Saint Bonaventura, whose original name was Giovanni di Fidenza, was born
at Bagnaréa in Tuscany in 1221. At the age of four he was attacked by a
severe illness, during which his mother appealed to St. Francis for his
prayers, promising that if the child recovered, he should be devoted to
God and become one of Francis's followers. When the child did recover,
the saint, seeing him, exclaimed "O bona ventura!" a name which clung to
the boy ever afterwards, and under which he entered religion and the
order of St. Francis in 1243.
Soon after, he went to the then world-renowned university of Paris,
where he had for his teacher an Englishman, Alexander of Hales, the
first of the schoolmen who studied the whole of Aristotle's works, and
attempted to construct a Christian theology on the basis of them. Even
at this time the young Italian's life was so saintly that his master (so
it is reported) said of him that he seemed to have been born without the
taint of original sin. He graduated in the same year as Thomas Aquinas,
and immediately afterward began his career as a public teacher under the
auspices of the Franciscan order, while Thomas did the same under those
of the Dominican. These two men, the greatest of the schoolmen, and the
sweetest and sanest of the mystics, were bosom friends; and one can
hardly imagine a loftier friendship.
In 1256, at the early age of thirty-five, he became general of his
order, a post which he held till his death. He did much to ennoble and
purify the order, and to bring it back to orthodoxy, from which then, as
nearly always, it was strongly inclined to swerve. In 1265 Clement V.
nominated him to the see of York; but Bonaventura, unwilling probably to
face so rude a climate and people, persuaded the Pope to withdraw the
nomination. A few years later, under Gregory X., he was raised to the
cardinalate and appointed bishop of Albano. In 1274 he attended the
Council of Lyons, and must have been deeply affected when he learned
that Thomas Aquinas had died on his way thither. The success of the
efforts of the council to come to terms with the Greeks was mainly
due to him.
This was Bonaventura's last work on earth. He died before the council
was over, and was honored with a funeral whose solemnity and
magnificence have seldom been equaled. It was attended by the Pope, the
Eastern Emperor, the King of Aragon, the patriarchs of Antioch and
Constantinople, and a large number of bishops and priests. His relics
were preserved with much reverence by the Lyonnese until the sixteenth
century, when the Huguenots threw them into the Saône. In 1482 he was
canonized by Sixtus IV., and in 1588 declared a doctor of the Church by
Sixtus V. Dante places him in the Heaven of the Sun.
Bonaventura is the sweetest and tenderest of all the mediæval saints.
His mode of teaching was so inspiring that even in his lifetime he was
known as the "Seraphic Doctor." He was a voluminous writer, his works in
the Lyons edition of 1688 filling seven folio volumes. They consist
largely of sermons, and commentaries on the Scriptures and the
'Sentences' of Peter the Lombard. Besides these, there is a number of
'Opuscula,' mostly of a mystic or disciplinary tendency. Most famous
among these are the 'Breviloquium,' perhaps the best compend of mediæval
Christian theology in existence; and the 'Itinerarium Mentis in Deum,' a
complete manual of mysticism, such as was aspired to by the noblest of
the mystics; a work worthy to be placed beside the 'Imitation of
Christ,' though of a different sort.
Bonaventura was above all things a mystic; that is, he belonged to that
class of men, numerous in many ages, who, setting small store by the
world of appearance open to science, and even by science itself, seek by
asceticism, meditation, and contemplation to attain a vision of the
world of reality, and finally of the supreme reality, God himself. Such
mysticism is almost certainly derived from the far East; but so far as
Europe is concerned it owes its origin mainly to Plato, and his notion
of a world of ideas distinct from the real world, lying outside of all
mind, and attainable only by strict mental discipline. This notion,
simplified by Aristotle into the notion of a transcendent God, eternally
thinking himself, was developed into a hierarchic system of being by the
Neo-Platonists, Plotinus, Porphyry, etc., and from them passed into the
Christian Church, partly through Augustine and the Pseudo-Dionysius
Areopagita _(q.v.),_ and partly through the Muslim and Jewish thinkers
of later times. Though at first regarded with suspicion by the Western
Church, it was too closely interwoven with Latin Christianity, and too
germane to the spirit of monasticism, not to become popular. Its
influence was greatly strengthened by the mighty personality of that
prince of mystics, St. Bernard (1091-1153), from whom it passed on to
the monastery school of St. Victor in Paris, where it was worthily
represented by the two great names of Hugo (1096-1141) and Richard
(1100?-1173). From the writings of these, and from such works as the
'Liber de Causis,' recently introduced into Europe through the Muslim,
Bonaventura derived that mystical system which he elaborated in his
'Itinerarium' and other works.
