Andrea Di Maio

SAINT BONAVENTURE’SDIVISION OF THE SCIENCES

AN APPLICATION OF LEXICOGRAPHYTO TEXTUAL HERMENEUTICS

English translation by Paul Spilsbury

PREFACE

This study intends in general to offer an example of theapplication of lexicographical methods to philosophical andtheological textual hermeneutics; and in particular tocontribute to the reconstruction and explanation of thecomplex (and much studied) systematisation of knowledgeelaborated by Bonaventure, by leading it back more deeplyto his systematisation of reality. In this first part, of asynchronic character, we have ascertained that theBonaventurian divisions and treatments of knowing, thoughthey are all in a theological context, have also an intrinsicphilosophical value. Such divisions are ‘systematic’, andhave the incarnation of the Word as ‘key’, formulatedthrough the concept of ‘nature’ (which articulates the wholeBonaventurian vision of the world).

On the historiographic plane, the comparison betweenthe texts of Bonaventure and those of Thomas relates to thestucturing of knowledge, showing their common and theirdivergent features. Both, then, are “scholastics” in theelaboration of their sources, in that they do not select justsome of the contents of tradition (“aut aut”), but seek indifferent ways to take on and synthesise in a coherent waythe whole of the tradition known to them (“et et”).Bonaventure undertook the way of extracting individualitems from their original context and inserting them into ascheme which was entirely traditional as to its contents, butentirely new as to its structure (he seems to have beenattached to this scheme, already sketched out in the Reductio,all his life). Thomas, on the other hand, undertook the way ofcombining items through a concordance and hierarchy of

schemes (which do not all have the same “weight”, and playdifferent parts), clearly giving the epistemological primacy tothe Aristotelian system, but without ever showing that hewas entirely satisfied with the schemes obtained.

Further, in articulating philosophy and theology bothThomas and Bonaventure share the (Biblical andAugustinian) paradigm of “parallel doublets”, carrying it outwith perhaps extreme rigour, though with different shades ofmeaning: Thomas shows the natural basis of supernaturalperfection, and Bonaventure shows the necessity and naturalimpossibility of such perfection.

SYNCHRONIC

INTRODUCTION

Every age, in every context, has sought somehow tosystematise knowledge, so as effectively to see realityproperly. Among the various systems which have followedone another throughout history, that elaborated in the secondhalf of the thirteenth century by Bonaventure of Bagnoregio1

is particularly interesting. This is because he synthesises thedistinctions he inherited from the past, and offers a quiteoriginal vision of knowledge and reality, emphasising andreinterpreting the Aristotelian principle, “Scientiae secanturquemadmodum et res.”2

Paradoxically, Bonaventure is one of the medievalauthors who was much concerned with the devision ofknowledge in general, and of philosophy in particular,

1 Sancti BONAVENTURAE Opera omnia, Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi)

1882-1902 (in 10 volumes). The Breviloquium and theological sermons arequoted from the editio minor: Opera theologica selecta, vol. 5, Ad ClarasAquas 1964. The collations in Hexaëmeron are quoted in the first recensionfrom the editio maior; for the second recension from Sancti BonaventuraeCollationes in Hexaëmeron et bonaventuriana quaedam selecta, ed F. Delor-me, Ad Claras Aquas 1934. The other Bonaventurian texts are quoted accor-ding to CETEDOC Library of Christian Latin Texts - CLCLT-3, Lovanii Novi -Turnhout 1997 [i.e. Breviloquium, Itinerarium, De reductione, De scientiaChristi, Legenda maior & minor, Sermones dominicales, De donis, InHexaëmeron (Delorme)]. The following abbreviations are used here: Brev(Breviloquium), Don (De donis), Hex (In Hexaëmeron, ist recension), HexD(In Hexaëmeron, recension edited by Delorme), Itin (Itinerarium mentis inDeum), Red (De reductione artium ad theologiam), Sent (In Sententiarum li-bros).

2 Sent 3.35 ad db 1; De Anima 3.8. [We may translate this as “How weknow is determined by what we know”, i.e. the nature of reality controls theway we know it. Trans.]

without ever writing any work of philosophy. All hisdistinctions, even those most clearly articulated, are made ina theological context. On the other hand, Bonaventureelaborated a complex and original system of theology whichhe never made explicit except in passing.

The principal systematisations of knowledge which heinherited are:

the Academic, Stoic and Augustinian division ofphilosophy into Physics (natural philosophy), Logic (rationalphilosophy) and Ethics (moral philosophy);

the Aristotelian division of knowledge into Logic,Theoretical Philosophy (Physics, Mathematics and ‘FirstPhilosophy’ or Metaphysics), Practical Philosophy (Ethics,Economics and Politics) and Poetical Philosophy (Poeticsand Rhetoric);

the late classical and high medieval division of the‘liberal arts’ into the Trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric andDialectic or Logic) and the Quadrivium (Arithmetic,Geometry, Music and Astronomy);

the Hebrew, and especially Christian, distinctionbetween natural knowledge and revealed knowledge(according to which we speak of a ‘double scheme’).

