de San. Marco Evangel. Sermo, I:3. 2. ST I:1, 1 c. 3. Breviloquium, Prologue, 4.

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tial for human salvation so that they necessarily elaborate positive accounts of human action as integral to the economy of salvation. Their magisterial works systematize reward passages into an overarching schematic of salvation that interprets and arranges varieties of scriptural passages, including some that seem to contradict reward passages. Ultimately, their treatments of divine and human agency affirm that human beings play vital roles in their journey to God that fit into a larger and variegated framework for depicting Christian salvation.

Human Agency in the Plan of Human Salvation Bonaventure and Thomas share a common and foundational understanding of human agency and divine rewards. They understand the plainsense meaning of reward texts, particularly those articulated by Jesus himself, to stipulate that, under certain conditions, human beings may perform freely-willed acts that God recognizes as worthy of reward. Setting this into the language of journey, the overwhelming majority, if not all, of these actions unfold after an undeserved conversion or movement into a state of grace where God supports the wayfarer’s progress with gifts of sanctifying grace. Thus supported by God, the wayfarer responds to God’s call in acts of love that steadily advance her movement toward God, both in her person (in holiness or conformity) and in relationship with God (as friends and adopted children). As primary actor and ordering principle of the cosmos, God makes rewards possible and sets the conditions for their potential recompense. Such rewards are promised and ordered by God as part of a comprehensive journey and as a means by which to perfect the human person as rational, free, and capax Dei. God saves humankind in a way consistent with God’s creation of humankind; the contingent and secondary agency of the wayfarer, given in creation, is engaged by the promises of divine rewards. Reward-worthy human action is a natural response to the divine gifts given to human beings in the orders of nature and grace; it expresses their rational nature as healed and elevated by the grace. Importantly, the language of merit—though by no means exhaustive of their discussion of human action—emerges as one interpretive tool to handle scriptural accounts of reward and not, as some might assume, as an a priori affirmation of human nature, its potential for righteousness, or its ontological standing

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before God. The language of merit names the contribution that wayfarers make but does not assert any essential right to these rewards. The nature of the rewards, the ontological limitations of human nature, and the pervasive challenges of human sin set significant limits on talk of merit for both writers. Thomas and Bonaventure thus set restrictions on the conditions for reward, which are balanced against the sheer weight of reward texts. They understand that the language of divine rewards belongs to a more expansive account of human salvation that includes the language of gifts and grace as well as human actions that do not necessarily merit anything. For the sake of properly understanding divine revelation as credibile ut intelligibile, they set their expositions of reward texts into a larger frame of God’s prevenient and saving action as the condition by which any talk of reward is possible.

Acceptatio versus Ordinatio In the midst of general agreement, the language of divine acceptation and divine ordination marks a critical working distinction between Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s theology of divine rewards. The language of acceptatio provides the ratio for divine rewards in Bonaventure’s theology. Bonaventure’s larger cosmology understands the Word of God to contain and imprint the rationes aeternae on all created things. The latent and potential exemplarity of human nature to become a similitude of the Word is made explicit in the Incarnation, and the sanctifying grace that flows from Christ communicates the habitus by which the wayfarer becomes acceptable before God. The wayfarer’s recovery and perfection of this imprint is both the impetus and blueprint for the journey so that, by reductively coming into conformity with Christ, the wayfarer is perfected in her image and accepted by God as worthy of certain rewards. God reveals reward-worthy actions as incentives and establishes them as a covenant or pactum between God and human beings.4 Under the conditions of the pact, certain actions, informed by grace, are reckoned acceptable before God and worthy of rewards.5 Re4. See Berndt Hamm’s Promissio, pactum, ordinatio, which offers an authoritative history of the notion of pactum. While the study is focused on late-medieval Franciscans, Hamm suggests Bonaventure’s role as a precursor to Scotus’s and Ockham’s approaches to the notion of pactum. 5. For explicit discussion of incentive promises in scripture, see Breviloquium, V:9.3; see also 2 Sent., 27.2.3. resp., for specific language of pacts. A good example of incentive promise language can be

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ward texts establish a recognizable and scriptural series of pacts (or offers within a single pact) that can be freely undertaken by wayfarers. Bonaventure uses language of acceptatio to integrate reward texts as examples of divine promises connected to the pacts offered to all wayfarers. Moreover, the status of pacts as offered by God raises the status of human beings as agents in their own salvation. God contracts with them as parties who can freely attain the rewards promised in the pacts; part of the agreement includes the provision of sanctifying grace, which capacitates nature to perform acceptable works. Human beings are more than children in the parent’s system of allowances; they are agents who can earn condign rewards. A more appropriate analogy would be that Bonaventure’s wayfarers are like laborers who agree to a contract—complete with a promised compensation package—offered by an employer. The gospel parables are replete with analogous images for human action. The owner, by his status and means, remains the primary actor in the overall system of work and compensation because he sets the terms of the contract and the rewards are his to promise and supply, but the secondary status of the worker is higher because she enters into the contract as someone with reasonable standing before the other party. Basic conditions of justice apply to the pact, and so the worker can earn condign rewards from the owner. The concepts of acceptatio and pactum organize and explain the fittingness of divine rewards. The pact manages the ontological inequality that Thomas identifies as an obstacle to strict merit between God and human beings. The ideas of pact and acceptation suggest an ordered economy of salvation that coheres to the created and scripturally-revealed order of the cosmos. These pacts, and their promised rewards, are revealed in the libri of creation, scripture, Francis, and, most concretely, in Christ so that human beings can seek conformity with their creator and accomplish a reductive journey to God. Thomas prefers the language of ordinatio as a ratio for divine rewards and human action. Any presentation of Thomas’s teaching on divine rewards must acknowledge that rewards are only possible through the prior effects found in CL, 6:49, where Bonaventure begins the commentary on the passage thus: “Concerning the promises of the beatitudes note that four things are promised.” Bonaventure uses this same construction at the beginnings of paragraphs 50, 52, 53, and 54. One can even return to the systematic works and argue that Bonaventure’s extended treatment of the “branching out” of the virtues represent instances where human beings can fulfill pacts with God and receive the incentive-promises of reward texts.

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of divine predestination, operative grace, and cooperative grace. Having its origin in providence, this order reflects divine wisdom and God’s will to manifest maximal goodness. As God orders the cosmos, divine wisdom and goodness can be observed in the specific ordo of human salvation.6 The order maintains God’s role as primary agent, but it also demonstrates that all secondary causes have an intrinsic origin and purpose rooted in divine wisdom and providence. In one sense, the insistence on these preceding causes reduces the causality that can be assigned to human actors. Human beings can attain rewards because God has willed that they do so in a proportionate, or congruent, manner; human beings do act as the children in the parent’s allowance analogy. Prior causes dispose human nature to become consequential, if secondary, causes of supernatural rewards, something impossible outside of the ordo; this causality confers a dignity on human agency that it could not naturally possess even as the primary or sole agent of its ends. The successful wayfarer is incorporated into the cosmic manifestation of divine goodness; this dignity exceeds any that she might have independently by virtue of her created nature. Bonaventure and Thomas thus share significant agreement about the role of human action on the journey to union with God, yet their distinctive preferences for acceptation versus ordination lead to important distinctions in the elaboration of the timing, nature, and effects of divine rewards.

The Timing of Divine Rewards The language of journey naturally includes temporal language inasmuch as the wayfarer is moving through time and space in relation to the goal of final union; as such “interim” and “final” rewards emerge as categories by which to classify and scrutinize divine rewards. Interim rewards can be further subdivided into the segments of the journey known as states of sin and grace. Bonaventure and Thomas broadly agree that God provides interim and final rewards to the wayfarer. Interim rewards, typically understood as increases in grace and its consequent effects, advance the wayfarer in her 6. Wawrykow writes: “But in light of the discussion in the first section of this chapter, it is evident that the divine ordinatio which makes merit possible has a primarily ‘sapiential’ reference. It refers to the wisdom of God that formulates a plan for manifesting the goodness of God in creation” (Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 182).

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ability to do works of a meritorious nature, while final rewards are simply final glory or final union with God—the object of the journey. Both thinkers argue that God may provide multiple instances of interim rewards, which correspond to virtuous and habitual human actions; final rewards are most often and only fully enjoyed as part of eternal life with God. Two exceptions complexify Bonaventure’s and Thomas’s otherwise extensive agreement on the timing of rewards. First, they classify the moment of conversion differently. Bonaventure allows that justification can be reckoned a reward with certain caveats. Conversion begins when God provides an initial and undeserved gratuitous grace that enkindles the sinner’s desire to seek the remission of sins. It is possible, from Bonaventure’s perspective, for the recipient of the first gratuitous grace to resist it. The wayfarer’s response to this initial grace leads to her justification; justification therefore involves a certain kind of cooperation. The wayfarer’s free and positive response to justifying grace deserves the reward of justification in a loose sense. Bonaventure calls this reward “congruent in a certain sense” (quaedam congruitas) given the wayfarer’s originally sinful state, which complicates any independent standing or even acceptable conformity with God. Alternatively, Thomas designates the first grace as a gift and something that cannot be a recompense for prior human action. Justification from a state of sin into a state of grace can never be termed a reward because the sinner lacks the requisite grace, standing, and corresponding action to earn a reward; in fact, she deserves punishment for her sins. From Thomas’s position, divine rewards depend on human beings standing in a state of grace and being able—on account of the effects of cooperative grace—to do works of a surpassing good. None of these conditions apply to the wayfarer in a state of sin. Thomas’s insistence on the gratuity of first grace is amplified by his insistence that the first grace must be operative in effect; the wayfarer begins the journey so damaged that she cannot cooperate with grace prior to being healed. Further, without the operative movement of divine auxilium, Thomas reckons that no sinner can turn from false or private goods; the work of operative auxilium carries through to the term of justification—the remission of sins. To summarize, interim rewards are possible at an earlier point of the journey in Bonaventure’s system than in Thomas’s. A second difference in timing has to do with the experience of final rewards. Both Thomas and Bonaventure argue that final union is principally

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experienced after the wayfarer’s physical death and in eternal life with God. Thomas uses the language of viator versus comprehensor to mark the change in status that follows the difference between interim and final rewards; Bonaventure prefers the language of a transitus from a state of grace and contemplation to one of ecstatic union, nocturnal illumination, and, ultimately, peace. Bonaventure leverages apophatic language more directly than Thomas through his emphasis on the transitus of the wayfarer’s journey culminating in “nocturnal illumination” in which all discursive thinking ceases.7 Both writers, however, allow that wayfarers may anticipate final beatitude while still on the journey itself, thereby blurring the strict timing of final rewards. Thomas makes this point most explicitly in his presentation of the final two beatitudes where wayfarers inchoately experience seeing God and being children of God. While this is possible for the wayfarer, he reserves such experiences as a kind of special dispensation for the blessed.8 They are extraordinary points on the journey. Bonaventure speaks of the reward of perfection and conformity as a constitutive and possibly ordinary experience of those approaching union with God. This is most evident in the mystical opuscula such as Itinerarium as well as the more polemical Apologia pauperum where Bonaventure connects perfection and the heights of contemplation to already possessing, for example, the stigmata or an experience of ecstatic, contemplative union with God. The image of Francis looms large, but Bonaventure’s position also speaks to his appreciation of exemplarity. It requires likeness as a precondition for final union, and this likeness is accomplished progressively over the journey so that the timing of final rewards is typically begun in the present life, whereas Thomas generally reserves it for the next.

7. See Itinerarium, VII:5–6, and LV, 47–78. 8. In the corpus of ST I-II:69, 2, Thomas writes: “Accordingly, those things which are set down as merits in the beatitudes, are a kind of preparation for, or disposition to happiness, either perfect or inchoate: while those that are assigned as rewards, may be either perfect happiness, so as to refer to the future life, or some beginning of happiness, such as is found in those who have attained perfection, in which case they refer to the present life. Because when a man begins to make progress in the acts of the virtues and gifts, it is to be hoped that he will arrive at perfection, both as a wayfarer, and as a citizen of the heavenly kingdom.”

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The Nature of Divine Rewards The nature of divine rewards reveals more substantial difference between Bonaventure and Thomas because it pertains to their presentations of grace. Both speak of rewards as increases in grace, and both see God as indwelling in the wayfarer and edifying her created habits through grace. In his systematic works, Bonaventure uses a broad conception of sanctifying grace to connect grace to rewards. He defines sanctifying grace in largely habitual terms so that the rewards of sanctifying grace are largely habitual. This formal perfection fits nicely with the idea of acceptation making rewards possible. Grace has almost entirely formal effects, effecting conformity with the exemplar. Under this scenario, Bonaventure often elides the language of subsequent grace with cooperative grace so that whatever grace a wayfarer receives as a reward following conversion is also called cooperative. He thus identifies interim rewards as sanctifying, and habitual graces, which dispose the wayfarer to merit further rewards and grow in conformity to Christ, as exemplar. Final rewards are typified by the language of perfection, which is related to complete conformity with the exemplar. Thomas’s presentation of rewards is more diversified. He does not limit interim rewards to increases in habitual graces. While these are vital, his mature theology insists on rewards of further cooperative auxilia, making for two indispensable kinds of rewards. His stress on auxilium retains focus on God as primary actor in all commendable human action. It also shows integration between grace as a formal and efficient cause of human salvation.9 Thomas also conceives of habitual rewards discretely. He speaks of rewards as increases in specific graces, such as the theological and cardinal virtues. This tracks Thomas’s emphasis not so much on conformity as on the relative perfection of human nature and its concomitant parts for the sake of glory. Thomas connects specific interim habitual rewards with reward texts that commend growth in specific virtues such as faith, hope, and love, as well as cheerfulness, endurance, and patient suffering. With final rewards, Thomas again speaks of glory or final beatitude without the language of conformity 9. Importantly, Thomas sees both formal and efficient causality as integrated with final causality. God’s action does not diverge from God’s design or its intended end. See Barnes’s “Natural Final Causality and Providence in Aquinas.”

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and likeness preferred by Bonaventure. Preferring an image of the wayfarer perfected in love, Thomas includes the language of action in final rewards. Perfection includes the full actualization of the perfected form; the beatific vision is active and dynamic love. Recalling his presentation of perfection in De perfectione, final rewards are synonymous with human beings attaining the final form for which God has created them.10 Stress on the ordered perfection of human nature also hews closely to the overarching conception of the divine ordinatio. So, while both Bonaventure and Thomas present final rewards in the language of perfection, perfection is differentiated as an end in itself versus a means to an end.

The Effects of Divine Rewards Thomas’s and Bonaventure’s distinctive accounts of sanctifying grace continue into their descriptions of divine rewards. For Bonaventure, interim rewards are reflected in the hierarchization of the wayfarer, her conformity to Christ, and the progressive experience of perfection. God rewards the person who does what is in herself with graces that reorder her soul; this reordering has two effects. First, she regains desire or affectus for union with God so that she voluntarily and progressively directs her efforts and actions toward accomplishing that end. Second, guided by this internal desire, interim rewards increasingly conform her habits and virtues. The effects of interim rewards do more, however, than hierarchize and conform the wayfarer’s nature. Bonaventure’s stress on exemplarity suggests that perfection is more than simply completing the wayfarer’s created human nature. Infusions of grace make the wayfarer acceptable before God by making her increasingly deiform or cruciform in Christ’s image. As Bonaventure stresses in the Apologia pauperum, perfection is measured by conformity to the exemplar. The quintessentially acceptable wayfarer is St. Francis who achieved perfection to 10. Spezzano persuasively casts Thomas’s deification of the wayfarer as conformity to the image of the Trinity; she summarizes: “By the end of the Ia pars, however, we understand that this end is nothing less than the direct vision of God, and that it is reached as the creature, already created to the image of God, is made deiform by the light of glory, fully likened to the Trinitarian Persons in intellect and will by the knowledge and love of God. We know, too, that this goal is attained only by grace, leading to glory for the predestined in God’s wise plan of providence” (Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace, 329–30).

