Out of this rich corpus of writings, it was necessary to make a choice for inclusion in the present volume. In some respects the choice was obvious and in others, problematic. It would be natural to choose writings of the middle period, for these are distinctively spiritual and represent a specifically Franciscan quality. Yet it would not be out of the question to consider publishing the
Lectures on the Six Days of Creation
because these represent the mature flowering of Bonaventure's thought.However, these constitute a volume in themselves and would prevent including other significant material. Furthermore, they
25. Apologia pauperum (VI II, 2 3 3-3 30); Collationes tk decem praeceptis (V, 507-532); Col
lationes de septetn donis Spiritus Sancti (V, 457-503); Collationes in Hexaemeron (V, 3 29-449).
are permeated more with the mood of speculative controversy than with that of the spiritual journey. Another possibility that suggested itself was a selection from the sermons; but in keeping with the goals of The Classics of Western Spirituality, it seemed more appropriate to select longer complete works where avail
able. I have, then, made my selection from the middle period, and in so doing have chosen according to two criteria: ( 1 ) works that clearly qualify as classics both because of their content and because they have been acknowledged as such by their accep
tance and influence; {2) works which taken together present an integral picture of the essence of Franciscan spirituality as Bonaventure perceived it.
I believe that the three works chosen meet these criteria.
The most obvious choice was
The Soul's journey into God,
which is considered Bonaventure's masterpiece. It is an extraordinarily densesumma
of medieval Christian spirituality, which was widely disseminated during the Middle Ages and is the most widely read of Bonaventure's works at the present time. The second selection,The Tree of Life,
a meditation on the life of Christ, is a gem of Christian devotional literature, imbued with deep feeling and intellectual power without the sentimentality and flights of fancy that characterized much of the later writings in the same genre, for example, the Pseudo-Bonaventurian Meditations on the Life of Christ. 26
Unfortunately not as influential as this latter work, Bonaventure'sThe Tree of Life
was widely read as the manuscript tradition indicates. It had a significant influence on the 14th century, for example on Ubertino di Casale, who adopted its main theme and even certain details in his version of the Tree of Life which he wrote on Mount La Verna in 1 305 . In addition, Bonaventure'sThe Tree of Life
stimulated a rich tradition in the visual arts.
27
The third selection, Bonaventure's26. Meditationes vitae Christi in Sancti Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, ed. A. C. Peltier, vol.
XII (Paris: Vives, 1 868).
27. Cf. P. Gerlach inS. Bonaventura 1274-1974, vol. I, pp. 6-9, and Francesco Petrangeli Papini, ibid. , 30-48.
1 2
longer biography of Francis, is a masterful work of spiritual biography. Because it was adopted as the official biography in the Franciscan Order, its influence was extensive, as we will see later. However, in recent times it has fallen under severe criti
cism, which I will have to take into account, when I comment on the work, in order to j ustify my choice.
In making the final selection, I attempted to meet the second criterion: to choose works which taken together present an integral picture of the essence of Franciscan spirituality as Bonaventure perceived it.
The Soul's Journey into God
expresses the Franciscan awareness of the presence of God in creation: the physical universe and the soul are seen as mirrors reflecting God and as rungs in a ladder leading to God . Bonaventure expresses here, in his own way, Francis's joy in the sacrality and sacramentality of creation and, in so doing, captures an essential element in Franciscan spirituality. Basic though this element is, it would not be complete without its flowering in devotion to the humanity of Christ. There is a natural link between the Franciscan attitude toward material creation, as sacramentally manifesting God, and the Franciscan devotion to the incarna
tion as the fulness of this manifestation.
While
The Soul's Journey
contains significant Christo logical material, the emphasis is on the mystical Christ, who as the crucified figure in the midst of the Seraph's wings is the gateway and door into mystical consciousness. Christ is also presented as the Bridegroom united to the soul in the embrace of love, and the God-man-the remarkable coincidence of opposites- who draws us into the wonder of contemplation and ultimately into the darkness of unknowing. InThe Soul's Journey
we do not find the human Christ, the historical Jesus as described in the Gospels, who was born humble and poor in a manger, who wan
dered about preaching and healing, who suffered and died on Calvary, with his body bleeding and broken -not only to re
deem mankind, but to give, at every step of the way, an example of virtue to be imitated. This picture, however, is presented in
The Tree of Life,
where Bonaventure meditates on Christ in the concrete details of his life as a man. InThe Soul's Journey
Bonaventure evokes the mystical affections of desire, longing, wonder and joy; he sighs for the Bridegroom and loses himself in wonder at the mystery of the God-man. InThe Tree ofLife,
on the other hand, he elicits our tender love for the infant in the crib, our admiration at Jesus' humility and obedience, our compassion for his suffering. With delicacy and power he calls forth that complex cluster of human sentiments which the Middle Ages cultivated in compassion for the suffering Savior and which flowered in the great pietas of Michelangelo. Yet in these two works we do not have two radically different Christologies, but one. In
The Tree of Life
Bonaventure situates his meditation on the humanity of Christ within the context of his speculative theology of the Trinity, thus making the link with the mystical Christ ofThe Soul's journey.