A magnificent edition of his works is now being edited by the fathers of
the College of St. Bonaventura, at Quaracchi, near Florence (1882-).
There is a small, very handy edition of the 'Breviloquium' and
'Itinerarium' together, by Hefele (Tübingen, 1861).
[Illustration: signature]
ON THE BEHOLDING OF GOD IN HIS FOOTSTEPS IN THIS
SENSIBLE WORLD
But since, as regards the mirror of sensible things, we may contemplate
God not only through them as through footprints, but also in them in so
far as he is in them by essence, power, and presence,--and this
consideration is loftier than the preceding; therefore this kind of
consideration occupies the second place, as the second grade of
contemplation, whereby we must be guided to the contemplation of God in
all created things which enter our minds through the bodily senses.
We must observe, therefore, that this sensible world, which is called
the macrocosm--that is, the long world--enters into our soul, which is
called the microcosm--that is, the little world--through the gates of
the five senses, as regards the apprehension, delectation, and
distinction of these sensible things; which is manifest in this way:--In
the sensible world some things are generant, others are generated, and
others direct both these. Generant are the simple bodies; that is, the
celestial bodies and the four elements. For out of the elements, through
the power of light, reconciling the contrariety of elements in things
mixed, are generated and produced whatever things are generated and
produced by the operation of natural power. Generated are the bodies
composed of the elements, as minerals, vegetables, sensible things, and
human bodies. Directing both these and those are the spiritual
substances: whether altogether conjunct, like the souls of the brutes;
or separably conjunct, like rational souls; or altogether separate, like
the celestial spirits; which the philosophers call Intelligences, we
Angels. On these, according to the philosophers, it devolves to move the
heavenly bodies; and for this reason the administration of the universe
is ascribed to them, as receiving from the First Cause--that is,
God--that inflow of virtue which they pour forth again in relation to
the work of government, which has reference to the natural consistence
of things. But according to the theologians the direction of the
universe is ascribed to these same beings, as regards the works of
redemption, with respect to which they are called "ministering spirits,
sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit
salvation."
Man, therefore, who is called the lesser world, has five senses, like
five gates, through which the knowledge of all the things that are in
the sensible world enters into his soul. For through sight there enter
the sublime and luminous bodies and all other colored things; through
touch, solid and terrestrial bodies; through the three intermediate
senses, the intermediate bodies; through taste, the aqueous; through
hearing, the aërial; through smell, the vaporable, which have something
of the humid, something of the aërial, and something of the fiery or
hot, as is clear from the fumes that are liberated from spices. There
enter, therefore, through these doors not only the simple bodies, but
also the mixed bodies compounded of these. Seeing then that with sense
we perceive not only these particular sensibles--light, sound, odor,
savor, and the four primary qualities which touch apprehends--but also
the common sensibles--number, magnitude, figure, rest, and motion; and
seeing that everything which moves is moved by something else, and
certain things move and rest of themselves, as do the animals; in
apprehending through these five senses the motions of bodies, we are
guided to the knowledge of spiritual motions, as by an effect to the
knowledge of causes.
In the three classes of things, therefore, the whole of this sensible
world enters the human soul through apprehension. These external
sensible things are those which first enter into the soul through the
gates of the five senses. They enter, I say, not through their
substances, but through their similitudes, generated first in the
medium, and from the medium in the external organ, and from the external
organ in the internal organ, and from this in the apprehensive power;
and thus generation in the medium, and from the medium in the organ, and
the direction of the apprehensive power upon it, produce the
apprehension of all those things which the soul apprehends externally.