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the extent that he resembled Christ even physically.11 Interim rewards thus instill affectus, hierarchize, and make the wayfarer acceptable so that further progress, merit, and conformity follow as the effects. Bonaventure’s reductive journey is not merely sequential but also ascending. This means that the journey involves spiritual enjoyment and communion with God. The language of contemplative ascent or climbing ladders through libri underscores that enjoyment of divine rewards grows as the wayfarer experiences the satisfaction of her desires. Bonaventure speaks of the wayfarer’s increasing delight and growing likeness, for example, through ascending the branches and eating the fruit of the Lignum vitae, or ascending the objects of contemplation in the Itinerarium. The affective rewards of enjoyment and a sense of conformity stand out as effects of interim rewards, and they hold greater prominence in Bonaventure’s presentations of reward than in Thomas’s. Thomas follows the order found in the treatise on grace when speaking of the effects of rewards. Justification and merit are presented, respectively, as operative gifts and cooperative rewards of grace. Parsed as effects of habitual grace and auxilium, divine rewards pertain (1) to the form and habitual nature of the recipient, and (2) to her motive actions. In the language of De perfectione, God provides graces that promote the relative perfection of human nature as responses to human action; a person becomes habitually more virtuous (faithful, loving, patient, cheerful, etc.) and so able to fulfill the commands and counsels revealed in scripture. At the root of every interim reward is charity; it is the cause for the reward and is the reward itself. As the wayfarer loves God and neighbor appropriately, she also renders latria to God, which marks progress and earns growth in charity. For Thomas, the reward of habitual grace is ineffective without divine motion that reduces it to act. Auxilium is not merely a necessary intellectual concept nor is it a remnant effect of concursus generalis. Rather, it under11. In the Legenda’s prologue, Bonaventure presents Francis as the perfectly conformed and ordered individual; he writes: “Like a hierarchic man, [Francis] was lifted up in a fiery chariot, as will be seen quite clearly in the course of his life; therefore it can be reasonably proved that he came in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Legenda maior, 180–81). Similarly, in the Itinerarium, Bonaventure states: “This love [of Christ crucified] so absorbed the soul of Francis that his spirit shone through his flesh when for two years before his death he carried in his body the sacred stigmata of the passion” (Legenda maior, Prologue:3).

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scores the efficient intimacy by which God guides the wayfarer’s progress as well as the moral dimension of human action. God provides cooperative auxilia so that human beings act virtuously; it “inspires the good wish” that moves the will to action—the fulfillment of the divine commandments and counsels. Habitual rewards of grace thus find their full expression in their actualization through divine auxilia rendering, for example, a person charitable in act. Auxilium as a reward can therefore be observed in the reception and use of the sacraments, prayer, and other expressions of the Christian life. Active spiritual growth—expressed in the life of grace—constitutes a central effect of interim rewards. For example, the reception of the Eucharist—res et tantum—conveys the habitual reward of charity into the soul and reduces it to active love of God through the recognition of Christ’s passion. Thomas’s presentation of the beatitudes best exemplifies the spiritual growth undergone by successful wayfarers. Progress advances in actions of self-denial (beatitudes 1–3) and love of neighbor (beatitudes 4–5). These active spiritual disciplines give way to contemplative love and experience of God. As the wayfarer progresses, she grows in the rewards of beatitude, which produce spiritual enjoyment while also equipping her for greater meritorious action, and so, greater rewards. For Thomas, then, the spiritual and affective effects of divine rewards give important contour to the wayfarer’s journey.

Conclusion Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas share a conviction that God has revealed a role for human beings to play in their journey to union with God. To that end, they develop distinct though complementary theological frameworks to handle divine and human action as described by scripture. The distinction between acceptation and ordination rests on a foundation of shared theological commitments, which allows for discrete expressions of the timing, nature, and effects of divine rewards. If misunderstood, the acceptation versus ordination distinction can seem to promote stronger conceptual room for condign action and rewards in Bonaventure’s view and careful restriction in Thomas’s, but this would fail to observe difference within the dominant context of agreement.12 Three areas of broad agreement suffice to demon12. With Bonaventure, one can identify obvious overlap between the conceptual language of his

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strate how the language of ordination and acceptation highlight distinct aspects of a common vision. First, Thomas’s notion of ordinatio insists that God has ordered the cosmos and the economy of salvation according to divine wisdom. This is evident not only in the order of topics in the prima pars of the ST; it is also present in Thomas’s general emphasis on the importance of the divine intellect for creation and the continuing role of divine providence. Ordinatio safeguards a sapiential dimension to the journey. God has designed the journey in such a way that it demonstrates divine goodness to its maximally appropriate degree, setting human action within its horizon.13 In much the same way, Bonaventure understands acceptatio as an extension of God’s ordering the cosmos through the divine Word. Thus, Bonaventure reduces all theological arguments back to God as First Principle acting through the Word. His position that all things carry vestiges, images, or even similitudes of God shows a similarly wise and good ordering of the world as well as the econaccount and the language found in the later Franciscan school. Bonaventure features the language of acceptatio and divine promises; he deemphasizes the role of predestination; and he allows for condign interim and final rewards. These traits can be found in a more developed framework in Scotus and Ockham; see Werner Dettloff’s foundational works: Die Lehre von der acceptatio divina bei Johannes Duns Scotus mit besonderer Berücksichtingung der Rechtfertigungslehre (Werl: Dietrich-Coelde, 1954) and Die Entwicklung der Akzeptations, as well as Hamm’s Promissio, pactum, ordinatio. Particularly in Scotus, acceptatio is presented as God’s free decision to accept certain human acts as sufficient according to the criteria God establishes for the economy (see Hamm, Promissio, pactum, ordination, 345–54). Acceptatio as it comes to be presented by Scotus and Ockham—who develop it further—conveys the sense that God has extrinsically decided to order the cosmos in a certain way; this determination arises from absolute divine freedom. The natural and intrinsic connection between human action and divine rewards deteriorates when acceptatio is disassociated from the divine intellect as expressed in creation and providence. Specifically, divine rewards are no longer presented as a fittingly ordered expression of God’s providence; rather, God simply determines to accept certain acts as acceptable and meritorious, which conditions the rewards themselves. Missing is Bonaventure’s appreciation that the Word uniquely expresses the eternal reasons that order the economy. Ironically, it could be argued that human agency actually recedes in a radical way with this understanding of acceptation. If the specific actions of human beings do not bear intrinsic and causal effects on the reward, then the content of the actions (acting well or acting as a morally good agent) recedes in importance in preference for the fulfillment of divine pacts that can be accepted on extrinsic principles. 13. See Wawrykow, God’s Grace, 184n84. Spezzano adds: “Because the divine plan of providence is the work of God’s wisdom and love, the perfection of participation in this plan in the creature takes the form of wisdom and love. The law of grace, which is a more perfect participation in the eternal law than the natural law, is necessary for human beings ordained to a supernatural end of beatitude out of all proportion to their natural faculties” (Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace, 274–75).

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omy of salvation. Acceptation, far from disconnecting human action from God’s action, demonstrates a vital ordo for the journey, which is reflected, for example, in the progressive conformity of the wayfarer to God. Taken this way, ordinatio and acceptatio both observe an intrinsic connection between reward-worthy human action and God’s sapiential ordering of the cosmos. A second common feature in the language of acceptation and ordination is the priority of grace for all salutary human agency. There is no human action worthy of reward that is not informed by God’s grace. For Bonaventure justification cannot occur apart from grace, and sanctifying grace is that which perfects and so causes interim and final rewards. Gratuitous grace underscores that God alone initiates the movement to conversion and provisions the sanctifying grace that follows. Bonaventure is not interested in the possibility of rewards apart from grace because he reads divine revelation as insisting on its centrality. Thus, while God accepts the wayfarer’s work as condign, the condignity is an effect of the deifying power of God’s grace; in that sense condignity can be said, as it is for Aquinas, to reference God as the primary cause of the good work. Similarly, under Thomas’s language of ordination, human beings become participants in God’s divine life and secondary agents in effecting the divine will. Wayfarers perform “surpassing goods” in order to merit eternal life, but such works follow from the sanans et elevans effects of habitual grace as well as the inspiration of auxilium. Bonaventure and Thomas, therefore, share a sense of the priority of grace for human action as well as its deifying effects, which, in a sense, make the wayfarer worthy of the rewards she receives. Finally, while acceptation can seem to confer greater immediate perfection on the wayfarer, which, under ordination, is understood to be experienced only fully in union with God, Thomas and Bonaventure are driving at the same outcome: the successful wayfarer is gradually and ultimately perfected to the end for which she is made.14 Thomas admits to inchoate 14. Speaking to the power of grace to deify human beings in Thomas’s thought, Spezzano writes: “Thomas’s definitions in the Summa of grace as participation in the divine nature, and charity and wisdom as participations in the likeness of the Holy Spirit and Son, help us to trace sometimes-hidden connections between these different areas of sacra doctrina and to see that, for Thomas, deification is God’s gracious means of salvation for predestined human creatures in the divine ordinatio” (Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace, 346).

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and extraordinary perfection along the journey even as Bonaventure recognizes that perfection is only complete following the transitus into union with God. Acceptation tends to anticipate what ordination tends to defer, yet both recognize the same end and the same possibilities for its realization as wayfarers and comprehensors. What ought the reader to make of the differences in the timing, nature, and effects of divine rewards in Aquinas and Bonaventure? They affirm God’s ordering of the cosmos, the priority of divine action, the interim and final effects of grace, and the reward-worthy role of human action. If read as complementary points of emphasis, the language of acceptation and ordination offer mutually edifying understandings of divine and human agency— allowing one to appreciate, for instance, the hortatory value of Bonaventure’s mystical opuscula alongside Thomas’s admonitions of what can and cannot be earned by the wayfarer in his scriptural commentaries. Sharing a common approach to reward texts, Thomas and Bonaventure appreciate the integral roles of human action and divine rewards that inform a larger view of the journey to salvation. Both writers affirm, though distinctively, that human beings play meaningful roles in pursuing their eternal salvation, yet it is God who offers the journey itself, including its gifts and rewards. The distinguishing features of Thomas’s ordo and Bonaventure’s acceptatio demonstrate that God calls people to eternal life, giving them the opportunity, roadmaps, provisions, and assistance needed to be successful. Therein lies the deepest theological insight of their doctrines of rewards. Only as subject to God’s primary action can human beings become authentic participants in the economy of salvation. They are able to earn supernatural rewards because God has graciously willed and established for them to do so. As we noted at the outset of this study, scripture reveals a panoply of images pertaining to human salvation and the roles played by God and human beings. Indeed, to adopt Bonaventure’s image, the forest of scripture can seem impenetrable on questions as basic as “Who begins the process of conversion?” or “Is eternal life a gift?” or “What will final judgement be like?” One can readily identify passages that seem to answer these questions in straightforward yet contradictory ways. The density of the scriptural forest can sometimes seem to require the most brute axe for carving a way forward. Such an axe, for example, might cleave away all reward passages by

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suggesting that they only reveal human inability to cooperate in salvation, or it might cut down references to God’s predestining will as incompatible with the larger biblical themes on freedom or faith. As Bonaventure suggests, the magister must wield the axe with great care. The conscious framing of human salvation in the language of journey is a critical step that Thomas and Bonaventure use to approach the biblical text. For both writers, the thematic use of the journey provides ample room on which to plot varieties of scriptural images for divine and human action. For Thomas, the distinction between operative and cooperative graces allows him to classify scriptural passages prioritizing divine action as instances of the operative effects of grace, whereas those passages that foreground human action and merit may be classed under the effects of cooperative grace. Similarly, the causal sequence of predestination → grace → human action → divine rewards provides a wide conceptual canvas on which to interpret and organize diverse scriptural passages. In these ways, Thomas provides a journey landscape that is enduring and preserves authentic roles for divine and human action based on a literal reading of scripture. It would be difficult to find a more supple and integrative lens for reading the scriptures on human salvation. For Bonaventure, the framework of acceptatio allows for robust affirmation of divine and human action; acceptation cannot function without God framing and initiating the journey, and it cannot find its end without human cooperation. Passages affirming divine action inform the shape and rules of the pactum, and passages concerning human action can be exposited as conditions for fulfilling the pact. Bonaventure’s exemplarism retains God’s priority, particularly in the incarnate Word as exemplar, even as it insists on human beings playing decisive roles in reaching conformity with Christ. In that sense, his framework can integrate diverse scriptural passages on divine and human action as specifying respective roles in the pact without construing divine and human action as competitive. Thus, Saint Thomas and Saint Bonaventure provide the wayfarer with hermeneutical axes. They develop complementary hermeneutics as guides through the scriptural woodland, rendering the forest a veritable pathway to the wayfarer’s end.

Appendix: The Pauline Commentary

A ppe n di x Aquinas and Reward in the Pauline Commentary

Attempting to date and collate the extant versions of Thomas’s commentary on Paul’s letters is difficult. Current scholarship suggests that Thomas commented on Paul in at least two discrete teaching periods, somewhere between 1265 and 1268 and again between 1271 and 1273.1 Corresponding to these periods, the commentary survives in different forms. Thomas’s commentary on Romans, and possibly on 1 Cor. 1–7:10, seems to belong to the latter period, most likely dating to his teaching in Naples. A manuscript from this period bears what are thought to be Thomas’s handwritten editions to the text for Rom. 1–8.2 The expositio commentaries on Romans and 1 Cor. 1–7:10 would have followed very shortly after Thomas’s commentaries on Matthew and John. Commentary on 1 Cor. 7:10 through the end of chapter 10 is missing, and early editors replaced the section with commentary from Peter of Tarentaise. The commentary that follows, beginning with 1 Cor. 11 and continuing through the Letter to the Hebrews, comes from a reportatio by Reginald and likely corresponds to the earlier period of lec1. Torrell summarizes research, writing: “Thomas could have taught Paul in two stages, first in Italy (perhaps in Rome between 1265 and 1268), then in Paris and Naples. It is, however, not at all probable that he would have given the same courses in their entirety two times” (Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:340). For a more complete treatment of the dating and authenticity of the Pauline commentary, see Torrell, “The Course on the Pauline Letters,” in Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:250–57. Also see Weisheipl, Friar Thomas, 247–49; Prügl, Thomas Aquinas as Interpreter of Scripture, 387–91; and, for another view on the commentary on Paul’s letters, see Jacques-Marie Vosté’s “S. Thomas Aquinas epsitularum S. Pauli interpres,” Angelicum 20, no. 4 (1943): 255–76. 2. Torrell writes: “The part in which his hand is rather directly perceptible includes the first eight chapters of Romans. The rest of the commentary on Romans has not been corrected [by Thomas himself]. This course dates very probably from the last years of his life, in Naples from 1272–73 (it is not impossible that it dates from the last year in Paris 1271–72—but the amount of work already attributed to that period renders this hypothesis hardly plausible)” (Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:340).

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turing (1265–68).3 A revised edition of the Expositio super epistolas Pauli is presently in progress by the Leonine Commission. Torrell makes the following important comment on the assembled parts of the commentary on Paul’s epistolary corpus, which in edited volumes is referred to as Super epistolas S. Pauli lectura: “Despite the diversity of these pieces, it is nevertheless certain that Thomas thought of his commentary as a whole, as the Prologue placed at the head of this group of texts shows.”4 Thomas’s prologue, which he references at the outset of every individual letter, provides a kind of continuous framework and interpretive view of Paul’s letters, which give them a coherence that is not lost by the varying dates and forms in which the commentary survives. Thomas’s commentary on Paul constitutes a valuable source of insight into his views on grace, human action, and most importantly, reward. Indeed, the lectures on Romans are particularly attractive given their timing and potential resonance with the Matthew and John commentaries as well as the ST. Rather than taking the letters as discrete and occasional works addressed to distinct Christian communities, Thomas approaches Paul’s letters as a whole corpus speaking collectively to the church. He draws an interesting parallel between Paul’s authority and the prophets of the Old Testament. Just as the prophets followed the revelation of the law by Moses, so Paul follows Christ’s revelation as recorded in the gospels. The prophets taught about the meaning and application of the law following its promulgation. The same task falls to Paul; he draws out the sacred doctrine of Christ’s revelation for the church’s edification.5 In that sense, Paul is a theologian par excellence who apostolically interprets and conveys the content of di3. Torrell writes: “The reportatio made by Reginald of Piperno, which goes from I Cor. 11 through the epistle to the Hebrews, may be the fruit of teaching during the years 1265–68 in Rome” (Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:340). 4. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:340. 5. Thomas writes: “And just as in the Old Testament after the law of Moses the prophets were read to instruct the people in the teachings of the law—Mal. 4:4 ‘remember Moses my servant’—so also in the New Testament, after the Gospels, the teaching of the Apostles is read, who handed onto the faithful that which they heard from the Lord, according to 1 Cor 11:23: ‘for what I received from the Lord I hand over to you’” (Super epistolas S. Pauli (SEP, Rom., 4). Translations are mine and taken from Saint Thomas Aquinas, Super epistolas S. Pauli lectura, 8th ed., ed. Raphaelis Cai, 2 vols. (Rome: Marietti, 1953). The commentary will be referred to as SEP, and all citations will be noted according to paragraph number as found in the Marietti edition.