In his different treatises Bonaventure meditates on the mystery of Christ in the book of the soul, the book of creation and the book of Scripture. It is true that he did not produce a single book himself in which these diverse meditations were fully expressed and integrated extensively into an organic whole. In part we hope to supply such a synthesis by publishing the two works together in this present volume and urging the reader to see them as complementary expressions of Bonaventure's Christology .
The picture of Franciscan spirituality would not be com
plete without Francis himself. Just as one enters into the fulness of the mystery of Christ by meditating on his humanity and by imitating his virtues, so the Franciscan imitates Christ by fol
lowing the example of Francis. For in the Middle Ages Francis was looked upon as the one who most closely imitated Christ.
He had grasped the secret of Gospel simplicity; he had followed Christ in complete poverty; throughout his life he entered more deeply into the mystery of the cross until toward the end God gave a miraculous approbation of his conformity to Christ in the gift of the stigmata. The Franciscan spiritual journey, then,
14
takes its point of departure from Francis, proceeding from Fran
cis to the humanity of Christ and through this into the sacramen
tal cosmos, the mystical marriage and the divine darkness of ecstasy . It was imperative, then, to include the life of Francis in the present volume, especially since Bonaventure's biography is an interpretation of Francis as the model of the spiritual journey in the light of Bonaventure's spiritual and speculative theology.
In
The Soul's journey
Francis is presented as the example of one who has attained the height of the mystical ascent, j ust as Christ is presented there in his mystical dimension.The Life of St.
Francis,
however, parallelsThe Tree of Life
in its focus on the concrete historical details of a human life.The Life of St. Francis
andThe Tree of Life
are treatises on the life of Christian virtue which leads ultimately to the spiritual ascent ofThe Soul's jour
ney.
In each treatise there is a movement from the lowest to the highest, through a threefold dynamic of purgation, illumination and perfection. Although Bonaventure did not write a single treatise integrating the contents of these three works (perhaps no genre of writings can contain such complexity), nevertheless by seeing these classics in interrelation, the reader can obtain an integral view of the richness of Bonaventure's Franciscan spirituality. Thus by including all three pieces in this volume, we hope to give a comprehensive picture of Franciscan spirituality according to Bonaventure. There were many reasons for placing
The Soul's journey
first in this volume, chiefly because it is his best known work and because it gives a compact picture of this total theological vision and so can provide an overview for the other two works. However, from the standpoint of the Franciscan spiritual journey, in its total ambit, one could best begin withThe Life of St. Francis,
then proceed toThe Tree of Life
and then toThe Soul's Journey.
In selecting one of Bonaventure's two biographies of Fran
cis, I have chosen the
Legenda maior,
or longer biography, rather than theLegenda minor,
since the former contains a fuller exposition of Francis's life and Bonaventure's spiritual theology .
How-ever I have omitted Bonaventure's lengthy account of the mira
cles that occurred after Francis's death, which accompanies the
Legenda maior.
If there were one addition I would like to make, it would be
The Triple Way.
It certainly qualifies as a classic since it contains one of the most significant studies of the three stages of spiritual development-purgation, illumination and perfection (or union)-which were in the Middle Ages derived from the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius and which have become accepted in Western spirituality as the classical way of formulating the dynamics of spiritual growth. Limits of space led to the decision not to include it in the present volume. However, the theme is treated explicitly in
The Soul's Journey
and in the biography of Francis, and implicitly inThe Tree of Life.
All three of these pieces exemplify the dynamics spelled out systematically inThe Triple Way.
I suggest, then, that the reader supplement the treatment here by a careful reading of that treatise. 2 8STRUCTURE OF BONA VENTURE'S THOUGHT Scholastic thought in the Middle Ages has been compared to a Gothic cathedral, especially in the architectonic form it took in the great
summae .
This comparison is particularly apt in the case of Bonaventure's spirituality, for he provides an overarching structure for the elements of the Christian spiritual tradition.
If we were to apply the comparison, we could see that his theology and philosophy provide the equivalent of this struc
ture, especially his treatment of the Trinity, creation and Chris
tology. This theological speculation is comparable to the nave, towers and apse of the Gothic cathedral. More specifically, the movement of the stone as it reaches up toward heaven reflects the ascent through creation which Bonaventure describes in
The
28. Cf. the translation by Jose de Vinck in The Works of Bonavwtrm, vol. I (Paterson, N.J . : St. Anthony Guild Press, 1960), pp. 61 -94.
