Bernard’s eight unities; one form of membership, predestination

And these things our abbot did to teach us to hold the mean of virtue in our works. And from Ethics II, the extremes that deviate from that mean in which virtue consists corrupt virtue;¹ nor do I see why, if mathematical quantity makes the elements continuous, if watery humour makes things continuous with their kin, if the harmony of an animal body makes the members grown on it to be continuous, the breadth, length, height and depth (of which the apostle speaks, Ephesians 3:18) should not, as it were far more, make those of one mind truly one.² That "water of wisdom" too (of which Ecclesiasticus 15:3 [speaks]) will make continuous [those] "of one manner in a house"; and finally the harmony founded in the Trinity, flowing into the universal churchecclesia: church, will make it, joined together of members, one bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom.³ 109Hence Bernard, On Consideration, book 5, to Popepapa: pope Eugenius, sets out eight modes of unity. "There is," he says, "a unity that can be called collective, as many stones make one heap. There is a constitutive unity, when many members constitute one body, or many parts any one whole. There is also a conjugal [unity], by which it comes about that two are no longer two, but one flesh. There is also a native [unity], by which soul and flesh are born one man.⁴ There is a potestative unity, by which a man of virtue strives always to be found not unstable, not unlike himself, but one with himself. There is a consentient [unity], when through charitycaritas: charity many men have one heart and one soul. There is also a votive [unity], when the soul, cleaving to God with all its desires, is one spirit [with him]. And there is a condescending unity, by which our clay was assumed by the Word of God into one person."⁵ And above these eight unities he says in a certain sermon that there is a principal unity, by which the three divine persons are one indivisible essence.⁶ And so every unity can be called supernatural, natural or virtual. The two latter members admit manifold divisions; and since there is no contradiction in equivocal [terms], it is clear that it is not repugnant that the body of the church is not continuous, speaking of natural, perceptiblesensibilis: perceptible continuity, since each quantitative part of it, complete in act, is not so continuous with another that naturally does not communicate [with it]; and yet it is continuous by another, spiritual continuity, stronger, through the Spirit of God poured forth in the hearts of all the members of the church, who have all things in common.⁷ Fourthly and principally, it is argued, by appeal toarguitur per: it is argued by appeal to this: that for a univocal account of the church there is required a univocal account of its 110parts; now there is no such univocity in those who are pilgrimspars peregrinans; peregrinari: the pilgrim part; to be a pilgrim, the sleeping and the blessed. Therefore they do not univocally constitute Christ’s holy mother church, which cannot be called heterogeneous; for if faith is posited as the form constituting a member of the church, it seems that the blessed, in whom is clear vision, faith being done away, are not of the members of the church; if charity, still the charity of the homelandvia / patria: the way / the homeland and the charity of the wayvia / patria: the way / the homeland are of disparate accounts.⁸

But here the answer isdicitur multipliciter: is said in many ways (as above) that the exemplar form, eternally forming from without any member of the church, is God’s eternal predestination. And the form constituting a member of the church of itself and from within is passive predestination. For it cannot be present multiplicatively unless the church is there. And so every predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]") [person] has faith formedfides formata / informis: formed faith / unformed faith by the charity of predestination, according to which the church, or its member, is constituted. And so the account is univocal in anyone who is to be saved.⁹

Hence, just as the growth and progress of a person does not vary his species (for so a man, according to the variations of his ages, would pass from species to species), so the age of the person of holy mother church does not vary its species, but strengthens by accident the account of the church. Indeed, the same faith remains in the world, in purgatory and in heaven. But the imperfection that is "in part" here will be done away in the blessed; there will remain, I say, the same faith which is believed, since it is eternal truth; and there will remain the same faith by which and according to which [one] believes, since the same acts and habits will remain. For the first adhesion which the creature has to the truth to be believed is the act of faith, to which, for the way, there befalls an enigmatic obscurity, which is done away in the homeland when clear intuition comes; and charity [remains] the same, having in the homeland confirmation in place of uncertainty.¹⁰ 111And there is disagreement among our doctors, in that some understand faith aggregativelyaggregative: aggregatively, for the first adhesion together with the imperfection that follows; but others understand faith personally, for that adhesion in which intuition or enigma is present by accident. Now that first adhesion, preceding reason, is of the same account here and in the homeland, but stronger there (as I have expounded at length elsewhere).¹¹ And so all the predestinate continually have faith formed by the grace of predestination, and so [such a one] does not fall from the members of the church through mortal [sin], as is clear from On Christian Doctrine III, 32, and the letter 33 to Boniface. He explains this of David and Peter; and of David he explains it in the book On Eight Questions to his friend Dulcitius;¹² and the reason of all these is that God cannot love or hate anyone newly, but under whatever degree he loves or hates someone, under the same degree he eternally so loves or hates. Nor is it detestable that God always hates the blessed in heaven, for he always hates their past sins, [though] not for always; therefore he always loves them for everlasting glorification.¹³ Hence the church excommunicates such [persons] when, while they are in mortal [sin], it makes known that they are deprived of the communion of saints according to present justice, since the flowing moisture fails them for a time; but it never anathematizes such, or wholly divides [them] from the body of Christ, nor can it. And this is for the most part the teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence of Augustine, if it is looked at well, not with guile.¹⁴ And it is clear, from the solution of the last argument and of this one, how the saints are to be understood, Isidore, On the Highest Good, 112chapter 19, and Augustine, letter 33 to Boniface, [when they say] that the church of the faithful is spread everywhere, but the church of the heretics is confined in a small corner. For the predestinate spread their fruits after the manner of heavenly things; but the others, although they are on this side more in number, are confined after the manner of earthly things. For Christ, headcaput: head of the former church, which the second must serve, is mightier than the father of lies, whom he thus binds; that is, he thus confines him in hardshippenaliter: in hardship in his members.¹⁵