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vine revelation, and he does so without error.6 Paul’s teaching reveals an overall doctrine of Christ’s grace through his fourteen letters. I here include an extended passage from the prologue, which summarizes Thomas’s view of Paul’s letters as a whole and their individual role within the teaching on grace. Thomas writes: Paul wrote fourteen epistles, nine of which instruct the Church of the Gentiles; four [instruct] the prelates and princes of the church, that is, the kings; one [instructs] the people of Israel, namely, that one which is to the Hebrews. And this entire teaching (doctrina) [of all the letters] is on the grace of Christ, which is able to be considered in three ways. According to the first mode, as it is in the Head, namely Christ, and so it is entrusted in the epistle to the Hebrews. According to another mode, as it is in the head members of the Mystical Body, and so it is entrusted in epistles which are to the prelates [the pastoral epistles]. According to the third mode, as [it is] in the Mystical Body itself, which is the Church, and this is entrusted in the epistles which were sent to the Gentiles, of which these are distinguished according to the three ways that the grace of Christ is able to be considered. The first mode [is] in itself, and so it is entrusted in the epistle to the Romans; [the second] mode [is] in the sacraments of grace, and so it is entrusted to the two epistles to the Corinthians, in which the first treats of the sacraments themselves and the second treats of the dignity of the ministers, and in the epistle to the Galatians, in which the superfluous sacraments are excluded against those who wish to join the ancient sacraments to the new ones; in the third [mode], Christ’s grace is considered according to the effect of unity it accomplishes in the Church. Therefore [under the third mode], the Apostle treats first of the institution of the unity of the church in the epistle to the Ephesians; second with its confirmation and progress in the epistle to the Philippians; third with its defense, against certain errors in the epistle to the Colossians; [then] against present persecutions in the first epistle to the Thessalonians and especially against future persecutions in the time of the Anti-Christ in the second epistle to the Thessalonians. [From the last point of view,] the Apostle therefore treats first of the foundation of ecclesial unity in the epistle to the Ephesians; then its confirmation and 6. Thomas writes of Paul as a chosen vessel: “But blessed Paul was free from sin and error, wherefore, he was a useful ‘chosen vessel’ according to 2 Tim 2:2: ‘if anyone cleanses oneself from these things,’ namely, from errors and sins, ‘then he will be a vessel useful to the Lord for a holy honor’” (SEP, Prologue:9). For a study of Thomas’s view of Paul as an interpreter of divine revelation, see Otto Hermann Pesch’s essay “Paul as Professor of Theology: The Image of the Apostle in St. Thomas’s Theology,” The Thomist 38, no.1 (1974): 584–605.

248  Appendix : The Pauline Commentary its progress in the epistle to the Philippians; then its defense: against errors in the epistle to the Colossians, against the present persecutions in the first letter to the Thessalonians, against future persecutions and, above all, persecutions in the time of the Antichrist in second Thessalonians. [Paul] instructs prelates of the church both spiritually and temporally. Concerning the spiritual, [he instructs] concerning the founding, the preserving, and the governing of ecclesial unity in the first epistle to Timothy, concerning firmness against persecutors in the second epistle to Timothy, and concerning defense against the heretics in the epistle to Titus. He instructs temporal lords in the epistle to Philemon. And thus the ratio of distinction and order is clear for all of the epistles.7

Thomas’s delineation of the books is remarkable. Each letter fits into a superstructure whereby Paul teaches of Christ’s grace as communicated to the Church. The individual letters represent distinct occasions where Paul can instruct, exhort, and admonish different members of the body so that they may receive the benefits of the head. Thomas retains the local importance of the epistles as letters instructing individuals and communities, yet he gives their canonical status larger significance. Readers outside of the time and place of the letters’ original recipients encounter doctrine that unpacks the significance of Christ’s saving action in the economy. They learn of the way in which Christ enlivens and moves the members of the body toward greater union, adoption, and benefit with the Father.8 An examination of Thomas’s vision of grace in the Pauline epistles could easily constitute a substantial study in itself. We remain principally interested in the role of divine rewards and their relation to human actions. To that end, the study will primarily engage Pauline reward texts. Particular 7. SEP, Prologue:11. Translation taken from Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:255–56. 8. Torrell notes that, almost immediately in Romans, Thomas stipulates that the Spirit executes these benefits so that the missiones ad extra of both the Second and Third Person of the Trinity become efficacious for the mystical body; see Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1:257. In parsing Rom. 1:1, for example, Thomas exposits Paul’s greeting as expressed “unto the gospel” as one that unpacks the good news of the gospel and aims at union with God; he writes: “But a threefold conjoining of persons to God is announced in the Gospel. The first is by way of the grace of union, according to Jn. 1:14, ‘the Word was made flesh.’ The second is through the grace of adoption, as indicated in Ps. 81:3 ‘I say, you are gods and sons of the God of all.’ The third is through the glory of achieving [eternal life], as in Jn. 18:3 ‘this is eternal life’” (SEP, Rom., 24).

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stress will be given to Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians because Thomas categorizes them as treating the grace of Christ as it is “in the head and members” of the mystical body. In these letters, Thomas gives special attention to places where the doctrine of grace and its connections to predestination, human action, and reward come to the fore.

Passages from Romans This study examines three examples from Romans including 4:4–5, 5:1–5, and 6:22–23. Because, for the most part, these passages do not represent parables or extended similes for human action, Thomas’s commentary is more direct and concise.9

Romans 4:4–5 Romans 4:4–5 offers a seemingly quintessential anti-reward text. After presenting Abraham as a model of faithfulness, Paul writes: “Now to the one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.” One can infer from Thomas’s systematic teaching that he will regard the passage as affirming the priority of grace without denying the secondary importance and causality of charitable works. Before commenting explicitly on this text, Thomas says something important about Abraham’s power to will divine goods, which he takes as generally true of all human nature. He writes: “For the habit of justice can be acquired through human works, but the justice by which we have the glory of God is ordained to the divine good, namely, to future glory, which exceeds human faculties, according to 1 Cor 2:9, ‘That which God has prepared for those who love God has not risen in the heart of man.’”10 Human beings possess the natural 9. See Mary Catherine Daley’s dissertation “The Notion of Justification in the Commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Epistle to the Romans” (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microforms International, 1985). The work’s focus is narrow, but it engages grace as necessary and operative for justification. See also Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering eds., Reading Romans with Saint Thomas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), for a series of essays on Thomas’s commentary. See especially John F. Boyle’s “On the Relationship of Saint Thomas’s Commentary on Romans to the Summa theologiae,” 75–82. 10. SEP, Rom. 325. Markus Bockmuehl addresses Thomas’s approach to Abraham in the Romans

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habitus to do works of human justice but lack the supernatural habitus to do surpassing goods—those that correspond to divine good and future glory. Instead they must be prepared for those actions. Already in his discussion of Abraham, then, Thomas affirms the necessity of prevenient grace. Paul’s first point (v. 5) is that human works cannot be said to earn justification because such works are owed under the debitum of the law. Counting such works—works under the law—as meritorious undermines the gratuitous quality of grace and condemns inasmuch as all have fallen short under the obligation of the law. Thomas understands Paul’s references to the law as attempts to fulfill the Law of Moses, and moreover, he nuances Paul’s discussion of works, presumably, so that one does not confuse Paul’s admonition with the negation of all human works for wayfarers. Human works can be judged according to two criteria. The first is the substance of the work itself. Just as in the ST treatise on grace (ST I-II:114, 3) no human work can deserve eternal glory as a condign reward: “By one mode according to the substance of the works, and accordingly, they do not have any condignity [of merit] so that the reward of eternal life should be given.”11 Like the allowance analogy, the child’s tasks do not deserve the reward of an allowance in their substance but because the parent has ordained the tasks to possess some proportional value. Thomas recasts Paul’s conclusion in this light. A child’s reward can nevertheless be viewed as condign with the works of the child if one views them as empowered by the parent and her ordination. Thomas writes: “By another mode, it is possible to consider [good works] according to their principle source, namely insofar as they are done by the impulse of God according to divine predestination; and to this, [a reward] is owed because, as is said below at 8:14: ‘Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God, and if sons, also heirs.’”12 The language of impulsu suggests God actualizing good works in the elect through auxilium. Because God has predestined believers for adoption and inheritance, their works become deserving on the basis of divine ordination and God’s movement as the principle of the good Commentary in “Aquinas on Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4,” in Reading Romans with Saint Thomas, ed. Michael Dauphinas and Matthew Levering, 39–51 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012.) 11. SEP, Rom., 329. 12. SEP, Rom., 329.

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work. Thomas in a sense tempers or restricts Paul’s proscription of human works, even under the law. “Exterior works”—works originating from human nature without its elevation in grace—can never be said to deserve glory.13 As an effect of divine grace, faith alone justifies, and here Paul and Thomas stand in harmony. Thomas argues not only that justification is an effect of operative grace but also that the first step of the process includes an infusion of grace, which is recognized as faith. Thomas, however, wishes to demonstrate deeper coherence by preserving the possibility of human action following grace. Thomas parses Paul word by word and suggests that Paul speaks of justification narrowly as the movement from a state of sin into a state of grace and not more broadly about the power of human action in general. Thomas writes: “‘But to him who does not work,’ namely in order to be justified by his works, ‘yet believes in him who justifies the ungodly,’ his faith is reckoned ‘to justice, according to the purpose of the grace of God,’ not that he merits justice through faith, but because to believe is the first act of justice which God works in him.”14 Belief is an effect of grace and the initial act in justification. The act can be credited to God alone, and the human action of belief, or any which precede it, cannot be classified as reward-worthy. Speaking to this interpretation, Thomas writes: “And this exposition is literal and accords to the intention of the Apostle.”15 Even under this literal reading, Thomas sets the action of justification within the larger scheme of the journey to God by calling it the first act that anticipates rewards. Justification, 13. Thomas writes: “Afterwards, when Paul says ‘To him, however,’ he shows in what way eternal reward has itself by faith, saying ‘but to he who does not work,’ namely by exterior works, because he has not had time for working, just as is clear in one who dies immediately after baptism, ‘he believes in him who justifies the ungodly,’ namely in God, of him it is said below in 8:18: ‘God is he who justifies, his faith is reputed,’ that is, [faith] alone without exterior works, ‘to justice,’ that is, so that he is called just through [faith] and so he receives the reward of justice, just as if he had done the works of justice, according to what is said below at 10:10: ‘in the heart, he believes toward justice,’ and this ‘according to the purpose of the grace of God,’ that is, according to the way by which God proposes to save people through his grace” (SEP, Rom., 330). 14. SEP, Rom., 331. 15. Thomas writes: “And this exposition is literal, and accords to the intention of the Apostle, who stressed those [words] which are said in Gn. 15:6: ‘it was reckoned to him as justice,’ a customary saying when that which is [done] lesser on part of someone is reckoned to him gratuitously, as if he had done the whole thing” (SEP, Rom., 331).

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as preparation by grace for union with God, is preparation for something. It disposes the wayfarer for the interim journey between justification and final union and leaves open the possibility of reward.

Romans 5:1–5 Paul’s letter asserts that all are condemned under the law and find rescue from deserved punishment through Christ’s saving work through faith. Paul draws the critical connection between justification under grace and through faith; in 5:1–2 he writes: “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” Belief in Christ’s resurrection makes the believer a participant in this act; Thomas writes: “‘Therefore justified by faith,’ insofar as through faith we participate in the effects of his resurrection, ‘we have peace with God,’ namely by subjecting ourselves and obeying God.”16 Faith is not merely effective because human beings assent to a certain truth; it makes the believer an obedient participant in the fruits of the resurrection. At the same time, Christ’s mediation disposes human beings to action—to the work of subjection and obedience. Thomas further exposits the meaning of “this grace in which we stand.” The fact that human beings “stand” in grace immediately signifies a status of grace and resonates with Thomas’s discussion of life in a state of grace. Human beings in a state of grace are capable of more than simply being justified from sin. Thomas writes: “‘In which,’ that is, through which grace, not only a resurrection from sin but also ‘we stand’ fixed and upright in heaven through desire.”17 Being made fixed and erect connotes being disposed for progress in the state of grace. It cultivates affectus for union. Paul not only speaks of standing “through grace” but as standing in the hope of the glory of being “children of God.” The passage gives Thomas occasion to stress that God also adopts believers through grace: “For through the grace of Christ we receive ‘the spirit of adoption of the children of God,’ as is said below at 8:15 and Wisdom 5:5 ‘behold how they have been counted among the children of God.’”18 Thomas reasons that 16. SEP, Rom., 382. 17. SEP, Rom., 383. Thomas adds: “And this ‘through faith,’ through which we gain grace not because faith precedes grace, since instead faith is through grace.” 18. SEP, Rom., 385.

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the grace of adoption ultimately leads to the inheritance of glory that the children of the Father receive by birthright. How, then, can Thomas outline a stark doctrine of rewards? In Rom. 5:3–5, Paul writes: “And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Paul’s text provides the order for Thomas’s position. God loves and graces human beings so that they may endure, hope, and ultimately find union with God. A wayfarer’s hope is never confounded even though she must endure hardship patiently. The reality of the love of God being poured into the human heart steadies (stands) and preserves the person for her final rewards.19 Thomas writes: “For if [the words ‘because the charity of God’] are accepted as the love of God by which God loves us, it is clear that God does not deny himself to those who love him.”20 Those who love God—by cooperating with the gift of grace and enduring hardship—will not be denied the object of their desire. Because God has called and prepared the wayfarer, God will not interrupt the ordo or deny the object of the wayfarer’s desire. Thomas concludes: “Similarly, if [the words] are accepted as referring to the love by which we love God, it is manifest that he has prepared eternal goods for those who love him. Jn. 14:21: ‘the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, etc.’”21 Thomas integrates the roles of grace and human action as intermediate effects of God’s predestining action. The sophistication of Thomas’s system, particularly the order by which he affirms divine and human action, allows him to literally exposit passages from Paul that may seem either to exclude grace or human actions as essential pieces to a larger picture of human salvation revealed by God in scripture.

Romans 6:22–23 Paul completes chapter 6 with a stark warning: “But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the end is eternal life. For the wag19. Thomas writes that the love of God—poured into human hearts—can be understood either as a grace poured into person’s hearts or as the indwelling of the Spirit who is the love between the Father and the Son; see SEP, Rom., 392. 20. SEP, Rom., 393. 21. SEP, Rom., 393.

