Chapter 14 - Bonaventure

Summary

Introduction

Bonaventure was born in Bagnoregio, probably in 1217, about ninety kilometers north of Rome. He initially studied at the Parisian university under Alexander of Hales. From 1248 he lectured on the Bible, and from 1250 to 1252 he lectured on Peter Lombard’s Sentences. Bonaventure’s profoundly Franciscan theology draws on Augustinian, Pseudo-Dionysian and Victorine elements. In 1257, when he became Minister General of the Franciscan Order, Bonaventure’s formal academic career ceased. His works written after that time are more pastoral and spiritual than strictly scholarly. His works are usually divided into two categories: first, there are his more theoretical works, such as his Commentary on the Sentences (Sent.), the Breviloquium (a wonderful summary of the Christian faith), Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity (Myst. Trin.) and Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ. But there are also his more devotional works such as The Soul’s Journey into God (Itinerarium mentis in Deum), The Tree of Life, and The Life of Saint Francis, amongst many others. Bonaventure has also written a number of Biblical commentaries, such as On John, On Ecclesiastes and On Luke – a particular voluminous and profound one. A work, addressed to his fellow-friars, which reveals some of the central concerns of Bonaventure (including the significance of the theology of the Trinity for our understanding of the world), is the Collations on the Hexameron (Hex.). It dates from the final period of his life, when he was involved in a number of controversies, such as the status of the mendicant orders and the influence of radical secularist Aristotelian interpretations (Latin Averroism) on the Parisian intellectual scene. Bonaventure, having been appointed Cardinal in 1273, died on July 15, 1274, and was buried in Lyons, where he was attending the Council convened to bring about the reconciliation between Latin Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy.

Few theologians in the West have been imbued with such a strong sense of the splendor of the Trinitarian God. We will discuss his theology of the Trinity in some detail. First, however, we will deal with the way he sees the relationship between theology and philosophy, faith and reason.