1 6
Soul's Journey ,
and the light streaming through the stained glass windows reflects the downward movement of God expressing himself in the variety of creatures and in his gifts of grace. The crossing of the axes of the design at the center, where the nave and the transepts intersect, suggests the cross of Christ, and together with the focus of the eye on the altar, suggests the convergence of all creation on Christ the center, which is a major theme in Bonaventure's later writing. All of these themes are developed inThe Soul's Journey ,
as we will see shortly.In addition to its superstructure, which reflects a cosmic design, the Gothic cathedral also contains a historical dimen
sion. Depicted in sculpture on the portals, as well as in the stained glass windows, is the history of salvation from the creation of the world, through the drama of sin and redemption, from the kings and prophets of the Old Testament to the saints of the New and the later history ofthe Church, finally to the last judgment, which was usually depicted on the west portal at the entrance of the cathedral. Bonaventure's meditation on the life of Christ in
The Tree of Life
and his biography of Francis correspond to this historical dimension . By progressing along the various stages of the spiritual journey described in these three treatises, the reader enters ever more deeply into the cathedral, as it were, from its outer portals of salvation history to its inner focus on the altar and then from the altar up to God . In fact, this is the very image used by Bonaventure in the latter part of
The Soul'sJourney ,
where the reader proceeds through the symbol of the tabernacle or temple ever more deeply into the holy of holies, where he perceives Christ symbolized by the Mercy Seat. In meditating on Christ as the greatest coincidence of opposites, one is drawn up like Francis to the heights of union with God.29
Bonaventure's meditation on Christ at the center of the holy of holies reveals the logic of the coincidence of opposites, which, I have argued, permeates all of his thought: his philosophy,29. Cf. III, I; V, I, pp. 79-80, 94.
theology and spirituality.
30
Bonaventure sees in Christ, marvelously united, "the first and the last, the highest and the lowest, the circumference and the center,
the Alpha and the Omega ,
the caused and the cause, the Creator and the creature."31
Throughout chapters five to seven ofThe Soul's journey
Bonaventure contemplates the coincidence of opposites in God as Being, in the Trinity as the self-diffusive Good and in Christ as the union of the divine and the human. Then with Christ crucified we move through death to life, from the limits of the finite to the vastness of eternity. Expressed here in a concentrated form, the coincidence of opposites is found, I believe, throughout his thought and can be seen graphically in his interpretation of Francis as the humble, simple poor man who is wondrously exalted by God. As we proceed now in our more detailed analysis of the three treatises, we will see further examples of the coincidence of opposites reflecting the architectonic structure of his thought as a whole .
THE SOUL'S JOURNEY INTO GOD
Circumstances of Composition
The immediate circumstances of the composition of
The Soul's journey into God
are told by Bonaventure himself in his prologue. He received his inspiration for the treatise while meditating on Francis's vision of the six-winged Seraph on Mount La Verna in Tuscany at the very site where Francis had the vision and received the stigmata some thirty-five years before. The time was late September or early October 1 259, as
30. Cf. Ewert H. Cousins, "The Coincidence of Opposites in the Christo logy of Saint Bonaventure," Franciscan Studies 28 (1968): 27-45; idem, " La 'Coincidentia Oppositorum' dans Ia theologie de Bonaventure," Etudes franciscaines 18 (Supplement annuel, 1968): 1 5-3 1 ; idem,
" Bonaventure, the Coincidence of Opposites and Nicholas of Cusa," in Studies Honoring Ig
natius Charles Brady, Friar Minor, (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 1976), pp.
177-197; cf. also idem, Bonaventure and the Coincidence of Opposites (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, in press).
3 1 . VI, 7, p. 1 08.
1 8
Bonaventure says : "It happened that about the thirty-third an
niversary of the Saint's death, under divine impulse, I withdrew to Mount La Verna seeking a place of quiet and desiring to find there peace of spirit.
"32
At the time of this visit Bonaventure was forty-two years old and had been for two years minister general of the Franciscan Order. In the prologue he refers both to his office as general and to his desire to seek peace: "Following the example of our most blessed father Francis, I was seeking this peace with panting spirit -1 a sinner and utterly unworthy who after our blessed father's death had become the seventh Minister General of the Friars."33
Through these statements, the reader can detect in Bonaventure a sense of the burden of administration and the tensions within the Order. His very election to the generalate two years before grew out of these tensions since his predecessor John of Parma was bidden to resign because of controversy.
The setting and Bonaventure's own observations indicate that he was also searching out his Franciscan roots, for he went to meditate on the holy mountain of La Verna, which is one of the most venerated Franciscan shrines. It was here in 1 2 24 that Francis had the climactic vision of his life -the apparition of the six-winged Seraph in the form of the Crucified, which left the marks of Christ's passion in his hands, feet and side . He bore these marks in his body during the last two years of his life as a sign of God's final seal on the man who was accounted as the closest imitator of Christ. Here in this setting Bonaventure could search more deeply into Francis's ideal, both for his own life and for guiding the Order in its difficult attempt to embody this ideal.