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es of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (6:22–23).22 The passage sets rewards and gifts into contrasting positions and would seem to complicate Thomas’s affirmation of final rewards. The notion of being “enslaved to God” prompts Thomas’s interest. Persons in a state of grace—justified persons—are no longer inclined toward sin and evil, but their status is more than “sin-free”; it is disposed or “enslaved” in a sense to love God and be turned away from false desires.23 Thomas links enslavement to sanctification. He writes: “Afterwards when he says ‘have you fruit, etc.,’ he sets down the effect of justice, saying ‘have you your fruit for sanctification,’ that is, sanctification itself, that is, the practice of holiness through good works is your fruit, insofar as these works delight you spiritually and in a holy way.”24 The wayfarer’s sanctification unfolds through cooperative action or good works, and because such action must be voluntary and rooted in charity, Thomas regards it as meritorious and deserving of rewards including glory. He concludes: “[Eternal life] is also the [end] of the works themselves, which merit eternal life since they are done out of obedience to God and in imitation of God. Jn. 10:27: ‘My sheep hear my voice and they follow me, and I give eternal life to them.”25 Thomas uses the verb mereor to drive home his point that human actions earn eternal life as a reward. The stress on merit is notable because Paul himself does not use the language; Thomas argues that it can be inferred. The last verse of Romans 6 warns that the wages of sin are death but that eternal life is a free gift. Thomas uses the threat of punishment to establish the role of divine recompense. God rewards sinners with death. He calls death a merces and he uses the verb retribuere.26 Grace enables good human 22. The translation from which Thomas works reads as follows: “Nunc vero liberati a peccato, servi autem facti Deo, habetis fructum vestrum in sanctificationem, finem vero vitam aeternam. Stipendia enim peccati, mors. Gratia autem Dei, vita aeterna in Christo Iesu Domino nostro.” Eternal life is connected with “your fruit in sanctification,” which more explicitly connotes rewards than the NRSV. 23. Thomas explains the liberty enjoyed in a state of grace: “But this is true liberty and the optimal kind of servitude; because through justice a person is inclined to what is fitting for himself, that which is proper to a person, and he is turned from that which is fitting for concupiscence, that which is maximally beast-like” (SEP, Rom., 513). 24. SEP, Rom., 514. 25. SEP, Rom., 515. 26. I leave the passage in the Latin to demonstrate the language of reward, merit, and retribution. Thomas writes: “Et primo quantam ad mala. Dicit: ‘Dictum est quod finis peccatorum est mors, “stipendia enim peccati, mors.”’ Dicuntur autem stipendia merces militum, a stipe pendenda, id est

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actions, which in turn deserve rewards, including the reward of eternal life. He writes: “For since [Paul] said that just persons have eternal life, yet this cannot be certain except through grace, then the very fact that we do the good and that our works are worthy (dignum) of eternal life is by the grace of God.”27 Human beings are able to do good on account of grace; nevertheless, the grace disposes them for operations that have the dignity of eternal life. Using the same distinction as in ST I-II:114, 3, Thomas qualifies the condignity of eternal life: “Therefore if our works are considered by nature and as they proceed from the free will of the person, they do not merit eternal life condignly, but only as proceeding from the grace of the Holy Spirit.”28 Thomas effectively shifts Paul’s language of eternal life as a gift—opposed to the rewards of human sin—to that of a reward for good works. Of course, these works depend on grace as an intermediate cause so that the outcome is also a gift. In examples from passages from Romans, readers find Thomas striving to present a complete account of divine action, grace, human action, and rewards. When Paul isolates one of these concepts in order to warn or admonish his audience, Thomas consistently contextualizes Paul’s comments in a larger discussion of grace and rewards.

Passages from 1 and 2 Corinthians A brief scan of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians reveals a host of reward texts, though Thomas’s commentary on some are not available.29 ponderanda: quia pecunia distribuenda militibus ponderabatur. Quia ergo peccatores peccato militant, membra sua exhibentes arma peccato, ut supra dictum est, mors dicitur esse stipendum peccati, it est retribution, quam retribuit sibi servientibus. Et ex hoc manifestum est, quod mors sit finis peccatorum, non quem peccantes quaerunt, sed quis eis retribuitur.—Ps. 10:6: ‘Ignis, sulphur, spiritus procellarum, pars calicis eorum’” (SEP, Rom., 516). 27. SEP, Rom., 517. 28. SEP, Rom., 517. 29. They include Thomas’s commentary on 1 Cor. 9:9–11, 9:16–18, 9:24–27, and 10:1–11. Daniel Keating writes: “An exegetical ‘fault-line’ runs through the extant manuscript (i.e., an early and late edition appear to be combined), and a significant strata of the text is simply missing (commentary on 1 Cor. 7.15–10.33). The leading hypothesis for this state of affairs is the following: Aquinas appears to have commented on the Pauline epistles early in his career (either from 1259–65 or 1265–68). Then toward the close of his life (either at the end of his time in Paris, 1271–72, or during his period in Naples, 1272–73), he undertook a revision of his commentary on Paul’s letters, but only completed Romans through 1 Corinthians 10. Finally, in the process of collecting and handing on his commentaries, the

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Thomas’s lectures on 1 Cor. 3:8–15 offer a strong example of his discussion of rewards. In 2 Corinthians, Thomas specifies that the grace of sacraments is made manifest through the exercise of ministry, especially the ministry of apostles.30 Three examples of reward texts enhance the overall study of Thomas’s scriptural commentaries; they include 2 Cor. 5:1–10, 6:11–18, and 9:1–7.

1 Corinthians 3:8–15 This section of 1 Corinthians includes Paul’s admonition that “each will receive wages according to the labor of each” (v. 8b). Paul then applies the metaphor of wages to his work and those who follow him. He has laid a foundation of faith among the Corinthians, but those who build on that foundation must be aware that, like all laborers, their work will be judged and rewarded according to its quality. In 3:14–15 he writes: “If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up [under the heat of judgment], the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.” Thomas’s commentary probes the notion that rewards vary according to the quality of labor. His discussion, though worked out in greater detail, resembles his commentary on the “many rooms” reference in Jn. 14:1–7. It posits that divine rewards, particularly final rewards, are both “common and singular.” They are common inasmuch as every just man is rewarded with final glory and the vision of God, but the way in which wayfarers (now comprehensors) enjoy the reward is peculiar to their abilities and dispositions: “But the reward will be singular, because one sees more clearly and enjoys more fully than another according to the established measure. . . . For this same reason it is said here [by Paul]: ‘each shall receive his own reward.’”31 Enjoyment of rewards follows an ordered measure, a reference to divine ordination, and works may be portion from 1 Cor. 7.15–10.33 was lost, and a commentary on these verses from Peter of Tarentaise was inserted as a substitute in order to complete the commentary.” See Daniel A. Keating, “Aquinas on 1 and 2 Corinthians: The Sacraments and Their Ministers,” in Aquinas on Scripture, ed. Thomas G. Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating, and John P. Yocum, 127–48 (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 127. 30. In the prologue to the letter, Thomas writes: “In these words [‘Men shall speak of you as ministers of our God’ (Is. 61:6)], the subject matter of this second epistle to the Corinthians is fittingly touched upon. For in the first epistle the Apostle treated the sacraments, but in this second epistle he treats of the minister of these sacraments, as much the good as the bad” (SEP, 2 Cor., Prologue). 31. SEP, 1 Cor., 141.

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evaluated according to (1) charity, (2) the type of work, and (3) the amount of labor.32 Thomas has consistently argued that charity constitutes the root of every good act because it inclines the will to act; as a corollary, those who love God more will enjoy the vision of God more: “Wherefore the one who labors more in charity, although he endures less [difficult] labor, receives more of the essential reward.”33 The nobility of certain acts also deserves greater reward by virtue of divine ordination. Just as the architect receives a higher wage than the manual laborer because her work is of a higher order, so those who work in divine matters (rebus divinis) deserve greater rewards: “Whence a crown is given to teachers, virgins, and martyrs.”34 Finally, an act requiring greater effort also deserves greater reward. Thomas cites the example that someone who undertakes a longer fast or pilgrimage will experience greater joy when ending the fast or reaching the destination. Effort is tied to its dispositive effects; the more that a good work prepares the actor to love God and love others, the more the reward is singular in its effects. Having established criteria for singular kinds of merit, Thomas can attach these to singular experiences of reward. In 3:12–13 Paul writes “Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done.” Thomas groups the six building materials into two classes of rewards. He writes: “Of the first three, namely gold, silver, and precious stones, they have precious clarity and are simultaneously indestructible and precious. The other three, however, are easily consumed by fire and are worthless.”35 Human actions are known or characterized by their objects; when one works for something transitory, the comprehended object is typically transitory itself—something worthless (vilia) and easily destroyed. Conversely, when one seeks something of enduring worth, the possessed object is precious and indestructible. Thus, the first three objects listed by Paul represent enduring, perhaps “surpassing,” goods while the latter three objects signify passing goods that cannot withstand the fire of judgment. 32. Thomas’s commentary on Rom. 2:15–16 uses similar examples of measurement. 33. SEP, 1 Cor., 143. 34. SEP, 1 Cor., 143. 35. SEP, 1 Cor., 154.

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Thomas assigns each of the six objects a more descriptive meaning, allowing him to add concrete detail to the journey. Not unlike the way in which Thomas stratifies the stages of ascent in the beatitudes, here gold, silver, and precious stones (in descending order) also demonstrate a hierarchy of progress for the wayfarer. He writes: And therefore the works which support a person in divine and spiritual things are compared to “gold, silver, and precious stones” which are firm, clear, and precious. And so by “gold” are designated those things which direct a person to God himself through contemplation and love; wherefore it is said in Cant. 5:11: “his head [is made of] finest gold.” For the head of Christ is God, as is said in Rev. 3:18: “I urge you to buy from me gold tested in fire,” that is to buy wisdom with charity. By “silver” is signified the acts by which a person adheres to the spiritual works of believing, loving, and contemplation; wherefore in the Gloss silver is referred to as love of the neighbor . . . But through “precious stones” are designated diverse works of virtue which adorn the soul; whence it is said in Sir. 1:10: “like a vessel of solid gold adorned all over by precious stones.” Or also [they are designated as] the law of God, according to Ps. 118:127: “I love your commandments more than gold, more than the finest gold (topazion).”36

Reversing the order, the works of precious stones, silver, and gold outline an ascending program of human action that leads to God. Precious stones are virtuous acts that refine and perfect human nature, enabling the wayfarer to do works of surpassing good; silver are works that involve active love of neighbor; and gold works connote contemplative acts that desire union with God as their object. As such they follow the three stages of happiness in the ST’s presentation of the beatitudes: sensual life → active life → contemplative life. Thomas explains: “And therefore when one builds on gold and silver and precious stones, one builds upon the foundation of faith those things which pertain to the contemplation of divine wisdom, the love of God, devotion to holy things and to the help of one’s neighbor, and the exercise of virtue.”37 Reflecting on the nature of the gems, Thomas again argues that these kinds of action possess an enduring value that survives the heat of judgment and deserves reward. This edifice rests on faith, which signifies a prior gift, drawing Thomas’s lecture into line with the previous lecture on Rom. 5:1–5. 36. SEP, 1 Cor., 156. 37. SEP, 1 Cor., 157.

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Thomas admits that transitory goods are also useful. No one is wholly free from temporal cares: “Nevertheless, it should be known that those who seek spiritual things are not able to be freed completely from caring for temporal things, nor too are those who tend to temporal things out of love completely free from spiritual things; they are diversified by devotion (studio).”38 The key to success lies in properly ordering the works. Temporal works must be ordered to spiritual ones; the inverse is deadly. Thomas writes: “For some the devotion of their lives is ordered to spiritual things and they do not seek temporal things except insofar as they are necessarily required for bodily life. But others direct the devotion of their lives to procuring temporal things; nevertheless, they use spiritual things to direct their lives. Therefore the first group builds ‘gold, silver, and precious stones,’ but the second group builds ‘hay, wood, and stubble.’”39 Thomas warns against a life of misdirected affection; it is a failure to act recte, indicating a misuse or absence of grace. No human act will escape judgment, and further, each work will be exposed for its true intention. Those who accrue wood, stubble, and hay under the guise of gold, silver, and precious stones will have their intentions laid bare.40 Lest his readers think that only the work is tested, Thomas argues that the worker must also survive the fire. He writes: “In one way on the part of the one doing the work, namely because those who do good work, whether of good teachings or any good work, is not punished on account of such works by the fire of purgatory or by the fire which goes before the face of the judge or even by the fire that boils retribution.”41 When one’s works 38. SEP, 1 Cor., 159. 39. SEP, 1 Cor., 159. 40. Thomas glosses the meaning of the “day of judgment” in three ways. God will judge the worth of the wayfarer’s work while she is on the journey, at the point of her death, and at the time of the general judgment of all human beings. If the work is unharmed by fire, it is of an enduring quality and deserves reward. Thomas writes: “Third, [Paul] sets down the effect of the disclosure when he says ‘and whatever kind of work it is will be proved by fire,’ namely, because each of the aforesaid fires will prove a person’s merit or demerit” (SEP, 1 Cor., 165). He continues in the next section: “Thereafter when he says, ‘if anyone’s work,’ he shows the mode of the aforesaid disclosures. First, in regard to good works when he says: ‘if anyone,’ that is anyone’s ‘work that builds itself, endures,’ that is, endures in the fire, that one, namely the one who builds, ‘will receive a reward.’ Jer. 31:16: ‘there is a reward for your work,’ and Is. 40:10: ‘behold, his reward is with him’” (SEP, 1 Cor., 166). Thomas’s reference to Jer. 31:16 is the same text he prefers in the sed contra of ST I-II:114, 1, which affirms the possibility of meriting rewards from God. 41. SEP, 1 Cor., 167. Following this passage, Thomas lists a way to “test” one’s balance between

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are tested, one’s dispositions and very self are tested. If all the things that a person loves are consumed in the fire, his dispositions are laid bare through a discussionem meritorum. If a person finds the things that he has loved survive the fire, then his desires are also enduring and deserving of rewards. Thomas completes his unusually long lecture (§§139–69) by commending the cooperative value of human action for their power to gain enduring rewards. Good works ascend from personal virtues to love of neighbor to love of God (precious stones to silver to gold). Thomas thus outlines concrete steps in the journey, which provide the wayfarer with a useful roadmap for progress.

2 Corinthians 5:1–10 Paul writes in this passage: “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling” (5:1–3). Thomas sees the passage as plain in its meaning; he writes: “Thus, the reward of the saints is admirable and desirable, because it is the glory of heaven. For that reason [Paul] connects the desire of the saints to this reward saying: ‘For now in this we groan, etc.’”42 The reward of heaven acts as a goad for human desire, but Thomas also identifies a challenge. In 5:4 Paul adds: “For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” Even as wayfarers seek a heavenly homeland, they groan under the burden of the journey. Thomas defines the groaning as a conflict of “desires”; that is, even as wayfarers long for heaven, they also fear death and the loss of their earthly dwelling. Thomas juxtaposes fervent desire for union with God in the heavenly homeland with the real obstacles that make for groaning on the journey. He glosses this juxtaposition as one between nature and grace. Groaning indicates that not every desire is perfectly directed to the heavenly homeland, enduring and transitory desires; he writes: “For a person who has not loved temporal things immoderately is, consequently, not saddened too much at their loss. For sadness is caused by one’s love of a thing which is lost. Wherefore superfluous love generates superfluous sadness” (SEP, 2 Cor., 167). Wayfarers ought to gauge their response to the loss of temporal goods in order to surmise their potential to withstand the fire of judgment. 42. SEP, 2 Cor., 154–55.

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as if grace immediately conforms a person, body and soul, to the object of desire. Thomas writes: Thus the desire of grace is fervent for reward, but it is nevertheless retarded by the desire of nature, which [the Apostle] shows when he says “For while we are in this tabernacle,” etc. . . . But the condition of this desire is natural, retarding the desire of grace, because we wish to be found clothed, not naked, that is, we wish that the soul arrived at glory [without] the body being corrupted in death. The reason for this is because there is a natural desire of the soul to be united to the body; otherwise death would not be a punishment.43

Thomas rather poignantly describes the tension created by the desires of nature and grace. Nature is not taken here to mean corrupt nature. Even intact nature would resist the dissolution of body and soul if that were implied in reaching the heavenly homeland. Human beings naturally flee the punishment of death, which dissolves something otherwise natural to their person, yet Paul insists that wayfarers exchange one homeland (dwelling) for another.44 The challenge falls to Thomas to explain how it is appropriate for human beings to seek a supernatural reward that seems at odds with their natural desires. Grace transforms the wayfarer so that she seeks her proper reward in spite of misgivings about death. God supplies a supernatural desire for union through grace.45 The grace of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling allows the wayfarer to determine which good constitutes her highest end. Thomas compares the graced indwelling of the Spirit to God’s original “inspiration” or breath43. SEP, 2 Cor., 158–59. 44. When speaking of Christ’s passion in the tertia pars, Thomas acknowledges that Jesus could experience both joy and sorrow at moments when he was aware of the physical suffering that awaited him or that he experienced. For example, in ST III:46, 8 ad. 1, Thomas writes: “The joy of fruition is not opposed directly to the grief of the Passion, because they have not the same object. Now nothing prevents contraries from being in the same subject, but not according to the same. And so the joy of fruition can appertain to the higher part of reason by its proper act; but grief of the Passion according to the subject. Grief of the Passion belongs to the essence of the soul by reason of the body, whose form the soul is; whereas the joy of fruition (belongs to the soul) by reason of the faculty in which it is subjected.” 45. Thomas writes: “But it stands that the enjoyment of the glory of heaven and the vision of God in God’s essence, although it is of rational creature, is nevertheless above that [rational] nature; therefore the rational creature is not moved to this [end] by natural desire but by God’s very self, ‘who makes (efficit) us for this very thing’” (SEP, 2 Cor., 160).

