The Mediaeval Mind (Volume 2 of 2) / A History of the Development of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages

by Henry Osborn Taylor

“No less has Sacred Scripture height (sublimitatem), consisting in description of the ranged hierarchies, the ecclesiastical, angelic, and divine.... Even as things have being in matter or nature, they have also being in the anima through its acquired knowledge; they have also being in the anima through grace, also through glory; and they have also being in the way of the eternal—in arte aeterna. Philosophy treats of things as they are in nature, or in the anima according to the knowledge which is naturally implanted or acquired. But theology as a science (scientia) founded upon faith and revealed by the Holy Spirit, treats of those matters which belong to grace and glory and to the eternal wisdom. Whence placing philosophic cognition beneath itself, and drawing from nature (de naturis rerum) as much as it may need to make a mirror yielding a reflection of things divine, it constructs a ladder which presses the earth at the base, and touches heaven at the top: and all this through that one hierarch Jesus Christ, who through his assumption of human nature, is hierarch not in the ecclesiastical hierarchy alone, but also in the angelic; and is the medial person in the divine hierarchy of the most blessed Trinity.”[552]

The depth (profunditas) of Scripture consists in its manifold mystic meanings. It reveals these meanings of the creature world for the edification of man journeying to his fatherland. Scripture throughout its breadth, length, height, and depth uses narrative, threat, exhortation, and promise all for one end. “For this doctrina exists in order that we may become good and be saved, which comes not through naked consideration, but rather through inclination of the will.... Here examples have more effect than arguments, promises are more moving than ratiocinations, and devotion is better than definition.” Hence Scripture does not follow the method and divisions of other sciences, but uses its own diverse means for its saving end. The Prologue closes with rules of Scriptural interpretation.[553]

In our plan of following what is of human interest in mediaeval philosophy or theology, prologues and introductions are sometimes of more importance than the works which they preface; for they disclose the writer’s intent and purpose, and the endeavour within him, which may be more intimately himself, than his performance. So more space has been given to Bonaventura’s Prologue than the body of the treatise will require. The order of topics is that of the Lombard’s Sentences or Aquinas’s Summa. Seven successive partes consider the Trinity, the creation, the corruption from sin, the Incarnation, the grace of the Holy Spirit, the sacramental medicine, and the Last Judgment. Each pars is divided into chapters setting forth some special topic. Bonaventura’s method, pursued in every chapter, is to state first the scriptural or dogmatic propositions, and then give their reason, which he introduces with such words as: Ratio autem ad praedictorum intelligentiam haec est. The work is a complete systematic compend of Christian theology; its conciseness and lucidity of statement are admirable. For an example of its method and quality, the first chapter of the sixth part may be given, upon the origin of Sacraments.

“Having treated of the Trinity of God, of the creation of the world, the corruption of sin, the incarnation of the Word, and the grace of the Holy Spirit, it is time to treat of the sacramental medicine, regarding which there are seven matters to consider: the origin of the sacraments, their variation, distinction, appointment, dispensation, repetition, and the integrity of each.

“Concerning[554] the origin of the Sacraments this is to be held, that sacraments are sensible signs divinely appointed as medicaments, in which under cover of things sensible, divine virtue secretly operates; also that from likeness they represent, from appointment they signify, from sanctification they confer, some spiritual grace, through which the soul is healed from the infirmities of vice; and for this as their final end they are ordained; yet they avail for humility, instruction, and exercise as for a subsidiary end.

“The reason and explanation of the aforesaid is this: The reparative principle (principium), is Christ crucified, to wit, the Word incarnate, that directs all things most compassionately because divine, and most compassionately heals because divinely incarnate. It must repair, heal, and save the sick human race, in a way suited to the sick one, the sickness and the occasion of it, and the cure of the sickness. The physician is the incarnate Word, to wit, God invisible in a visible nature. The sick man is not simply spirit, nor simply flesh, but spirit in mortal flesh. The disease is original sin, which through ignorance infects the mind, and through concupiscence infects the flesh. While the origin of this fault primarily lay in reason’s consent, yet its occasion came from the senses of the body. Consequently, in order that the medicine should correspond to these conditions, it should be not simply spiritual, but should have somewhat of sensible signs; for as things sensible were the occasion of the soul’s falling, they should be the occasion of its rising again. Yet since visible signs of themselves have no efficiency ordained for grace, although representative of its nature, it was necessary that they should by the author of grace be appointed to signify and should be blessed in order to sanctify; so that there should be a representation from natural likeness, a signification from appointment, and a sanctification and preparedness for grace from the added benediction, through which our soul may be cured and made whole.

