Introduction

St. Bonaventure (1217–1274) is in many ways the most influential theologian of the Franciscan order. As a young man, he wrote admired works of technical scholastic theology, including an influential Sentences commentary. In his later years he turned increasingly to popular and highly innovative treatises defending a conservative Augustinian perspective. He was, in all respects, one of the leading public intellectuals of his day.

This beautiful sermon reveals a different side of medieval philosophy. Here Bonaventure addresses a university audience, but in the form of a sermon rather than a classroom lecture or debate. Because his audience is highly educated, the argument of the sermon moves on an elevated plane. But because of the religious context, Bonaventure pays more attention to exhortation than to analysis.

Still, this is a substantive philosophical text, and provides a useful introduction to the distinctive character of Bonaventure's philosophical theological thought. The topic of the sermon is a verse from Matthew in which Jesus says that Christ is our one master or teacher (magister in Latin). The verse is particularly apt for a university audience, because magister was the very word used to refer to university professors such as Bonaventure himself. In developing his theme, Bonaventure spells out the place of divine illumination in faith, reason, and spiritual contemplation (2–14), and then goes on to address how this sort of Augustinian account is compatible with Aristotelian empiricism (18). The second half of the sermon spells out our duties to Christ (20–23) and the special duties of those that teach in Christ's name (24–28).

On the theory of divine illumination, see CHLMP VI.21, “Faith, ideas, illumination, and experience,” and Pasnau (1999a).