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ing into the first human being. He writes: “[God] gives supernatural desires when God infuses a supernatural Spirit in us, namely, the Holy Spirit. And for that reason [the Apostle] says ‘he has given the pledge of the Spirit to us.’”46 The gift of the Spirit cannot thwart a wayfarer’s natural desires. Rather, the Spirit perfects those desires so that a person can see fear of death as subordinated to the higher reward of eternal glory. Commenting on Paul’s language, Thomas says that the grace of the Holy Spirit perfects human nature so that it “dares” (audere) to seek glory. He writes: “To dare, properly speaking, is to immerse oneself in the dangers of death, and not give up on account of fear. Yet although the saints naturally feared death, nevertheless, they dared [to confront] the dangers of death and not give up from the fear of death.”47 The effects of faith move one to dare; in Paul’s words: “So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight” (5:6–7). The Spirit cultivates formed faith in the wayfarer so that she can walk not by sight—which would surely cause inordinate groaning—but rather by faith. Such faith is a daring belief in things not seen. Thomas writes: “Whence inasmuch as we assent, believing these things which we do not see, we are said to walk ‘through faith and not by sight.’”48 After demonstrating that grace prepares and sustains fragile human nature on the journey, Thomas returns to the question of rewards raised by Paul. Paul writes: “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done” (5:9–10). Thomas explains: “Observe the preparation for the reward which is done by the struggle against temptations and by exercising good works, and this [Paul] says at ‘and therefore we labor.’ But the saints are prepared for this reward in three ways, namely, first by pleasing God; secondly, by helping 46. SEP, 2 Cor., 161. Thomas adds that the wayfarer possesses the Spirit differently depending on her status as wayfarer or comprehensor. He writes: “So it is with the Holy Spirit: because the Holy Spirit has as much power as heavenly glory, but there is a difference in the mode of possessing [the Holy Spirit]; because now we have him like a certitude of reaching that glory; but in the heavenly homeland, we shall have him as something already possessed by us. For then we shall have the Holy Spirit perfectly but now imperfectly” (SEP, 2 Cor., 161). Bonaventure makes a similar argument in 2 Sent., 27.1.3 and Breviloquium, VII:7. 47. SEP, 2 Cor., 163. 48. SEP, 2 Cor., 164.

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their neighbor . . . thirdly, by removing themselves from carnal desires.”49 Thomas’s order of preparation repeats the pattern found in the beatitudes and in 1 Cor 3:8–15. Human beings move through three stages on the journey, including (1) the discipline of their affections (through use of gifts and virtues), (2) love of neighbor, and (3) love of God. Thomas finishes his two lectures with a simple affirmation of Paul’s admonition: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done.” Thomas writes: “[Paul] fifth sets down the equity of judgment, because there will be rewards or punishments according to one’s merits.”50 Paul’s promise of judgment and recompense is no threat because God’s gifts of grace dispose wayfarers to withstand judgment—even its fire—and receive the things that they desired through grace.

2 Corinthians 6:11–18 Paul exhorts his readers to “widen your hearts” so that they may have proper affection for God (6:13). He also reminds his readers that they “are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people’” (6:16). These words present a potential quandary for Thomas; that is, how can human beings “enlarge” their hearts or prepare themselves for God’s indwelling in them? Does it not resurface justification through the facienti? He responds that grace makes it possible to enlarge one’s heart, and he devotes the lecture to the effects of grace. Perhaps most noteworthy, however, are Thomas’s comments in the middle of the lecture where he outlines a fourpoint explanation of the effects of grace (§§ 238–41). Thomas thinks that Paul himself demonstrates how human beings are “temples of God” by his use of the Old Testament. Paul says: “As God said, ‘I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people’” (6:16).51 Thomas sees four particular effects of grace: God will (1) “live in them,” (2) “move among them,” (3) “be their God,” and (4) the people will “be his people.” This collective reward gives Thomas scriptural warrant to insert a convenient and comprehensive teaching on grace. 49. SEP, 2 Cor., 168. 50. SEP, 2 Cor., 169. 51. Paul paraphrases Lv. 26:13, Ezek. 37:27, Is. 52:11, and 2 Sm. 7:14.

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First, Paul’s promise that God will “live in” God’s people suggests the effect of operating grace. Thomas writes: The first pertains to operating grace which is God being in someone through grace. And this is what he says “I will dwell in them,” namely in the saints, through grace honoring them. For although God is said to be in all things by his presence, power, and essence, yet he is not said to dwell in them, but only in the saints through grace; the reason for which is that God is in all things through his action, inasmuch as he joins himself to them as giving esse and conserving them in esse. Yet in the saints [God] dwells through the works of the saints, by which they attain to God and in a way comprehend him, which is to love and to know.52

God is present to the saints as he is present to all living things, by rendering them actual through participation in divine being. In the treatise on grace, this is sometimes linked to the grace of natural motion, though auxilium does more than simply cause a person to exist; it also actualizes particular graces, preserves, and sustains persons. God also dwells in the saints uniquely as an operator who simply moves them toward particular ends. In this case, God operates so as to move persons to knowledge and love of God. Those good works that distinguish the saints from other actors must be put down to God’s operative grace. Having set out the indispensability of prior divine action, Thomas notes that God “moves among” the saints in order to produce certain effects, which he glosses as cooperative grace. Thomas writes: “The second pertains to cooperative grace, by which the saints progress with divine auxilium (auxilio Dei); as to this he says, ‘I will move among them,’ that is, I will promote (promovebo) them from virtue to virtue. For this progress is impossible without grace.”53 Having moved wayfarers from a state of sin into a state of grace, God now moves so that they move with God and make progress in the state of grace. Here the language of movement and reference to auxilium is telling; both gesture toward grace’s effect on the will, moving it so that it moves with God. The outcome of such movement is progress in virtue, a kind of interim reward. Because the journey is fraught with affliction and temptation, God pro52. SEP, 2 Cor., 240. Thomas’s description of operative grace is difficult to fully define given the challenges of dating his lectures on 2 Cor. 53. SEP, 2 Cor., 240.

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vides a third effect through grace, that of “benefits” (beneficium). Thomas says that benefits come in two forms: protection and reward; these benefits follow from “God being their God” and the elect “being God’s people.” At times, God simply protects the saints from potential sin. This fits with Thomas’s language of the grace of perseverance, “which guards and guides.” As for rewards, God provides interim rewards, such as the indwelling of God during the journey. Thomas comments: “Or [God gives] the benefit of remuneration, and so he says ‘I will be their God,’ that is, I will give my very self to them as a reward.”54 By rewarding the cooperative wayfarer on the journey, the person who endures and progresses begins already to enjoy God as her possession and reward; this fits well with Thomas’s affirmation of beatitudes as foretastes of the final rewards.55 As Thomas concludes the lecture, he further specifies final rewards as “adoption” and “familiarity” with God.56 Adoption begins in election but it culminates in the moment when human beings, who have familiarity and intimacy with God, can be called “God’s people.”57 Thomas thus uses to 2 Cor. 6:11–18 to present the relationship between grace, human action, and rewards as the proper way to understand God’s promise that “I will be their God and they shall be my people.”

2 Corinthians 9:1–7 In 2 Cor. 9:6–7, Paul writes: “The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” While Paul is exhorting the Corinthians to take up a collection, Thomas sees the literal meaning affirming the importance of human actions for divine rewards. Paul’s exhortation promotes “abundant” and “cheerful” giving, which allows 54. SEP, 2 Cor., 240. 55. The fourth and final effect of God’s indwelling “pertains to correct worship and service offered by the saints” (SEP, 2 Cor., 240). This worship likely occurs in glory when the saints will ultimately “be God’s people.” 56. Thomas writes: “But the reward promised to servants of his motion is twofold, namely, familiarity with God (divina familiaritas) and divine adoption” (SEP, 2 Cor., 244). 57. On adoption and familiarity, Thomas writes: “Familiarity with God, because ‘I will receive you,’ as if he says: ‘go out securely, because I will receive you as mine.’ . . . But divine adoption, because he adopts us as sons, because he says, ‘and I shall be a father to you, and you shall be my sons,’ as in Rom. 8:15 ‘you did not receive, etc.’” (SEP, 2 Cor., 244).

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the giver to reap “bountifully.” Thomas stresses that Paul’s sense of “bountiful” has to do with “sowing well” (bene seminantium), which resonates with his general emphasis on “doing well.”58 Thomas writes: And he says, “he sows,” because our seeds are whatever good we do. And again, because if little is sown, not much is gathered. Gal. 6:8: “For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption.” But multiplied: “And he who sows in blessings,” that is, abundantly, “will also reap blessings,” that is the generous recompense of God.59

Thomas interprets the reward text as a literal presentation of the role of human actions in obtaining divine rewards. Wayfarers must do good works “abundantly,” yet they must also arise from the proper disposition and intention. Paul reminds his readers that God loves a “cheerful giver,” which Thomas takes to mean someone who is habitually joyful and charitable. He writes: And although with persons, who do not see except that which is patent, it suffices that one perform an act of virtue according to the very species of the act, as with a pure act of justice; nevertheless, with God, who sees the heart, it does not suffice merely to perform the act of a virtue according to the species, but he must also act according to the proper mode, namely, with delight and joy. And for that reason, it is not the giver alone, but “the cheerful giver that God loves,” that is, that God approves and rewards, and not the sad and grumbling one.60

Thomas argues that God sees the heart so that God recognizes the motivation for acts. The cheerful giver is one who acts freely—not of necessity— and out of charity, as opposed to sadness.61 God thus rewards the one who 58. For a parallel discussion of “sowing well,” see Thomas’s sermon “Exiit qui seminat,” which expounds the Luke 8:5 gospel text, “a sower went out to sow.” Thomas speaks of sowing well as abounding in good works and relates it specifically to the Dominican charism of preaching. In the sermon, Thomas affirms the merit generally of abounding in good works as well as the specific good of mendicant life. See “Exiit qui seminat” in Thomas Aquinas: The Academic Sermons,” trans. Mark-Robin Hoogland, 108–28 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010). 59. SEP, 2 Cor., 329. 60. SEP, 2 Cor., 332. Note the strong parallel here with ST I-II:109, 4, where Thomas argues that a person can keep the law as to its substance without grace, but he can only fulfill the law in charity through the assistance of habitual grace. 61. Thomas writes: “But he sets down two things opposed to free action, namely, sadness and necessity” (SEP, 2 Cor., 331).

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loves his neighbor not out of obligation but out of genuine love of doing the good. Thomas thus uses a reward text in order to exemplify the kinds of actions that are worthy of reward.

Passages from Galatians Like Romans, interpreters have often read Galatians as mediating against the notion of rewards for human agency. In some senses, Thomas already rebuts that interpretation with his view that Paul is writing to eliminate the superfluous works revealed by Old Testament law as opposed to the commandments of the new law, such as the debitum caritatis.62 That, in itself, does not exclude the importance of human actions under the new covenant of grace. Thomas makes a number of short positive references to grace and reward, for example, at 5:22–23, but the lectures on chapter 6 are particularly forceful.

Galatians 6:7–10 In 6:7–10, Paul exhorts his readers to choose a life of virtue over a life of vice. The freedom of justification by faith does not spare them from divine judgment. In 6:7–8, Paul writes: “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.” Thomas affirms that God recompenses human beings according to their works and explores the ratio of good works to rewards; he writes: “But according to the second explanation, ‘those things which a person will sow,’ that is, he will be rewarded according his beneficence, whether small or large, and both as to the quality of the work and to the quantity of the beneficence. 2 Cor 9:6: ‘the one who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, 62. Thomas rarely speaks of works in an unqualified sense in the commentary. For example, he prefers to speak of the “works of the old law,” which are connected to the sacraments of the old law. In his lecture on Gal. 2:15–16, Thomas writes: “Wherefore those sacraments of the Old Law were not sacraments except as certain protestations of the faith of Christ, just as our sacraments also [are], but differently, because those [old] sacraments were configured to the grace of Christ as something in the future; but our sacraments testify as containing a present grace. And for that reason [the Apostle] says significantly, that ‘it is not by the works of the law that we are justified, unless by the faith of Christ,’ because, even if some who served the works of the Law in the past were justified, nevertheless, this was not done except by the faith of Jesus Christ” (SEP, Gal., 94).

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etc.’”63 Thomas gives double stress to the value of good works, first to their quality, having to do with intention, and then to their quantity, which must be magna. When one plants seeds in the flesh, those seeds grow up in unproductive soil or soil that spoils the seed’s fruit. The work is corrupt and deserves to be recompensed with destruction. Planting seeds in the Spirit, on the other hand, produces abundant fruits in the sower himself.64 Maintaining the simile of farming, human beings must persevere in their cultivation of good works just as a farmer endures difficulties in nurturing his crops. Thomas writes: And the merit is not deficient, because we hope for an eternal and unfailing reward. Wherefore he puts down “for in time we shall gain a reward that is not deficient.” Whence Augustine says: “if a person does not impose a limit on one’s works, God will not impose [a limit] on God’s rewards.” But note that he says “in his time,” because just as the farmer does not immediately harvest the fruit which he sowed, but at a congruent time, as in James “the farmer expects the glorious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently, until he receives the early and late rains,” etc.65

Thomas returns to a theme emphasized in the 1 and 2 Corinthians passages. Wayfarers must endure and patiently wait for rewards, and doing so includes undergoing hardship. He then draws a direct correlation between meritorious work and divine rewards, suggesting that the latter, while congruent, are also non deficienties so that they exceed in proportion, as “glorious fruits,” that which is expected by the work itself. Thomas makes it clear that, while the works and sacraments of the old law are now superfluous, human beings must nevertheless do good under the ordination of the new law and God will recompense wayfarers under the new ordo.

63. SEP, Gal., 358. Thomas employs 2 Cor. 9:6 as a straightforward reward text that amplifies Paul’s meaning in Gal. 6:7–10. 64. Earlier in the Galatians commentary, Thomas addresses “sowing the Spirit,” (cf. Gal. 5:22–23), and he integrates the Spirit’s gifts into his doctrine of rewards by portraying them as interim and final rewards. He writes: “Thus the works of the virtues and of the spirit are something final in us. For the Holy Spirit is in us through grace, through which we acquire the habit of the virtues; and from this we have the power of working according to virtue. Also, the works are delightful and even fruitful, as in Rom. 6:22: ‘You have your fruit in sanctification,’ that is, in works of sanctification, and for that reason they are called ‘fruits [of the Spirit]’” (SEP, Gal. 5:6). 65. SEP, Gal., 361.

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Passages from Other Pauline Letters Following Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians, Thomas shifts gears, commenting that, in the remaining letters, “the Apostle treats first of the institution of the unity of the church.”66 He connects the remaining letters, excepting Hebrews, more expressly to the life of the church. These topics stem from an overall doctrine of grace, but they adopt an ecclesiological caste; the church is the source of grace, which continues the missiones ad extra of the divine persons.67 Discussions of reward and its relation to grace, though not infrequent, are often treated cursorily. The nine letters nevertheless contain no less than twenty-four recognizable reward texts, and Thomas comments on sixteen of these.68 Five particularly pertinent examples include: Eph. 1:3–6, Phil. 3:12–14, 1 Tim. 6:18–19, 2 Tim. 2:11–13, and 2 Tim. 4:6–8. The texts further amplify Thomas’s teaching on reward while representing examples from a diverse set of letters.69

Ephesians 1:3–6 Paul’s letter to the Ephesians falls into a different category than those of Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. Ephesians represents the first of five letters (also including Philippians, Colossians, and 1 and 2 Thessalonians) that address aspects of the church including its unity and defense. Ephesians occasions what is perhaps Thomas’s most extended scriptural commentary on predestination. The first half of the Ephesians canticle proclaims that God has “chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world” and that God “destined us for adoption as his children.” Thomas sets out three significant themes in the lecture: (1) the benefits of predestination, (2) divine freedom, and (3) grace and glory as effects of predestination. The 66. SEP, Prologue:11. 67. See George Sabra’s Thomas Aquinas’ Vision of the Church (Mainz: Matthais-Grunewald-Verlag, 1987) for a lucid treatment of the ways in which the Son and Holy Spirit, in their external missions, serve respectively as the constitutive and motive dimensions of the church in Thomas’s theology, particularly as he thinks of it in terms of a congregatio fidelium and a corpus mysticum. 68. Thomas treats rewards explicitly in at least sixteen separate instances including: Eph. 6:7–8; Phil. 2:12–13 and 3:12–14; Col.3:23–25; 1 Thes. 1:3–6 and 3:13; 2 Thes. 1:6–8; 1 Tim. 1:12–17, 4:8–10, 4:11–16, 5:17–18, 6:11–12, and 6:17–19; 2 Tim. 2:5–6, 2:8–16, 4:6–8, and 4:14; and Ti. 3:6–7. 69. Thomas additionally lectures explicitly on reward, for example, in Colossians (e.g., 3:23–25) and Hebrews (6:7–8, 10:32–36, and 11:26).