This apprehension, if it is directed to a proper object, is followed by
delight. The sense delights in the object perceived through its abstract
similitude, either by reason of its beauty, as in vision, or by reason
of its sweetness, as in smell and hearing, or by reason of its
healthfulness, as in taste and touch, properly speaking. But all delight
is by reason of proportion. But since species is the ground of form,
power, and action, according as it has reference to the principle from
which it emanates, the medium into which it passes, or the term upon
which it acts, therefore proportion is observed in three things. It is
observed in similitude, inasmuch as it forms the ground of species or
form, and so is called speciosity, because beauty is nothing but
numerical equality, or a certain disposition of parts accompanied with
sweetness of color. It is observed in so far as it forms the ground of
power or virtue, and thus is called sweetness, when the active virtue
does not disproportionally exceed the recipient virtue, because the
sense is depressed by extremes, and delighted by means. It is observed
in so far as it forms the ground of efficacy and impression, which is
proportional when the agent, in impressing, satisfies the need of the
patient, and this is to preserve and nourish it, as appears chiefly in
taste and touch. And thus we see how, by pleasure, external delightful
things enter through similitude into the soul, according to the
threefold method of delectation.
After this apprehension and delight there comes discernment, by which we
not only discern whether this thing be white or black (because this
alone belongs to the outer sense), and whether this thing be wholesome
or hurtful (because this belongs to the inner sense), but also discern
why this delights and give a reason therefor. And in this act we inquire
into the reason of the delight which is derived by the sense from the
object. This happens when we inquire into the reason of the beautiful,
the sweet, and the wholesome, and discover that it is a proportion of
equality. But a ratio of equality is the same in great things and in
small. It is not extended by dimensions; it does not enter into
succession, or pass with passing things; it is not altered by motions.
It abstracts therefore from place, time, and motion; and for this reason
it is immutable, uncircumscribable, interminable, and altogether
spiritual. Discernment, then, is an action which, by purifying and
abstracting, makes the sensible species, sensibly received through the
senses, enter into the intellective power. And thus the whole of this
world enters into the human soul by the gates of the five senses,
according to the three aforesaid activities.
All these things are footprints, in which we may behold our God. For,
since an apprehended species is a similitude generated in a medium and
then impressed upon the organ, and through that impression leads to the
knowledge of its principle,--that is, of its object,--it manifestly
implies that that eternal light generates from itself a similitude or
splendor co-equal, consubstantial, and co-eternal; and that He who is
the image and similitude of the invisible God, and the splendor of the
glory, and the figure of the substance which is everywhere, generates by
his first generation of himself his own similitude in the form of an
object in the entire medium, unites himself by the grace of union to the
individual of rational nature, as a species to a bodily organ, so that
by this union he may lead us back to the Father as the fontal principle
and object. If therefore all cognizable things generate species of
themselves, they clearly proclaim that in them, as in mirrors, may be
seen the eternal generation of the Word, the Image, and the Son,
eternally emanating from God the Father....
Since therefore all things are beautiful, and in a certain way
delightful, and since beauty and delight are inseparable from
proportion, and proportion is primarily in numbers, all things must of
necessity be full of number. For this reason, number is the chief
exemplar in the mind of the artificer, and in things the chief footprint
leading to wisdom. Since this is most manifest to all and most close to
God, it leads us most closely and by seven differences to God, and makes
him known in all things, corporeal and sensible. And while we apprehend
numerical things, we delight in numerical proportions, and judge
irrefragably by the laws of these....
For every creature is by nature an effigy and similitude of that eternal
Wisdom: but especially so is that creature which in the book of
Scriptures was assumed by the spirit of prophecy for the prefiguration
of spiritual things; more especially those creatures in whose effigy God
was willing to appear for the angelic ministry; and most especially that
creature which he was willing to set forth as a sign, and which plays
the part not only of a sign, as that word is commonly used, but also of
a sacrament.