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Beyond text to God: Bonaventure's transformation of exegetical method from his Breviloquium to Itinerarium mentis in Deum (1257–1259)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 April 2024
Abstract
In 1257, the election of Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (c. 1217–1274) as leader of the Franciscan Order thrust him from the regulated world of academia into the polarised world of the Order. In his Breviloquium, completed just after his transition from a scholastic to an administrative and pastoral role, exegesis was mainly a form of intellectual contemplation mediated by Scripture. In his Itinerarium mentis in Deum, completed in 1259, exegesis became a form of contemplative encounter with the textual origin, Christ. This transformation of exegetical method in response to changing contexts and audiences manifests a different way of relating to Scripture.
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References
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12 Bougerol, Introduction to the Works of Bonaventure, p. 123.
13 See John Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order: From its Origins to the Year 1517 (Oxford: OUP, 1968).
14 Jacopone da Todi, Jacopone da Todi: The Lauds, trans. Serge Hughes and Elizabeth Hughes (London: SPCK, 1982), p. 123; George T. Peck, The Fool of God: Jacopone da Todi (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1980), p. 102; Michael F. Cusato, ‘Who Destroyed Assisi?: The Lament of Jacopone da Todi’, in Patrick Zutshi and Michael Robson (eds), The Franciscan Order in the Medieval English Province and Beyond (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), pp. 229–54, esp. p. 245.
15 Emmanuel Falque, Saint Bonaventure and the Entrance of God into Theology, trans. Brian Lapsa and Sarah Horton (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2018), p. lviii; Dominic Monti, ‘Introduction’, in Breviloquium (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2005), p. xv.
16 Stephen F. Brown, ‘The Intellectual Context of Later Medieval Philosophy: Universities, Aristotle, Arts, Theology’, in John Marenbon (ed.), Medieval Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 133.
17 For Bonaventure as for Anselm, the divine Word as regulative idea gives the intrinsic connection between what is said and what is. Sigurd Baark, ‘Anselm: Platonism, Language and Truth in Proslogion’, Scottish Journal of Theology 63/4 (2010), pp. 382–4; Marcia L. Colish, The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 112–3; Jacques-Guy Bougerol, ‘The Church Fathers and Auctoritates in Scholastic Theology to Bonaventure’, in Irena Backus (ed.), The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West: From the Carolingians to the Maurists (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 319–22.
18 Bonaventure, Breviloquium, Opera omnia, 5:208: Quia vero theologia sermo est de Deo et de primo principio, utpote quia ipsa tanquam scientia et doctrina altissima omnia resolvit in Deum tanquam in principium primum et summum: ideo in assignatione rationum in omnibus, quae in hoc toto opusculo vel tractatulo continentur, conatus sum rationem sumere a primo principio, ut sic ostenderem, veritatem sacrae Scripturae esse a Deo, de Deo, secundum Deum et propter Deum, ut merito ista scientia appareat una esse et ordinata et theologia non immerito nuncupata. See also Bonaventure, Breviloquium, prol., s. 6, n. 5, pp. 22–3.
19 Stephen F. Brown, ‘The Theological Context: Reflections on the Method of Bonaventure's Breviloquium’, in Dominic Monti and Katherine Wrisley Shelby (eds), Bonaventure Revisited: Companion to the Breviloquium (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2017), p. 22.
20 Gillian R. Evans, The Language and Logic of the Bible: The Earlier Middle Ages (Cambridge: CUP, 1984), pp. 17–26, esp. p. 22.
21 Bonaventure, Breviloquium, pt. 2, ch. 12, n. 2, pp. 96–7; n. 5, p. 98; Also see Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De Sacramentis), trans. Roy Deferrari (Cambridge, MA: The Medieval Academy of America Publications, 1951).