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benefits of predestination begin with God’s free will to choose and love some through predestination to eternal glory. Predestination presupposes election, which in turn presupposes divine love, and Thomas locates the concept of election in Paul’s language of God “choosing us.” To that end, Thomas enumerates and exposits four identifiable benefits of election: it is free, eternal, fruitful, and gratuitous.70 Among these, Thomas most stresses the gratuitous nature of election. Election cannot depend on actions in the economy; rather, it is an extraordinary benefit for the elect who had no claim to God’s decision. Election produces subsequent fruits through the sanctification of wayfarers; Thomas argues that sanctification is evident in Paul’s presentation of the elect as “holy and blameless” in God’s sight. A final and undeniable benefit is the ultimate end of election. Thomas comments that Paul calls the elect “saints”; he writes: “‘Saints in his sight,’ that is, as we look upon God, because [the beatific] vision is the whole reward according to Augustine. And God will do this, not by our merits, but by God’s charity, or in our charity by which he formally sanctifies us.”71 The saints receive an eternal reward from God as the culminating benefit of predestination and object of God’s original intent. Election, sanctification, and reward thus arise from an originally free, fruitful, and gratuitous choice made eternally by God. Election and predestination are functions of God’s will that can have no other origin but God’s self. This highlights God’s free agency such that secondary causes for predestination are eliminated. Thomas assigns the purpose of God’s will to the qualities of divine love and goodness. He writes: Predestination, according to the ratio, presupposes election, and election love. A twofold cause is assigned to this immense blessing. One is the efficient cause which is the simple will of God which is “according to the purpose of God’s will,” . . . The other is the final cause, which is so that we may know and praise the goodness of God which is noted in “the praise and glory of God grace.”72

70. Thomas writes: “Thereafter, since he says ‘just as you were chosen,’ he treats of the benefit of election, where he commends that election because it is free, ‘just as he chose us in him,’ because it is eternal, ‘before the foundation of the world,’ because it is fruitful, ‘that we should be [holy],’ etc., and because it is gratuitous, ‘in charity’” (SEP, Eph., 1:1). 71. SEP, Eph., 1:1. 72. SEP, Eph., 1:1.

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Using the language of causality, Thomas demonstrates that God remains efficiently and finally free in choosing to elect some to eternal life. The divine will cannot be moved by something outside of God’s simple nature. He deploys this argument against what he terms the “Pelagian” view that God predestines human beings based on divine foreknowledge of potential merits.73 Similarly, in ST I:23, 5, Thomas eliminates human merits as a cause of predestination while preserving the integrity of absolute divine freedom. Thomas’s lecture inevitably addresses the relationship of predestination to grace and glory. He begins by affirming the divine will: For there are two effects of predestination: grace and glory. Within what has been willed [by God], grace can be assigned as a reason for the effects which are oriented toward glory. For example, God crowned Peter because he strove well, and he did this because he was made firm in grace. But no reason for the grace, as a primary effect, is able to be assigned to the part of the person himself which would also be the reason for predestination.74

Thomas echoes here the ordo of predestination found in the ST. Human beings cannot be the primary cause of either grace or glory, yet they retain an indispensable role. Peter’s example clarifies the causal sequence that follows election; it is not merely predestination → grace → glory. Rather, God “crowned” Peter with rewards because Peter “strove well” (legitime certavit). The sequence that follows predestination therefore involves secondary human action; without it, rewards including glory are impossible as Thomas has defined them. The proper ordo following divine election is predestination → grace → reward-worthy human action → glory. Grace is not only prior to human action but also concurrent with it. Further, the end of predestination should be reckoned a gift when attributed to its original cause, but when attributed to the secondary cause of human action, it may also be called a reward. Thomas writes: “Divine goodness is communicated to the rational creature properly so that the rational creature may know it. And so every73. Thomas writes: “But no reason for grace, which is a primary effect, is able to be assigned on the part of the person . . . because this would be to posit that the principle of good works was in the person from himself and not from grace, which is the heresy of the Pelagians, who said that the principle of good works is on our part. Therefore it is clear that the reason for predestination is the simple will of God on account of which the apostle says ‘according to the purpose of his will’” (SEP, Eph. 1:1). 74. SEP, Eph., 1:1.

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thing which God does in rational creatures God creates for God’s praise and glory.”75 Merit and reward better manifest divine goodness because the rational creature may know and choose to praise God by nature.

Philippians 3:12–14 In Philippians 3, Paul references his own example of imitating Christ by participating in his sufferings so that he may also enjoy resurrection from the dead. Paul writes: “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” (3:14). Affirming Paul here and elsewhere, Thomas stresses that human beings must endure hardship as part of their journey to union with God. He also raises a potential challenge with Paul’s example. Paul writes that he imitates Christ but has not reached the goal of his imitation. Paul’s work seems imperfect, and this is made obvious by his attempts to “press on toward the goal.” Can one perfectly imitate Christ in his sufferings? Thomas suggests that perfection on earth and in heaven differ. A person’s interim state on the journey differs from his final state, yet both can be perfect in a sense. Thomas writes: But adherence to the journey is twofold: one by the necessity of salvation, to which all are bound, namely, that a person never place his heart in anything that is against God, but that he habitually refer his whole life to God. . . . The other is by supererogation, when a person adheres to God above the common way which is done when he removes his heart from temporal things, and so he approaches more closely to the heavenly homeland because the smaller cupidity becomes, the more charity grows. Therefore what [Paul says here] is understood to concern the perfection of the heavenly homeland.76 Thomas distinguishes between interim and final perfection using the language of the journey. Paul presses toward the heavenly homeland so that the incomplete perfection of which he speaks refers to final perfection, not the acts of love that precede it. Interim perfection involves removing obstacles to love, but final perfection depends on supererogatory works, works of surpassing good, which make the final reward of heaven accessible. Paul calls this perfection a “prize,” which indicates that union or final perfection is had on account of human action. It is a reward given for those who suffer, endure, and do works of surpassing goodness. Thomas writes: “As for ‘the prize,’ which is a reward only for those who run: ‘all the runners compete, 75. SEP, Eph., 1:1. 76. SEP, Phil., 126.

  Appendix : The Pauline Commentary  273 but only one receives the prize’ (1 Cor. 9:24). But I say to this prize destined for me by God, namely, ‘of the high calling of God’: ‘Those whom he predestined he also called’ (Rom. 8:30). And this is ‘in Christ Jesus,’ that is, by faith in Christ.”77

Not only is the prize a reward for those who run the race, Thomas notes that the runners are also “destined” for that end. In this passage where Thomas takes pains to affirm the necessity of human action and perfection for final rewards, he also reminds his readers that the entire race or journey is made possible by divine election and predestination.78

1 Timothy 6:18–19 Thomas encounters several reward texts worthy of comment in 1 Timothy. He typically affirms the reality of rewards for human efforts, and the extent to which he develops this theme varies.79 Thomas’s interest in 6:18–19 is striking. At the end of the letter, Paul writes to Timothy: “[The rich] are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life” (6:18–19). Thomas sees Paul teaching the rich of this world how to live, and he elicits a distinction between material riches and spiritual riches: “Riches imply abundance, yet the abundance is in spiritual things, and these are true riches.”80 The only riches that allow one to “take hold of the life that really is life” are spiritual riches, and these are acquired by good works. Thomas sees Paul insisting that the rich must do good; particularly, they must be generous and share their treasure with others. Thomas writes: “[I]t should be noted that there are two ways to use riches. One is to hold them and the other is to give them away, but the chief one is to give them away.”81 Temporal riches ought to be shared, just as God shares God’s riches with creation. Doing so orients the wayfarer toward God, training her in charity and building up spiritual riches. Thomas writes: 77. SEP, Phil., 131. 78. Thomas adds: “But not everyone will have equal beatitude, because some will see with greater clarity, just as some will love more ardently and rejoice more. Wherefore each person will have a certain measure [of beatitude] and this by divine predestination” (SEP, Phil., 132). 79. Thomas treats of the notion of reward in at least seven lectures including lectures on 1 Timothy 2:1, 3:1, 4:2, 4:3, 5:3, 6:2, and 6:4. 80. SEP, 1 Tim., 273. 81. SEP, 1 Tim., 277.

274  Appendix : The Pauline Commentary Regarding the third, that they may persist to the end of storing up treasure, and for that reason [Paul] says “store up treasure, etc.” Spiritual treasure is the gathering together of merits which are the foundation of a future building which is prepared for us in heaven, because all preparation for future glory is through merit, which we acquire through grace, which is the principle of merit.82

Doing good, being generous, and sharing all of one’s temporal treasures leads to the ultimate treasure of eternal life. Thomas immediately sets merit into the larger chain of causality, linking it to grace, which he calls the origin or principle of merit. Merit is that which prepares one for future treasures, but grace makes wayfarers able to merit. Thomas uses Paul’s admonition against the misuse of temporal riches to affirm a strong doctrine of rewards that rests on an appreciation for human action. That action has God as its aim, is worthy of reward, and depends on grace for its origin.

2 Timothy 2:11–13 Thomas sees Paul treating the specific topic of Christian martyrdom and the potential reward of that action in 2 Timothy. In 2:10–13, Paul writes: “The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” Paul three times lists a human action and potential reward for its execution, and the nature of the actions again underscores hardship. Believers must “die,” “endure,” and “not deny” Christ. Thomas focuses most prominently on “death” as signifying martyrdom, and he uses Paul’s words as an occasion to comment on the relationship between martyrdom and reward.83 Thomas links rewards to “dying with Christ.” He writes: “For the reward of a death of a precious martyr is the glory of resurrection, the example of which comes before in Christ our head.”84 The reward of a glorious resurrection awaits martyrs because they have willingly chosen to die with Christ through an 82. SEP, 1 Tim., 277. 83. Thomas divides the text: “[Paul] above prepared Timothy for martyrdom; here he exhorts him to that end, and he first gives him an example of reward, second an example of martyrdom, where he says ‘in which I labor,’ and third he shows forth the reward which follows martyrdom, where he says ‘a faithful word’” (SEP, 2 Tim., 48). 84. SEP, 2 Tim., 49.

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unjust and unnatural death. It is the ultimate instance of enduring hardship and suffering for the love of God and in desire for union with God. Thomas names two causes of martyrdom. The proper cause is divine honor and the proximate cause is salvation. Wayfarers ought to die willingly simply to manifest their love of God and so honor God. As a second cause, salvation understood as eternal life is also manifested by the martyr’s willing (and, so, confident) death.85 Thomas writes: “There are two things in the reward of the good, namely, restoration through the resurrection and superadded glory for those who rise from the dead.”86 All who rise to eternal life receive glory, but Thomas argues that martyrs will enjoy final beatitude all the more given the depth of their charity and distance from corruption at the time of judgment. Their reward is greater because it is enjoyed according to their perfected nature. Thomas thus applies his conceptual teaching on reward to a specific action connected with the Christian life. His system can explain and define specific actions on the journey so that, again, the wayfarer’s movement in a state of grace to a state of glory is concrete and traceable to specific virtues and actions.

2 Timothy 4:6–8 The passage in 2 Timothy 4:6–8 represents one of the most well-known and explicit examples of reward. In his second letter to Timothy, Paul summarizes his life and the ends that he seeks when he writes: As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing (4:6–8).

Paul summarizes his own life as one of consistent effort. He uses the verbs “fight” and “run” to describe life after his conversion. And in consequence of 85. Thomas connects the willing death of martyrs to predestination. He writes: “And he says ‘for the sake of the elect’ because whatever good they do, it falls back especially in the good of the elect, not the reprobate” (SEP, 2 Tim., 52). 86. SEP, 2 Tim., 56. The passage resonates with Thomas’s commentary on Jn. 14:1–7, where he affirms that teachers, martyrs, and virgins will receive the aureole for their habitual and actualized charity.

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his progress and endurance, Paul anticipates judgment and the reward of a crown of righteousness. Thomas sees Paul’s self-summary as describing meritorious actions that deserve commensurate rewards. He writes: “The merit of this life is threefold, namely, in resisting evil, in persisting in the good, and in using well the gifts of God.”87 Paul’s “fighting” represents efforts to overcome and destroy evil; his having completed—“run”—the race demonstrates perfection in doing good; and his good use of grace is twofold by both serving and preserving—“kept”—the faith.88 Thomas doubly credits Paul not only for remaining faithful himself but also for propagating the faith so that he merits rewards on both accounts; Paul “sows” well. The ability to cooperate in these ways, which accords with Paul’s larger biography, is only possible because God has bestowed certain graces as gifts on the apostle. Thomas explains the nature of Paul’s final rewards. Paul describes a crown that is reserved for him on account of his fighting and running. Thomas entertains an objection that eternal life is an effect of grace, and therefore an unmerited gift. As evidence for the objection, he refers to Rom. 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Thomas’s answer is unsurprising but succinctly put: “It ought to be said that grace is [related to reward] inasmuch as it is the root of merit; insofar as it is an act of justice proceeding from the will. Or it is a ‘crown of justice’ which is given through justice, because it is given to the just according to their works of justice.”89 Paul can make the earlier assertion in Romans because grace is at the root of every good and meritorious act according to the ordo. Nevertheless, those acts unfold according to the free will so that they may also be called just, meritorious, deserving of reward—in this case, a crown of righteousness. The crown denotes two kinds of reward. The first and principal kind is “nothing other than the joy of truth” because 87. SEP, 2 Tim., 149. 88. Like his commentary on Phil. 3:12–14, Thomas entertains the objection that Paul did not reach perfection in resisting evil or doing good because these things are had perfectly in final glory only. To this challenge Thomas responds: “It ought to be said that just as a person who begins well and intends to finish has worked perfectly, so the Apostle: for he also had begun and intended to finish” (SEP, 2 Tim., 149). The intention of the wayfarer indicates his proximity to perfection. Paul earnestly intends to finish the race, which, in his case, will be consummated in his martyrdom; in his intention, Paul has already reached perfection. 89. SEP, 2 Tim., 151.

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“God is therefore our crown.”90 The crown of final rewards signifies final union. Thomas adds that Paul, secondly, receives a golden aureole because of his martyrdom.91 Paul’s crown is essentially joy, but the joy is golden because he can enjoy more deeply than others given his perfection through the ultimate dispositive act of martyrdom. With this final reward text, Thomas presents Paul himself as a quintessential example of a wayfarer who progresses to final rewards. Of course, in other places, his narrative includes being chosen by God and being converted by grace through no merit of his own, yet here, he summarizes his life of discipleship as actions aimed at a reward. Paul as professor of theology not only interprets divine revelation but also manifests it in his person.

Thomas, Rewards, and Paul Having surveyed the fourteen letters that Thomas attributes to Paul and having explored thirteen examples of commentaries involving reward, three important themes emerge regarding Thomas’s doctrine of rewards. First and foremost, the examples, by their sheer weight, affirm a consistent doctrine of rewards that values human action as a cause of glory. Thomas lectures on multiple reward texts in nearly every letter. Given Thomas’s affirmation of the literal sense of scripture and his consistent lecturing on reward, it is patent that he sees his doctrine of rewards as a biblical, and indeed Pauline, doctrine of rewards. To be sure, Thomas freely introduces concepts more native to his systematic works (such as the distinction between operative and cooperative grace or the sequence of the ordo), but he does so with the confidence that they amplify the literal meaning of Paul’s text. Most noticeably, he uses his understanding of rewards to explicate the many moments when scripture seems to commend virtuous human actions and connect them to a type of reward. Second, Thomas regularly integrates a robust doctrine of grace—as both operative and cooperative—with his teaching on rewards. 90. SEP, 2 Tim., 151. 91. While Thomas uses the language of corona, the notion of an “aureole” for martyrs was a long-standing interpretation of this text. Bonaventure’s also affirms the aureole as an accidental (but final) reward given to some who have merited more by their works. He references the gloss in his discussion of the aureole which suggests that this idea was available to many medieval commentators. See Bonaventure, Breviloquium, VII:7.1.

