Gabriel Biel

English

In the present distinction the Master treats of the manner of the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit. And the sense of the text can be summarised in these conclusions.

First conclusion. The Holy Spirit is said to be given or sent to us when he makes us love God and neighbour, by which we remain in God and God in us.

Second conclusion. The Holy Spirit is the charity and the love by which we love God. Now if this is understood formally, it does not hold. If effectively, it is true — because he it is who infuses the habit of charity. If it is understood of the uncreated charity that is simply necessary for salvation and for loving God, then again it can be saved.

Third conclusion. Charity is said to be increased, even though the Holy Spirit in himself is neither increased nor diminished. See the text at greater length.

Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by · published at bonaventure.wrootpress.com. This page quotes it; that is its home.

Latin

Gabriel Biel, Collectorium circa quattuor libros Sententiarum I d.17, littera, in Commentarij doctissimi in 4. Sententiarum libros, Brescia: Petrus Bozola, 1574, p. 200, leaf n295 (archive.org bub_gb_BBOVAlqWQBUC) · pd

Notes

Three hundred and thirty years after Lombard, the distinction is no longer disputed but summarised — and the whole crux is settled in a subordinate clause. Biel reduces the littera to three conclusions and disposes of the second with a distinction: formaliter non tenetur, effective verum est, quia ipse infundit habitum charitatis. What Bonaventure and Thomas argued at the length of a disputed question, Biel decides in eleven words before the question proper has begun. The nearest thing on this page to the divisio's function on the Franciscan bench, and the reason it is rostered.

Threads

• ← parallel · John Capreolus
  The same distinction settles the question for both benches, sixty years apart, with no citation between them. Capreolus, defending the created habit: Spiritus Sanctus facit hominem dignum vita aeterna effective, sed gratia habitualis vel charitas facit hominem dignum formaliter. Biel, explaining away the Master's thesis: quod si intelligitur formaliter, non tenetur; si effective, verum est, quia ipse infundit habitum charitatis. By the fifteenth century the formaliter/effective couple is common property, and the benches disagree about what to do with it rather than about whether it holds.
• → parallel · Thomas Aquinas
  Biel disposes of the Master's sentence with the same couple, and uses it the other way — not to explain what charity does to the soul but to say in what sense Lombard was right: Spiritussanctus charitas est et amor quo nos diligimus deum. Quod si intelligitur formaliter, non tenetur. Si effective, verum est: quia ipse infundit habitum charitatis. Read beside Thomas's per modum efficientis … sed solum formaliter, the whole later argument is a redeployment of one thirteenth-century reply to a fourth objection. Neither names the other.
• → transmits · Bonaventure
  Biel's first conclusion keeps the Master's account of the indwelling itself while the second gives away his account of charity: tunc spiritussanctus dari vel mitti dicitur nobis, cum nos facit diligere deum et proximum, per quod manemus in deo et deus in nobis. The mission is still known by the love it produces; only the identification is dropped.
• → contests · Bonaventure
  The end of the story, and it is not a refutation but a summary. Three hundred and thirty years after Lombard, Biel reduces the distinction to three conclusions and settles the crux inside one of them: quod si intelligitur formaliter, non tenetur; si effective, verum est, quia ipse infundit habitum charitatis. Nothing is argued. The Master's sentence is kept, in a sense he did not mean, on the way to the question Biel actually wants to ask.
• → contests · Bonaventure
  The whole crux disposed of in a subordinate clause, in the summary of the littera before the question has begun: Spiritussanctus charitas est et amor quo nos diligimus deum. Quod si intelligitur formaliter, non tenetur. Si effective, verum est: quia ipse infundit habitum charitatis. Drawn to the divisio, which is the witness carrying Lombard's own text and division on this page, as the other summaries of the littera are.