"Confident that God will not allow us to fall into error in the canonization of this Saint, by His Divine Authority and that of His Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, we decree that Bonaventure of [{121}] Balneumregis, of blessed memory, Professor of Theology, of the Order of Friars Minor, who was raised from the office of Minister-General to that of Bishop and Cardinal, is a Saint, and is to be inscribed in the Catalogue of the Saints and joined and associated with them. By these letters present we insert him amongst the number of those who are to be venerated by the Church."
Thus was Bonaventure glorified. But further honours were in store for him. A hundred years later 14 March, 1582, he was declared a Doctor of the Universal Church by Sixtus V. This was an authoritative pronouncement that our Saint was to be regarded as one of the foremost expounders of the Catholic Faith. He was placed on a level with Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory. These are the words of the Pontiff: [Footnote 51] "After mature deliberation with our venerable Brothers the Cardinals, with their counsel and unanimous consent, and by our own certain knowledge . . . we inscribe by right the aforesaid St. Bonaventure amongst the number of Holy Doctors, and we declare and decree that he is to be regarded and venerated as amongst the chief and foremost of those who have excelled in the Sacred Science of Theology."
[Footnote 51: Bull "Triumphantis Jerusalem".]
After more than seven hundred years Bonaventure's greatness is undiminished and his glory is undimmed. His memory is fragrant in the Church of God, and those "Divine Commentaries" [{122}] and other treasures of Christian thought which he left behind him are still with us. In the depth and clearness of his dogmatic teaching, but especially in the ardent outpourings of his seraphic soul in his devotional works, we are brought into intimate contact with his marvellous life. From these, rather than from the records of biographers, we learn its true beauty and holiness. The latter offer us a portrait of the exterior man, but the former reveal to us the secret workings of the soul. From his writings we gather what Bonaventure really was--what he thought, what he aspired to, what he sought to accomplish. It is in them we may hope to discover the real man, and to obtain a clearer grasp of that particular development of the Franciscan spirit with which he is so intimately associated.
ABERDEEN: THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.