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He rarely allows for a detached presentation of reward. On the contrary, to the extent that the text allows, Thomas consistently comments on the larger relationships among predestination, grace, human actions, and reward. This has the effect of uniting disparate instantiations of Paul’s teaching into a larger framework where they can be read as mutually edifying. For example, in Romans, Thomas strives to demonstrate that Paul’s admonition against seeing justification as a reward does not thereby proscribe reward for all points of the journey; indeed, when one properly understands the journey’s sequence, Paul’s seeming negations and approbations of rewards can be read as consistent. A third and less expected theme that arises from the commentary Super epistolas S. Pauli is an expanded teaching on the nature of human action. Because Paul often uses rewards as an incentive for his readers to do good and live well, Thomas exposits the value of different kinds of human action. Human beings must strive to do well by the grace they have been given, which implies operating with good intentions. Moreover, doing well depends on being rooted in charity, which forms and elevates human actions to a supernatural plane. At times, Thomas will speak in these terms by simply affirming the wayfarer’s intention and the importance of charity. In most cases, however, Thomas will focus on the specific actions that Paul commends, such as cheerfulness, faithfulness, generosity, patient suffering, endurance, or martyrdom. As personifications of these virtues, he presents Paul, Abraham, and Moses as exemplary wayfarers.92 Particularly in the Pauline commentaries, Thomas extols the virtue of patient suffering for the sake of belief and charity. On one hand, these actions most effectively demonstrate that the wayfarer has God as her ultimate desire, and so Thomas can use them as ideal examples of virtuous living. On the other, Thomas’s thematic repetition of endurance and suffering begin to imply that the Christian life naturally includes suffering. If for no other reason, Thomas reminds wayfarers that they should endure because doing so reduces their reliance on temporal goods. Suffering is an expression of asceticism that forms and orders one’s 92. The reference to Moses may be found in his commentary on Heb. 11:26. For example, he writes: “[Paul] shows forth the marvelous virtue of [Moses]. For there are two things which persons desire most, namely, pleasure and delight concerning exterior goods; and they flee most from their opposites, namely, pain and affliction, which are opposed to the first, and poverty and abjection, which are opposed to the second” (SEP, Heb., 615).

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affection for God. Even when a wayfarer is not actively suffering, Thomas suggests that she nevertheless “groans” while seeking eternal rewards. This groaning, which comes about as a person grows in perfection and mastery over her nature, indicates that life in a state of grace is by no means facile even if one can rely on divine grace for assistance and perseverance.

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Translations

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Scr i p t u r e I n de x Scr i p t u r e I n de x

Old Testament Genesis 15.6: 251n15 21.6: 148n27 Leviticus 26.13: 263n51 Deuteronomy 5.6: 169 Judges 2.4–5: 148n27 2 Samuel 1.12: 148n27 7.14: 263n51

41.4: 148n27 81.3: 248n8 83.8: 168n90 83.11: 154 111.9: 151 118.127: 258 144.14: 175n112 Proverbs 8.17: 191n169 19.17: 153n44 31.25: 148n27 Song of Songs 5.11: 258

Job 8.21: 148n27 30.25: 148n27 30.31: 148n27

Isaiah 6.1: 183n139 38.2–3: 148n27 40.10: 259n40 49: 150 52.11: 263n51 61.6: 256n30

Psalms 10.6: 255n6 35.7–8: 153n44

Jeremiah 5.21: 103 18.6: 97

1 Kings 10.18–19: 157n54

31.16: 110, 148, 230, 259n40 Lamentations 5.21: 184 Ezekiel 37.27: 263n51 Daniel 12.3: 227 Malachi 4.4: 246n5 Wisdom 5: 148 5.5: 252 9.14: 90 Sirach 1.10: 258 10.31: 6n6 12.2: 153n44 16.15: 6n6 17: 153 38.17: 6n6

New Testament Matthew 5.6: 153n44 5.1–12: 160–61, 196, 230

10.9: 221 12.33–37: 169n98 19: 150

19.21: 226 20: 150 20.1–16: 160, 164–66

303

304  Scripture Index Matthew (cont.) 22.37: 203, 226 23.34–35: 153n44 25.14–30: 160, 166–73, 188, 193, 195n179 25.31–46: 160, 173–77, 193, 195n179 26.75: 148n27 Luke 6.20–26: 146, 194, 195n176, 196 6.23: 148 6.35: 146n23 6.38: 146n23 8.5: 266n58 8.45: 146n23 10.35: 227 11.9–13: 146n23 12.16–21: 146n23 12.29–34: 146, 195n176 12.35–40: 146n23 13.6–9: 146n23, 189 13.22–30: 146n23 14.7–11: 146n23 14.12–14: 146, 193, 194 14.15–25: 146n23 16.1–9: 146n23 16.19: 146n23 18.28–30: 146, 154, 194, 195n178 18.35–43: 146n23 19.1–10: 146n23, 193, 195n178 19.11–27: 146, 158, 195n178 19.41: 148n27 20.35–36: 153n44 John 1: 177 1.11–12: 191n166, 195n179 1.12–13: 179n123, 183 1.14: 248n8 3.18: 173

4.14: 116 4.36: 183n140 4.37: 171 5.25–29: 183n140 5.29: 153n44 6: 156 10.1–10: 183n140 10.27: 254 14.1–10: 178–79, 183, 185–88, 195n179, 256, 275n86 14.15–24: 180–81, 194, 253 15.1–8: 175n114, 188–91, 209n29 15.12–17: 181, 183 16.20: 148n27 18.3: 248n8 Acts of the Apostles 5: 148 Romans 1.1: 248n8 2.5–10: 195n179 2.15–17: 257n32 4.4–5: 191n166, 195n179, 196n180, 249–52 5.1–5: 191n166, 193n175, 195n179, 252–53, 258 5.5: 130n131 6.22: 268n64 6.23: 184, 253–55, 276 7.25: 90 8.14: 250 8.15: 252, 265n57 8.18: 251n13 8.26: 90 8.29: 167 8.30: 174, 184, 273 10.10: 251n13 11.6: 117 11.33–36: 38n29 12.15: 148n27 14: 150

1 Corinthians 1.7–10: 245 2.9: 249 3.8: 165, 170n100, 186n150, 193n175 3.8–15: 256–60, 263 3.12–13: 189n161 7.15–10.33: 255n29 9.9–11: 255n29 9.16–18: 255n29 9.24–27: 255n29, 273 10.1–10: 255n29 11.23: 246n5 12.8–11: 92 13: 130n131 13.1–3: 195n179, 203 15.10: 175 2 Corinthians 3.5: 102 5.1–10: 195n179, 260–63 5.6: 166n83 6.11–18: 191n166, 265 9.1–7: 193n175, 265–67 9.6: 268n63 15.10: 188 Galatians 2.15–16: 267n62 5.19: 189n158 5.22–23: 267, 268n64 6.7–10: 28, 266, 267–68 Ephesians 1.3–6: 27, 191n166, 195n179, 269 1.14: 175 3.5: 165 3.12: 226n71 3.14–19: 12, 139, 146n24 6.7–8: 269n68 Philippians 2.12–13: 269n68 3.12–14: 26, 175n114,

  Scripture Index  305 226, 269, 272–73, 276n88 Colossians 3.23–25: 269n68, 269n69 1 Thessalonians 1.3–6: 269n68 3.13: 269n68 2 Thessalonians 1.6–8: 269n68 1 Timothy 1.12–17: 269n68 2.1: 273n79 3.1: 273n79 4.2: 273n79 4.8–16: 269n68 5.3: 273n79

5.17–18: 269n68 6.2: 273n79 6.4: 273n79 6.11–12: 269n68 6.17–19: 170n100, 269, 273–74 2 Timothy 2.2: 247n6 2.5–6: 269n68 2.8–16: 269n68 2.11–13: 186n150, 269, 274–75 4.6–8: 269, 275–77 4.14: 269n68 Titus 3.5: 153n44 3.6–7: 269n68

Hebrews 6.7–8: 269n69 10.32–36: 269n69 11.26: 269n69, 278n92 James 2.13: 153n44 1 Peter 12.15: 148n27 1 John 3.17: 163 Revelation 3.18: 258 20.6: 153n44

Ge n er a l I n de x Ge n er a l I n de x

Abraham, 4, 157n56, 164n76, 249, 250, 278 Adam, 40, 64n103, 67, 90n36, 164n76, 173 adoption, 116n96, 116, 188, 193, 248, 250, 252–53, 265, 269; and grace, 252–53, 266, 269; and predestination, 250, 265; and union with Christ, 188, 193–96, 248 acceptation, 42, 74, 157, 181, 244; acceptatio, 44, 46, 147, 232–43 acceptum facere, 42 affectibus mentis, 17 Albert the Great, 77, 159n61 Alexander IV, 78, 200 Alexander of Hales, 11n16, 29, 33n15, 39n31, 40n36, 47n53, 145n20 Anselm of Canterbury, 40n36, 59n90 Anti-Christ, 247 Anti-Massilian, 18, 34n16, 90, 91n38, 93n44, 118 Apostles’ Creed, 53 archetype, 22n48, 41n38, 65 Aristotle, 23n49, 82n14 Augustine, 1, 2, 3, 18n35, 23n49, 27, 28, 34n16, 38n29, 39n32, 48, 90–93, 103n63, 104n66, 109n80, 118, 120n108, 129n131, 140, 142n12, 143, 178, 179, 181, 183n138, 183n139, 187, 224n66, 268, 270 auxilium, 67, 84n20, 85–96, 100, 103, 106–10, 119, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131n135, 134, 135, 167, 174, 180, 185, 189, 235, 237, 239, 240, 242, 250, 264 Baglow, Christopher, 15n31, 141n10 Barnes, Corey, 99n55, 130n132, 237n9 Bartholomew of Spina, 160n65 beatitude, 17, 41, 51–52, 75, 82n16, 127n122, 131, 146–47, 159–64, 179, 186–90, 194,

195, 204, 220, 226, 228, 233n5, 240, 258, 263, 273n78; and cause, 175; and contemplation, 65–66; final, 81, 83n17, 99, 132n138, 136, 203, 208, 223, 236–37, 241n13, 275; God as end, 128; as guide, 216; and reward, 137, 144, 265; sensual, active, contemplative, 123–26; type of habit, 49; as virtue, 121, 217–19 Bedouelle, G., 77n1 Benson, Joshua, 139n2 Bérubé, Camille, 139n2  Bockmuehl, Markus, 249n10 Boethius, 72n124 Bonner, Gerald, 3n2 Bougerol, Jacques Guy, 18n36, 19n37, 20n42, 29n1, 31n7, 41n38, 59n90, 61n97, 144n19, 145n19, 177 Bouillard, Henri, 3n2, 10n15, 90n37, 107n72 Bowman, Leonard J., 22n47 Boyle, John, 182n136, 249n9 Boyle, Leonard, 78n4, 80n9 Bozitkovic, Georgius, 10n14 Burgess, Joseph A., 4n3 Burns, J. Patout, 3n2, 93n44 Burrell, David, 99n55 Brady, Ignatius, 30n3, 60n94, 61n95, 70n118, 145n20 Breen, Quinirius, 3n2 Brooke, Rosalind B., 60n92 Cain and Abel, 103 Cajetan, 79n8, 120n108 Calvin, John, 3 Canty, Aaron, 58n86 capax Dei, 58, 185, 231 Capreolus, 79n8

307

308  General Index Carpenter, Charles, 10n14, 41n38 causality, 100, 130n133, 234, 249; and election, 192n171, 271; final, 99; formal and efficient, 84n18, 92, 99, 105, 106, 130n133, 131n135, 190, 237, 240, 270–71; instrumental, 115, 127, 131, 137; and merit, 274; and predestination, 35, 39n32, 78–79, 101n59; primary and secondary, 128, 193; sacramental, 130n133; separated and conjoined, 131 Cessario, Romanus, 11n16, 78n6, 79n8, 83n17 charity: cooperative, 54; as effect of grace, 16–17, 21, 26–27, 45, 49n58, 50, 54, 67, 69, 87, 105, 109, 110, 113n89, 117–19, 126–29, 135, 137, 152–57, 167n86, 169n98, 170–76, 189–96, 198, 203, 205, 207–25, 227, 229, 239–40, 242n14, 253, 254, 257–58, 266, 270, 272, 273, 275, 278. See also love Chenu, M. D., 14n25, 80n9, 81n11, 83n17 Christ: ascension, 158, 166, 188; cross, 62–64, 73; passion, 63n102, 64, 70, 76, 131n135, 133–34, 145, 176n116, 177–79, 240, 261n44; resurrection, 145, 177, 252, 272; Sermon on the Mount, 52, 160n65, 161; Sermon on the Plain, 146–49; transfiguration, 57n86; Word, 20–25, 40n33, 67, 74–76, 116n96, 131n135, 154, 177, 182, 190, 205, 232, 241 Chrysostom, John, 150n35, 178 church, 22, 66, 70, 141n9, 157n56, 158n57, 164–65, 199, 205, 246–48, 269 Cicero, 181 Clement IV, 201 Colberg, Shawn, 18n36, 50n62, 61n98, 85n21, 92n43, 120n108 command, 5, 9n12, 69, 87–89, 96, 113, 119n104, 160, 180–82, 191, 203–11, 225–28, 239–40, 258; precept, 9, 54, 55n76, 87, 140n4, 204n18, 207n26, 208–25, 229. See also counsel; law concupiscence, 27n64, 50–51, 89, 124, 135, 151, 187, 209–10, 254. See also fomes peccati

conformity, 25n57, 42, 50, 51, 59, 67, 72, 153–56, 193–96, 208, 216, 218, 221–24, 228, 231–42; cruciformity, 61n96, 63, 73–74, 155, 223–24, 238 contemplation, 50–54, 61–76, 146, 215, 236, 239, 258. See also beatitude contrition, 47, 48 conversion, 2, 17–18, 37n26, 40n36, 45, 75, 88, 91, 92n42, 95–98, 102–9, 118n101, 119n106, 131, 132n138, 184, 231, 235, 237, 242. See also justification Council of Trent, 11n16, 37, 78 Cousins, Ewert, 22, 29n1, 61n97, 62n98, 66n107, 70n118, 206n23, 217n50, 219n54 credibile ut intelligibile, 13, 15, 59, 232 Cullen, Christopher, 23n49, 29n1 Daley, Mary Catherine, 249n9 David, 164n76 Davies, Brian, 26n61, 27n61, 82n14, 83n17, 126n122, 129n131 Davies, P. E., 5n4 debitum, 125n120, 126, 250; debitum caritatis, 267 Delio, Ilia, 10n14, 21n45, 24n55, 50n62 Deman, T., 107n72 desire, 150, 152–57, 189, 194, 208, 212n37, 218, 220, 230, 252–54, 258, 260–63; affectus, 49n60, 55n78, 63–64, 73, 74, 128, 141, 150, 151, 208, 220, 238, 239, 252; for God, 1, 21, 27n64, 51–55, 59, 62–74, 95n49, 109, 117, 124, 151, 179, 210, 225, 275, 278; of God, 35, 130n133, 203; intrinsic and extrinsic, 209; for repentance, 18, 235 Dettloff, Werner, 3n2, 241n12 Dionysius the Areopagite, 41 discipleship, 4, 181, 277 divine attributes: foreknowledge, 33–39, 102–6, 179, 271; goodness, 38–39, 53–58, 98–106, 113–14, 119, 127n122, 129, 146, 176, 192, 234, 241, 270–72; omniscience, 33; simplicity, 104n65, 186 divine counsel, 55n76, 113, 209, 210, 227. See also command