22 Bonaventure, Breviloquium, Opera omnia, 5:230: Et quoniam creatura habere non potest Deum sicut principium, quin configuretur ei secundum unitatem, veritatem et bonitatem; nec Deum sicut obiectum, quin eum capiat per memoriam, intelligentiam et voluntatem; nec Deum sicut donum infusum, quin configuretur ei per fidem, spem et caritatem, seu triplicitem dotem. See also Bonaventure, Breviloquium, pt. 2, ch. 12, n. 3, p. 97.
23 Boyd Taylor Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, in Sarah Coakley and Charles M. Stang (eds), Re-thinking Dionysius the Areopagite (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011), pp. 85–102. For the mystical method of Gallus, widely considered the purest medieval representative of the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius, see Gallus, Thomas, ‘Extraction of the Celestial Hierarchy: Chapters I, II, XV’, in Scott, A. B., Minnis, A. J. and Wallace, David (eds), Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c.1100–c.1375: The Commentary-Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 173–92Google Scholar.
24 Bonaventure, Itinerarium, Opera omnia, 5:307: …per [Scripturam] docemur purgari, illuminari et perfici, et hoc secundum triplicem legem in ea traditam, scilicet naturae, Scripturae et gratiae; vel potius secundum triplicem eius partem principalem, legem scilicet Moysaicam purgantem, revelationem propheticam illustrantem et eruditionem evangelicam perficientem; vel potissimum secundum triplicem eius intelligentiam spiritualem: tropologicam quae purgat ad honestatem vitae; allegoricam, quae illuminat ad claritatem intelligentiae; anagogicam, quae perficit per excessus mentales et sapientiae perceptiones suavissimas… See also Bonaventure, The Soul's Journey into God, trans. Ewert Cousins (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1978), ch. 4, n. 6, p. 91.
25 Bonaventure, The Soul's Journey into God, ch. 4, n. 1–8, pp. 87–93, esp. n. 3–4, pp. 89–91.
26 In his Commentary on the Song of Songs, Bernard offers ‘three loaves’ of the biblical discourse on sapientia. The ‘first loaf’ – discursively embodied by Ecclesiastes – is ‘self-control’ which is an ‘antidote’ to ‘misguided love of the world’. This is the beginning of sapientia. The ‘second loaf’ – discursively embodied by Proverbs – is ‘enlightened reason’, which is an ‘antidote’ to ‘an excessive love of self’. This is the culmination of sapientia. The ‘third loaf’ – discursively embodied by the Song of Songs – is ‘endless union with God’. Turning from ‘human pursuits and worldly desires’ demands self-control; and purification of the soul demands discernment between good and evil. Breakthrough to greater intimacy in God is the natural consequence of the previous two steps. Bernard of Clairvaux, Cantica Canticorum: Eighty-Six Sermons on the Song of Songs, trans. Samuel J. Eales (London: Eliot Stock, 1895), homily 1, n. 2–3, 7–8. For Bonaventure's moral-psychological notion in comparison to Bernard's, see Delio, Ilia, ‘Bonaventure and Bernard: On Human Image and Mystical Union’, Cistercian Studies Quarterly 34/2 (1999), pp. 251–63Google Scholar. For Bonaventure's theological reliance on Bernard of Clairvaux, see Bougerol, ‘The Church Fathers and Auctoritates’, pp. 326–9.
27 Bonaventure, The Soul's Journey into God, ch. 1, n. 3, 61.
28 Buber, Martin, I and Thou, trans. Gregor, Ronald Smith (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2012)Google Scholar.
29 This notion has received relevant contemporary expression in Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, 5 vols., trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1988–1998). The original German text was completed in 1983.
30 Douay-Rheims Bible (London: Baronius Press, 2017); Douay-Rheims Bible. https://vulgate.org/.
31 This article is an expanded version of a paper presented at the Monash University Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies online seminar held on 5 August 2022. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Emeritus Prof Constant Mews, Prof Guy Geltner, Dr Kathleen Neal and Dr Matthew Beckmann, O.F.M. for their invaluable comments.