Bonaventure

« an advanced theology student, he lectured on the Bible (1248-50) and the Sentences of Peter Lombard (1250-2). From 1253 to 1257, when he resigned his position to serve as minister general of the Franciscan Order, Bonaventure was regent master of the Franciscan school at Paris.

Works composed during this period include the disputed questions De scientia Christi (Concerning Christ's Knowledge) and De mysterio Trinitatis (On the Mystery of the Trinity) .

The Breviloquium , a highly condensed summary of theology for beginners, probably dates from around 1257. The Franciscans were badly divided when Bonaventure became the Order's head.

Many believed that the prophecies of Joachim of Fiore concerning a new, spiritual age of history were to be fulfilled by drastic institutional changes and commitment to the life of wandering mendicancy exemplified by St Francis.

Though Joachim's teachings influenced Bonaventure's view of history, he himself thought that only a chosen few were suited to live as St Francis did: the time had not yet come for the transformation of the world.

Bonaventure did his best to control the extremists, give the order a firmer institutional structure and articulate an understanding of Franciscan poverty compatible with university study and teaching. Bonaventure's struggles as minister general often receive only passing mention in philosophical accounts of his work, and his conflicts with heterodox masters of arts at Paris naturally appear to have greater philosophical import.

However, the emphasis on the latter tends to conceal one of the most serious dilemmas Bonaventure faced. As he opposed the cult of Aristotle at Paris, so he opposed the cult of apocalyptic asceticism in his own order.

The same thinker now sometimes regarded as an anti-intellectual theologian was regarded by some of his own confrères as a creature of the universities who had betrayed the spirit of St Francis.

When viewed in context, Bonaventure's writings are remarkable less for the occasional polemics than for the balanced vision he consistently worked to communicate. After two years of governing the Franciscan Order, Bonaventure retreated to Mount Alverno in Italy, where he wrote the Itinerarium mentis in Deum (Journey of the Mind to God) .

The intellectual ascent described in this work suggests a solution to the problem of learning within the Franciscan Order (see Brown 1993 ).

Bonaventure does not urge his readers to repudiate the world; he tells us how we may see there the power, wisdom and goodness of its creator.

Beginning with contemplation of sensible things, we may rise by stages to contemplation of the soul as the image of God, God's presence within the soul and the attributes of God himself.

Philosophical studies aid in the ascent, but only if pursued with humility and as part of a morally upright life: the external world has little use as a mirror ‘unless the mirror of our soul has been cleansed and polished. ' Bonaventure explains the relations between philosophy and other divisions of human knowledge in De reductione artium ad theologiam (On Retracing the Arts to Theology) , a highly condensed treatise of unknown date, possibly based on a sermon preached towards the end of his regency at Paris.. »