  General Index  309 divine ordination, 98, 112–17, 126, 131, 136, 147, 169, 175, 195, 232, 240–43, 250, 256–57, 268; ordinatio, 127n122, 160, 233–38 divine reward: acts of faith and love, 52; interim or final, 4, 54, 58, 59, 60, 66, 72, 73, 75, 113, 119n104, 120, 133–35, 146, 149, 150, 153, 180, 196, 205, 234–37, 238–40, 264–65; positive or negative, 4, 188; substantial, consubstantial, accidental, 58, 169 divinization, 13, 41–42, 116n96, 196; deification, 27, 41, 126, 156, 188, 206n23, 238, 242. See also sanctification Dominican, 11n16, 30n3, 77–78, 159n61, 199–225, 229, 266n58 Douie, Decima L., 30n3, 198n1, 199n3, 200n6, 201, 219n54, 219n55 Dreyer, Elizabeth A., 55n78, 63n100, 63n101 Dufeil, Michel-Marie, 199n1, 200n4 Duffy, Stephen, 8n11 Dulles, Avery, 2n1 Elders, Leo, 141n10 election, 48, 101n61, 102–6, 136, 150, 158, 165, 167, 188, 192n171, 195–96, 265, 270–73. See also predestination eternal life: ecstatic union, 61, 63, 66, 68n114, 73, 224, 236; final union, 47, 52, 54, 68, 92, 131–32, 196, 198, 234–36, 252, 277; spousal union, 21. See also beatitude exemplar, 50, 51, 56, 57, 67–68, 74, 81, 140, 156n51, 168, 195, 198, 206, 216, 223, 232, 244, 278; exemplarity, 22–25, 43, 44, 63, 72, 178, 193, 196, 205, 220, 221, 228–29, 236–38 exitus-reditus, 21, 31–32, 80, 83n17, 130n132 facienti: 36n25, 44n47, 45–46, 48, 74, 75, 167, 263; facienti quod in se est, 17–19, 91n38, 97, 98, 102 Falque, Emmanuel, 12n18, 139n2 fides formata, 109, 166n81, 189

Francis of Assisi, 24n55, 43n44, 60–61, 145n20, 155, 216–22, 224, 228, 233, 236, 238, 239n10; stigmata, 61n96, 216–17, 224, 236, 239n11; vir hierarchus, 43n44 Franciscan, 11n16, 33n15, 37n26, 39n31, 60–61, 200, 216n50, 217–29, 241n12 free will, 18, 35, 36, 42–48, 53–57, 81, 93n45, 94–98, 105, 107n61, 108–17, 175, 184–86, 190, 210–11, 255, 270, 276 friendship, 26, 129, 150n35, 181, 191–93 Gerard of Abbeville, 201–2, 205–7, 211–19 Gerson, Jean, 19n38 gift: and beatitude, 122–26; and grace, 40–47, 185, 231; and habit, 49, 189; and predestination, 103–5, 179; and reward, 7–10, 79, 97, 107–20 glory, 34–39, 46, 72, 103, 114, 133–36, 151–59, 174, 180–186, 248–52, 260–69, 275; final, 53, 120, 203, 213, 235, 256, 276n88; and grace, 58n87, 63, 271–74 Goris, Harm, 99n54, 101n59 grace: concursus, 18, 43, 46, 85, 239; divine concursus, 43, 85, 91, 239; elevating, 41, 86, 124; gratuitous, 40n36, 43–48, 52, 72, 91, 92, 156, 235, 242; habitual, 45, 49, 84n20, 85–89, 91–92, 94, 96, 99, 100, 105, 107, 110, 119, 125, 128, 134, 167, 184–85, 186, 189, 237, 239, 242, 266n60; healing, 41, 86–88, 96, 131; operative and cooperative, 46–47, 75, 91–98, 107, 110, 113, 114n90, 115–21, 124, 127–28, 136–37, 174, 185n144, 234–35, 237, 244, 251, 264, 277; prevenient, 46–47, 75, 92–94, 156, 195n177, 232, 250; sanctifying, 40–49, 53–58, 65–68, 72–74, 84, 91–93, 107n72, 149, 155–59, 179, 185, 206n23, 215, 231–33, 237–38, 242; subsequent, 34, 46–47, 75, 93–94, 185, 237 Grosseteste, Robert, 15n30, 140n6 habitus, 45, 49, 87, 114, 119, 135, 189, 232, 250 Hägglund, Bengt, 3n2 Hamm, Berndt, 3n2, 232n4, 241n12

310  General Index Hammond, Jay M., 29n2, 139n2, 200n4 Hayes, Zachary, 20n41, 20n42, 70n118 Healy, Nicholas, 141n9 heaven, 13n22, 26, 43, 67, 85n22, 90, 124, 129, 146, 148, 151–54, 166, 179, 204, 209, 220, 222, 226, 252, 274; beatific vision, 27, 205, 238, 270; heavenly homeland, 26, 46, 53, 56, 62, 123, 129–33, 150, 159, 162, 166n83, 196, 260, 261, 272; patria, 41; visio Dei, 17n33, 133 Hellman, Wayne, 10n14, 22n46, 25n57, 25n59 Herbst, Thomas J., 10n14, 24n53 Hinnebusch, William, 77n1 Hoehner, H. W., 9 Holder, Arthur, 61n97 Holme, Jeremy, 160n65 Holy Spirit, 2, 12, 40–55, 71, 74–75, 116, 127, 150, 158, 188, 253–62 Horst, Ulrich, 77n1 Hugh of Saint-Cher, 200n6 Hughes, Kevin, 198n1 Hurley, M., 50n62 illumination, 41n38, 42, 49–52, 58, 62–69, 73, 236 imago Dei, 44 imitation of Christ, 72, 84n18, 154n48, 194–95, 205–8, 217, 221, 254, 272 intellect: angelic, 23n51; divine, 34, 35, 39, 99n56, 106n70, 142n12, 241; human, 24n54, 33, 50n60, 50n62, 63n102, 84, 88n33, 90, 96, 109, 125, 238n10 ipsum esse, 83 Jerome, 220 Joachim of Fiore, 60 John of Damascus, 81 John of Gaietano, 200n6 John of la Rochelle, 29, 145n20 John of Parma, 60 John of Telleto, 200n6 Johnson, Mark F., 143n17 Johnson, Timothy, 219n54 Johnstone, Brian V., 81n11

Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, 2 Judas, 71, 180 judgment: Christ as Judge, 50n62, 56, 72, 104n66, 149n30, 156n52, 158, 159, 197, 259, 275; final judgment, 164–74, 243, 256; human judgment, 68 justification, 2–5, 9n12, 10n15, 11, 18, 27, 37n26, 39, 47–48, 96n49, 107–18, 173– 74, 184, 235, 239, 242, 249n9, 250–52, 263, 267, 278. See also conversion Karris, Robert, 51n65, 145n20, 150n33, 152n40, 177n121 Keating, Daniel, 255n29 Kerr, Fergus, 78n6 LaNave, Gregory, 69n116 Latin Vulgate, 6 latria, 198, 210, 211, 224, 239 law, 52, 87, 191, 203, 208, 217, 241n13, 246; debitum caritatis, 267; old and new, 54–55, 81n14, 131, 165, 250–52, 267–68; of sin, 90. See also command lectionem, disputationem, et praedicationem, 16, 78; preaching, 58, 145, 150, 158, 198–202, 213–15, 220, 266 Leget, Carlos, 130n132 Levering, Matthew, 90n37, 91n40, 101n59, 130n131 libri, 60–66, 233, 239 Lombard, Peter, 29, 31, 39n91, 93 Lonergan, Bernard, 3n2, 10n15, 84n18, 84n21, 93n45, 95n49, 100n57, 106n70 love. See charity Luther, Martin, 3, 8–9, 109n80 Luyten, Norbert A., 25n59 Lynn, William D., 116n96 Majchrzak, Colman J., 11n16 Maranesi, Pietro, 30n3 Marshall, Bruce, 182n136 Marthaler, Bernard, 10n14, 40n36 martyrdom, 58, 186n150, 227, 257, 274–78 massa damnata, 37

  General Index  311 McDonald, James, 9n12 McGinn, Bernard, 62n98 McGrath, Alister, 3n1, 11n17, 33–34, 39, 78n6 McGuckin, Terence, 141n10, 143n15 merces, 6n6, 7n7, 110, 254 merit: and beatitude, 121–26, 161–64; congruent and condign, 18, 36–37, 44–46, 92, 102, 115, 116, 195; and everlasting life, 87–88; and grace, 41–48; and justification, 106–18; and mendicancy, 208–23; and predestination, 33–39, 102–5, 179; and reward, 5–9, 52–56, 69, 110–20, 152, 172 merito, 110 missiones ad extra, 248n8, 269. See also Trinity Moorman, John R. H., 60n94 Monti, Dominic, 13n21, 19n38, 32n10, 47n53, 48n57, 145n20, 177n119 Moses, 4, 54, 55n76, 205, 246, 250, 278 Mt. Alverno, 61n96 munero, 7n7, 44 mystical body, 247, 248n8 Nairn, Thomas A., 63n100 nature: divine, 32, 37, 49, 53, 57–58, 64–65, 69, 116n96, 171, 186, 242n14, 271; and grace, 2, 4, 25–26, 40, 43–45, 49, 51, 52, 57, 68, 71, 74, 81–89, 96–100, 136, 162, 167, 174, 184–87, 190, 195, 203, 231, 251, 260–62; natural world, 23, 223; prelapsed and postlapsed, 86, 88, 89, 90n36. See also sin Nguyen Van Si, Ambrose, 62n98 Noah, 164n76 Oberman, Heiko, 3n2, 17n34, 37n26 O’Meara, Thomas, 83n17 O’Neill, C., 25n59 Origen, 169 Oro of Castro, 200n6 pact, 75n127, 194–95; pactum, 232–34, 244 Paul, 3, 26, 27, 28, 62, 73, 90, 91n40, 92,

129n131, 144n18, 187, 196n180, 203, 226, 245–79 Pelagian, 2, 102, 190, 271. See also Anti-Massilian Pesch, Hermann Otto, 3n2, 247n6 Peter, 154, 187, 201, 271 Peter of Scala, 160n65 Peter of Tarentaise, 245, 256n29 Peter the Chanter, 16n32 perfection, 42, 51, 55, 58, 66, 74, 98, 123, 125, 151, 162, 184–88, 196, 198–229, 243, 272, 276; formal, 237–38; interim and final, 26; intermediate and final, 207; relative, 204–5, 208, 215, 224, 237, 239; and sacraments, 132–34; and union with God, 236 perfectus/perfectione, 25 perseverance, 17n33, 89, 90n36, 91, 119–21, 135, 221, 265, 279 Pfurtner, Stephen, 3n2 poena, 7n7 pondus, 54, 89n34, 167 praemio/praemium, 6n7 prayer: honor and salvation, 55–56; and reward, 52–54, 75, 194, 240; and union with God, 63–67, 190 predestination: and grace, 46, 103, 136, 166–67, 172–77, 228, 244; and infallibility, 98, 106; propositum aeternum, temporalis gratificatio, aeterna glorificatio, 36; and reprobation, 101–3; and reward and merit, 32–39, 102, 104, 117, 120, 150–51, 157n56, 178–79, 187–88, 195, 270–73, 278. See also election; providence pretium, 6n7 principium, 117 Prosper of Aquitaine, 18n35 providence: and causality, 234; and divine counsel, 209; and grace, 38, 85, 167; and merit and reward, 55, 78–79, 98–100, 104, 113, 115; and predestination, 33, 34n15, 105–6, 120, 187, 193 Prügl, Thomas, 141, 142n11, 143n14, 143n17, 160n63, 163, 245n1 purgation, 41n38, 42, 51, 66, 68

312  General Index quaedam congruitas, 46–48, 235 Quinn, Jerome, 6n6, 7n8 Quinn, John F., 29n1, 31n7, 61n95 Raith, Charles, 3n2, 10n15 rationes aeternae, 20n40, 22, 232 Reddit, Paul, 7n9 reductio, 18–22, 24, 25n57, 41n38, 74, 76, 219, 228 Reginald of Piperno, 182, 245, 246n3 regula, 224 Reidl, John, 41n38 Reist, Thomas, 139n3, 140n5d, 145n20 remunero/remuneratio, 7n7 resurrected body, 57 revelation, 14–15, 19, 52, 79, 141–43, 196, 206, 225, 230–32, 240, 246–47, 277 Rezette, Jean P., 10n14 Roest, Bert, 150n33 Root, Michael, 121n109 Ruckert, Hanns, 37n26 Rusch, William G., 2 Sabra, George, 269n67 sacra doctrina, 13–16, 80, 138, 141, 230, 242n14 sacrament, 23n52, 28, 70–71, 130, 267n62, 268; baptism, 48, 131, 132n138, 134n135, 135, 137, 251n13; confession, 131, 132n138, 171n102, 199n3, 213, 214n43; confirmation, 131–37; eucharist, 121, 132, 240; extreme unction, 132, 137; holy orders, 132, 135; marriage, 132, 135, 209; penance, 96 sacra pagina, 12–16, 138 saints, 27, 32n9, 69, 91, 260, 262–65, 270 sanctification, 5, 28, 91, 92, 119, 254, 268n64, 270. See also divinization Schillebeeckx, Edward, 8n11, 37n26 Schlosser, Marianne, 11n16, 29n1, 30n5, 60n92, 145n20, 200n4 Scotus, John Duns, 3, 34n15, 232n4, 241n12 Seckler, Max, 91n38 senses of scripture: allegorical, tropological, anagogical, 140; literal, 142–43

Shanley, Brian, 100n57 Sherwin, Michael, 182n136 similitudinem, 24, 194; similitude, 44, 58–59, 61n96, 68, 73–74, 84n18, 232, 241 sin: corruption, 28, 57, 67, 86–88, 92, 131, 159, 171, 266–67, 275; effects of, 88, 90; fomes peccati, 89; mortal and venial, 134n146, 135; state of, 2, 17, 36n25, 45, 75, 86, 102, 107, 125, 131–35, 156, 174–76, 189, 228, 235, 251, 264 Smalley, Beryl, 160n63 Solomon, 157 Somme, Luc-Thomas, 116n96, 175n114, 176n116 Spezzano, Daria, 3n2, 116n96, 127n122, 175n114, 176n116, 188n156, 190n163, 238n10, 241n13, 242n14 stages of ascent, 65n105, 66, 258 status perfectionis, 202, 213, 223 Tavard, George, 23n53, 24n53, 50n62, 62n98, 139n3 temptation. See concupiscence terminus, 17, 63, 109, 115, 117, 118 Thompson, William, 10n14 Torrell, Jean-Pierre, 11n16, 77n2, 78n3, 78n4, 78n5, 79n8, 80n9, 81n14, 82n16, 90n37, 138, 144n18, 160n62, 160n64, 160n65, 161n66, 182, 199n1, 199n3, 214n43, 245n1, 245n2, 246, 248n8 transitus, 52, 62, 65, 68n114, 69n118, 73, 74 Trinity, 12n19, 19n38, 22, 24, 29, 32, 42, 49, 53, 58, 65, 66n107, 238n10, 248n8; external missions, 116, 188, 269n67. See also missiones ad extra Tugwell, Simon, 77n1 Valkenberg, Wilhelmus, 141n10 van der Ploeg, Paul, 141n10 Van Engen, John, 77n1 vestigia, 24n55; vestige, 24, 65–68, 241 viaticum, 132–34 Vicaire, Marie, 77n1 Vignaux, Paul, 3n2

  General Index  313 virtue: acquired, 86, 124n119, 249; action, 75, 82n16, 88, 96, 126, 147–48, 153, 158, 164, 161, 189, 193, 197, 215, 217, 228, 235, 239, 258, 277; infused, 12, 48, 53–55, 67, 86, 89, 93n45, 124, 165 Vosté, Jacques-Marie, 245n1 vows, 198, 202, 210–19, 233, 236 Walsh, Liam, 130n133 Wawrykow, Joseph, 3n2, 10n15, 17n34, n25, 84n20, 91n38, 95n49, 96n49, 107n72, 109n78, 109n80, 112n89, 119n106, 122n114, 130n132, 192n172, 224n66, 234n6, 241n13 Weisheipl, James A., 78n2, 78n3, 79n7, 79n8, 80n9, 142n13, 144n18, 159n61, 160n62, 199n1, 199n2, 201n8, 201n9, 201n11, 202n12, 214, 245n1

Wendel, François, 3n2 White, Kevin, 201n11 Wicks, Jared, 3n2 William of Auxerre, 47n53 William of Ockham, 232n4, 241n12 William of St. Amour, 30n3, 78, 199–202 Wippel, John, 84n18 works: and merit and reward, 87, 96, 115, 117, 136, 156, 193, 235, 255; exterior, 251; of charity, 45, 51, 175, 249; of justice and prayer, 54, 153, 159, 171, 250; of perfection, 212–13; supererogatory, 26, 207–8, 212n36, 213, 216, 224, 225–27, 272; temporal and spiritual, 259 Yocum, John P., 130n133 Zacchaeus, 146, 156–58, 218

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