John of Fidanza, who under the name of Bonaventura was to become Minister-General of his Order, Cardinal, Saint, and Doctor Seraphicus, saw the light in the Tuscan village of Bagnorea. That he was of Italian, half Latin-speaking, stock is apparent from his own fluent Latin. Probably in the year 1238, when seventeen years old, he joined the Franciscan Order; and four years later was sent to Paris, where he studied under Alexander of Hales. In 1248 he was licensed to lecture publicly, and thenceforth devoted himself at Paris to teaching and writing, and defending his Order against the Seculars, until 1257, when, just as the University conferred on him the title of Magister, he was chosen Minister-General of his Order, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. The greater part of his writings were composed before the burdens of this primacy drew him from his studies. He was still to become Prince of the Church, for he was made Cardinal of Albano in 1273, the year before his death.
For all the Middle Ages the master in theology was Augustine. Either he was studied directly in his own writings, or his views descended through the more turbid channels of the works of men he influenced. Mediaeval theology was overwhelmingly Augustinian until the middle of the thirteenth century; and since theology was philosophy’s queen, mediaeval philosophy conformed to that which Augustine employed in his theology. This, if traced backward to its source, should be called Platonism, or Neo-Platonism if we turn our mind to the modes in which Augustine made use of it. His Neo-Platonism was not unaffected by Peripatetic and later systems of Greek philosophy; yet it was far more Platonic than Stoical or Aristotelian.
Those first teachers, who in the maturity of their powers became Brothers Minorites, were Augustinians in theology, and consequently Platonists, in so far as Platonism made part of Augustine’s doctrines. Thus it was with the first great teacher at the Minorites school in Oxford, Robert Grosseteste, and with the first great Minorite teacher at Paris, Alexander of Hales. Both of these men were promoters of the study of Aristotle; yet neither became so imbued with Aristotelianism as to revise either his theological system or the Platonic doctrines which seemed germane to it. Moreover, in so far as we may imagine St. Francis to have had a theology, we must feel that Augustine, with his hand on Plato’s shoulder, would have been more congenial to him than Aristotle. And so in fact it was to be with his Order. Augustine’s fervent piety, his imagination and religious temperament, held the Franciscans fast. Surely he was very close to the soul of that eloquent Franciscan teacher, who called Alexander of Hales “master and father,” sat at his feet, and never thought of himself as delivering new teachings. It would have been strange indeed if Bonaventura had broken from the influences which had formed his soul, this Bonaventura whose most congenial precursor lived and wrote and followed Augustine far back in the twelfth century, and bore the name of Hugo of St. Victor. Bonaventura’s writings did much to fix Augustinianism upon his Order; rivalry with the Dominicans doubtless helped to make it fast; for the latter were following another system under the dominance of their two Titan leaders, who had themselves come to maturity with the new Aristotelian influences, whereof they were magna pars.
But just as Grosseteste and Alexander made use of what they knew of Aristotle, so Bonaventura had no thought of misprizing him who was becoming in western Europe “the master of those who know.” In specific points this wise Augustinian might prefer Aristotle to Plato. For example, he chose to stand, with the former, upon the terra firma of sense perception, rather than keep ever on the wing in the upper region of ideal concepts.
“Although the anima, according to Augustine, is linked to eternal principles (legibus aeternis), since somehow it does reach the light of the higher reason, still it is unquestionable, as the Philosopher says, that cognition originates in us by the way of the senses, of memory, and of experience, out of which the universal is deduced, which is the beginning of art and knowledge (artis et scientiae). Hence, since Plato referred all certain cognition to the intelligible or ideal world, he was rightly criticized by Aristotle. Not because he spoke ill in saying that there are ideas and eternal rationes; but because, despising the world of sense, he wished to refer all certain cognition to those Ideas. And thus, although Plato seems to make firm the path of wisdom (sapientiae) which proceeds according to the eternal rationes, he destroys the way of knowledge, which proceeds according to the rationes of created things (rationes creatas). So it appears that, among philosophers, the word of wisdom (sermo sapientiae) was given to Plato, and the word of knowledge (scientiae) to Aristotle. For that one chiefly looked to the things above, and this one considered things below.[545] But both the word of wisdom and of knowledge, through the Holy Spirit, was given to Augustine, as the pre-eminent declarer of the entire Scripture.”[546]
So there is Aristotelian ballast in Bonaventura’s Platonic-Augustinian theology. His chief divergence from Albert and Thomas (who, of course, likewise held Augustine in honour, and drew on Plato when they chose) is to be found in his temperamental attitude, toward life, toward God, or toward theology and learning. His Augustinian soul held to the pre-eminence of the good above the true, and tended to shape the second to the first. So he maintained the primacy of willing over knowing. Man attains God through goodness of will and through love. The way of knowledge is less prominent with Bonaventura than with Aquinas. Surely the latter, and his master Albert, saw the main sanction of secular knowledge in its ministry to sacra doctrina; but their hearts may seem to tarry with the handmaid. Bonaventura’s position is the same; but his heart never tarries with the handmaid; for with him heart and mind are ever constant to the queen, Theology. Yet he recognizes the queen’s need of the handmaid. Holy Writ is not for babes; the fulness of knowledge is needed for its understanding: “Non potest intelligi sacra Scriptura sine aliarum scientiarum peritia.”[547] And without philosophy many matters of the Faith cannot be intelligently discussed. There is no knowledge which may not be sanctified to the purpose of understanding Scripture; only let this purpose really guide the mind’s pursuits.
Bonaventura wrote a short treatise to emphasize these universally admitted principles, and to show how every form of human knowledge conformed to the supreme illumination afforded by Scripture, and might be reduced to the terms and methods of Theology, which is Scripture rightly understood. He named the tract De reductione artium ad theologiam[548] (The leading back of the Arts to Theology).
“‘Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights,’ says James. This indicates the source of all illumination, and the streaming of all enlightenment from that fontal light. While every illumination is inner knowledge (omnis illuminatio cognitio interna sit) we may distinguish the external light, (lumen exterius), to wit, the light of mechanical art; the lower light, to wit, the light of sense perception; the interior light, to wit, the light of philosophical cognition; the superior light, to wit, the light of grace and Holy Scripture. The first illuminates as to the arts and crafts; the second as to natural form; the third as to intellectual truth; the fourth as to saving truth.”
He enumerates the mechanical arts, drawing from Hugo of St. Victor; then he follows with Augustine’s explanation of the second lumen, as that which discerns corporeal things. He next speaks of the third lumen which lightens us to the investigation of truths intelligible, scrutinizing the truth of words (Logic), or the truth of things (Physics), or the truth of morals (Ethics). The fourth lumen, of Holy Scripture, comes not by seeking, but descends through inspiration from the Father of lights. It includes the literal, the spiritual, moral and anagogic signification of Scripture, teaching the eternal generation and incarnation of Christ, the way to live, and the union of God and the soul. The first of these branches pertains to faith, the second to morals, and the third to the aim and end of both.
“Let us see,” continues Bonaventura, “how the other illuminations have to be reduced to the light of Holy Scripture. And first as to the illumination from sense cognition, as to which we consider its means, its exercise, and its delight (oblectamentum).” Its means is the Word eternally generated, and incarnated in time; its exercise is in the sense perception of an ordered way of living, following the suitable and avoiding the nocuous; and as for its object of delight, as every sense pursues that which delights it, so the sense of our heart should seek the beautiful, harmonious, and sweet-smelling. In this way divine wisdom dwells hidden in sense cognition.