“Again, since curative grace is not given to the puffed up, the unbelieving, and disdainful, so these sensible signs divinely given, ought to be such as not only would sanctify and confer grace, and heal, but also would instruct by their signification, humble by their acceptance, and exercise through their diversity; that thus through exercise despondency (acedia) should be shut out from the desiderative [nature], through instruction ignorance be shut out from the rational [nature], through humiliation pride be shut out from the irascible [nature], and the whole soul become curable by the grace of the Holy Spirit, which remakes us according to these three capacities (potentias)[555] into the image of the Trinity and Christ. Finally, whereas the grace of the Holy Spirit is received through these sensible signs divinely appointed, it is found in them as an accident. Hence sacraments of this kind are called the vessels and cause of grace: not that grace is of their substance or produced by them as by a cause; for its place is in the soul, and it is infused by God alone; but because it is ordained by divine decree, that in them and through them we shall draw the grace of cure from the supreme physician, Christ; although God has not fettered His grace to the sacraments.[556]

“From the premises, therefore, appears not only what may be the origin of the sacraments, but also the use and fruit. For their origin is Christ the Lord; their use is the act which exercises, teaches, and humbles; their fruit is the cure and salvation of men. It is also evident that the efficient cause of the sacraments is the divine appointment; their material cause is the figurement of the sensible sign; their formal cause the sanctification by grace; their final cause the medicinal healing of men. And because they are named from their form and end they are called sacraments, as it were medicamenta sanctificantia. Through them the soul is led back from the filth of vice to perfect sanctification. And so, although corporeal and sensible, they are medicinal, and to be venerated as holy because they signify holy mysteries, and make ready for the holy gifts (charismata) given by most holy God; and they are divinely consecrated by holy institution and benediction for the holiest worship of God appointed in holy church, so that rightly they should be called sacraments.”

The Breviloquium was Bonaventura’s rational compendium of Christian theology. It offered in brief compass as complete a system as the bulkiest Summa could carry out to doctrinal elaboration. Quite different in method and intent was his equally famous Itinerarium mentis in Deum,[557] the praise of which, according to the great Chancellor Gerson, could not fitly be uttered by mortal mouth. We have seen how in the Reductio artium ad theologiam Bonaventura conformed all modes of perception and knowledge to the uses and modes of theology; the final end of which is man’s salvation, consisting in the union of the soul with God, through every form of enlightenment and all the power of love. The Breviloquium has given the sum of Christian doctrine, an intelligent and heart-felt understanding of which leads to salvation. And now the Itinerarium—well, it is best to let Bonaventura tell how he came to compose it, and of its purpose and character.

“Since, after the example of our most blessed father Francis, I pant in spirit for the peace which he preached in the manner of our Lord Jesus Christ, I a sinner who am the seventh, all unworthy, Minister-General of the Brethren,—it happened that by God’s will in the thirty-third year after our blessed father’s death, I turned aside to the mountain of Alverna, as to a quiet place, seeking the spirit’s peace. While I lingered there my mind dwelt on the ascensions of the spirit, and, among others, on the miracle which in that very spot came to blessed Francis, when he saw the winged Seraph in the likeness of the Crucified. And it seemed to me his vision represented the suspension of our father in contemplation, and the way by which he came to it. For by those six wings may be understood the suspensions of the six illuminations, by which the soul, as by steps and journeys, through ecstatic outpourings of Christian wisdom, is prepared to pass beyond to peace. For the way lies only through love of the Crucified, which so transformed Paul carried to the third heaven, that he could say: ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ So the image of the six seraph’s wings represents the six rungs of illumination, which begin with the creatures and lead on to God, to whom no one can come save through the Crucified....