It is with profound reverence that we must inquire what was the intellectual teaching of so holy a man; and it is, indeed, so vast and yet so deep that it exhausts all the human powers in contemplating the nature of God and the end of man, which is his union to God. Ozanam gives a passage from his work on the "Reduction of Arts to Philosophy," in which he [{693}] says that philosophy is the medium by which the theologian forms for himself a mirror (speculum) from created things, which serve him as steps by which he may ascend to heaven. He begins by the revealed truth, that every good and perfect gift descends from the Father of light, and teaches of its descent by these four ways—exterior, inferior, interior, and superior—through successive irradiations, namely, Holy Scripture, experimental mechanics, and philosophy, which succeed each other like the days of creation, all converging in the light of Holy Scripture, and all succeeded by that seventh day in which the soul will rest in the perfect knowledge of heaven.
1. Exterior light, or tradition, relates to the exterior forms of matter, and produces the mechanical arts, which were divided by Hugo into seven—weaving, work in wood and in stone, agriculture, hunting, navigation, theatricals, and medicine.
2. Inferior light, or that of the senses, awakens in the mind the perceptions of the five senses, as St. Augustin says, by that fine essence whose nature and whose seat baffles all our discoveries.
3. Interior light, or reason, teaches us by the processes of thought those intellectual truths which are fixed in the human mind by physics, logic, and ethics, through rational, natural, and moral action on the will, the conduct, and the speech, which are the triple functions of the understanding, and on the three faculties of the reason—apprehension, judgment, and action; this interior light acts on outward things by physics, mathematics, and metaphysics, and perceives God in all things by logic, by physics, and by ethics. And he goes on to consider truth as it is in the essence of words, things, and actions.
4. The superior light proceeds from grace and from the Holy Scriptures, and reveals the truths relating to salvation and sanctification. It is named from its raising us to the knowledge of things above us, and because it descends from God by way of inspiration and not by reflection. This light also is threefold. Holy Scripture contains, under the literal sense of the words, the allegorical, which declares what must be believed concerning God and man; the moral, which teaches us how to live; the analogical, which gives the laws by which man may unite himself to God. And the teaching of Holy Scripture contains three points—faith, virtue, and beatitude. The course by which knowledge must be sought is by,
1, tradition; 2, experiment; 3, reason; and 4, a descent as it were by the same road, so as to find the stamp of the divinity on all which is conceived, or felt, or thought. All sciences are pervaded by mysteries; and it is by laying hold of the clue of the mystery that all the depths of each science are explored.
It was to Mount Alvernia, where his master, St. Francis, so lately received the stigmata, that St. Bonaventure retired to write the Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum, in which he treats on the divine nature, and considers God as manifesting himself in three modes, and man as receiving the knowledge of him by the three functions of memory, understanding, and will.
Ozanam says: "To these triple functions of the mind God manifests himself in three ways: 1, by the traces of his creation in the world; 2, by his image in human nature; 3, by the light which he sheds on the superior region of the soul. Those who contemplate him in the first are in the vestibule of the tabernacle; those who rise to the second are in the holy place; those who reach the third are within the holy of holies, where the two cherubim figured the unity of the divine essence and the plurality of divine persons." He likens the invisible existence of God to the light, which, though unseen, enables the eye to perceive colors; and proves from his existence his unity, eternity, and perfection; and from the eternal action of his goodness he deduces the doctrine of the Trinity.
The Breviloquium treats on the nature of man, who exists not of himself, nor by emanation from God, but was called into life out of nothing by the Creator, and lives by no mortal life borrowed from the outer world, but by its own and immortal life, intelligent and free. These attributes of God are communicated by him to his creatures according to his own law, "that the superior shall be the medium of grace to the inferior." The happiness of the soul must be immortal and is in God, and she can exist separated from this body which she inhabits and moves. Ozanam says: "The Compendium Theologies Veritatis treats of the connection between physics and morals, and inquires how the body indicates the variations of the soul by that mysterious link on which the scientific speculate, but which the saint treats as a subject not for dogmatizing but for contemplation, assisted by the mortification which alone brings the passions into subserviency. But the Seraphic Doctor left his teaching unfinished. Some of his spiritual works have been translated by the Abbé Berthaumier; and the reader will find that what has been said gives an imperfect idea of the writings of this doctor of the Church, which fill six folio volumes, and have scarcely been mastered by a few, though they have warmed the devotion of many; and one short treatise, called the "Soliloquy," is of such a nature as to include the whole science of devotion. It represents the soul contemplating God, not in his creatures, but within itself, and asking what is her own position in his presence: created by him, and sinning against him; redeemed by him, and yet sinning; full of contrition, yet firm in the hope of glory. The teaching of St. Paul is continued by St. Augustin, St. Ambrose, and St. Bernard; and it seems as if no other book were needful. One passage, and one only, may show the treasures it contains. The soul is convinced of the vanity of created things, and asks how men are so blinded as to love them. Because the soul is created with so glorious and sensitive a nature, that it cannot live without love; and while the elect find nothing in created things which can satisfy their desire of happiness, and therefore rest in the contemplation of God, the deluded multitude neglect themselves for passing objects, and love their exile as if it were their home. But Ozanam does not leave his history of intellectual progress to treat of spiritual gifts.