We propose here to approach the Bonaventuriandivision of knowledge (which has already been abundantlystudied3) through a careful methodological reading, and a

3 Cf just for the question of the Bonaventurian division of the sciences:

Chr. WENIN, Les classifications bonaventuriennes des sciences philosophi-ques, in: Scritti in onore di G. Giacon, Padova 1972, p. 189-216; B.HINWOOD, The Principles underlying St. Bonaventure’s Division of HumanKnowledge, in: J. G. BOUGEROL (ed), S. Bonaventura 1274-1974, Grottafer-rata 1973, v. 3, p. 463-504; H. M. STIEBING, Bonaventuras Einteilung derWissenschaften als Beleg für universalkategoriales Vorgehen in der Wissen-schaftstheorie des Mittelalters. Eine semiotische Analyse, in: Sprache und Er-kenntnis im Mittelalter, Berlin 1982* (“Miscellanea Mediaevalia” 13), v. 2, p.

critical questioning of the texts that express it, adopting (andpossibly illustrating) an hermeneutical and lexicographicalkey.

Lexicography finds a particularly noteworthyapplication in the ‘division of sciences’. On the linguisticplane, the division of the sciences consists in a classificationof a functional type, whose elements are reciprocallydetermined on each level by verbal opposition (antonymy).

Leaving the methodological questions to be dealt withelsewhere4, it is sufficient at this point to recall somelexicographical ideas.

Classification (taxonomy) is a logical structure ratherlike a tree, arranging words (or rather what they signify)

602-608; A. SPEER, Triplex Veritas. Wahrheitsverständis und philosophischeDenkform Bonaventuras, Dietrich Cölde Verlag, Werl 1987; C. DEL ZOTTO,La sistematizzazione della filosofia e teologia del cuore di S. Bonaventura, inG. BESCHIN (ed), Antonio Rosmini, filosofo del cuore? Philosophia e theolo-gia cordis nella cultura occidentale (Atti del Convegno tenuto a Rovereto il 6-7 ottobre 1993), Trento - Brescia 1995, p. 113-46. For connected questions cfalso C. BÉRUBÉ, De la Philosophie à la Sagesse chez Saint Bonaventure etRoger Bacon, Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, Roma 1976; R. RUSSO, La me-todologia del sapere nel sermone di san Bonaventura “Unus est Magister ve-ster Christus”. Con nuova edizione critica e traduzione italiana, Grottaferrata1982 (“Spicilegium Bonaventurianum” 22); P. MARANESI, Formazione e svi-luppo del concetto di “Verbum Inspiratum” in San Bonaventura, in“Collectanea Franciscana” (1994), p. 5-87; E. CUTTINI, Scienza e teologia nel«De reductione artium ad theologiam» di Bonaventura da Bagnoregio, in“Miscellanea francescana”, 95 (1995), p. 395-466; Kl. OBENAUER, Summaactualitas. Zum Verhältnis von Einheit und Verschiedenheit in der Dreiei-nigkeitslehre des heiligen Bonaventura, Frankfurt a. M. 1996 (EuropäischeHochschulschriften. XXIII. Theologie 559).

4 Cf A. DI MAIO, Il concetto di Comunicazione. Saggio di lessicografiafilosofica e teologica sul tema di ‘communicare’ in Tommaso d’Aquino, Roma1998, paragraphs 1, 15-39, 61, 72, 85-86, 95 e 115.

according to relationships of semantic implication (whichmay be according to class, to composition or to function).Given a key-word, the word hierarchically superior to it istermed its ‘hyperonym’; the words hierarchically inferior toit are its ‘hyponyms’; those laterally related, by having thesame hyperonym, are its ‘perionyms’; and it is opposedreciprocally to some ‘antonym’, which may be strong orweak.

Classification pure and simple (as in ‘Porphyry’s tree’)divides genera into species, so that the general hyperonym ispredicated universally of the special hyponym, but not viceversa (e.g. ‘dwelling’ is divided into ‘palace’, ‘villa’, ‘flat’etc. Every flat is a dwelling, but every dwelling is not a flat)

Compositional classification divides ‘wholes’ into‘integrating parts’, so that neither is the integrating hyponympredicated of the integral hyperonym, nor is the integralhyperonym predicated of the integrating hyponyms (e.g.‘dwelling’ is subdivided into ‘wall’, ‘roof’, etc. The wall isnot the whole house, nor is the house just the wall, but thewall and all the other parts).

Functional classification is somewhere between the two,and it refers to systems rather than objects. It divides thewhole (in terms of its powers) into parts which potentiallycontain it, so that the ‘potestative hyperonym’ is predicatedof its hyponyms, but not exhaustively (e.g. a ‘dwelling’viewed as a building may consist of a number of flats whichare also ‘dwellings’. The Universal Church consists of localchurches, each one of which is wholly ‘church’, though not‘The Church’).

In a system of classification, the division of hyperonymsinto hyponyms may come about in two ways:

a) either by decision from above (as in the Platonic‘diairesis’, or in a ‘flow diagram’ of information), withrespect to a request for a ‘closed’ answer (does it or doesn’t

it have a given characteristic? So ‘animal’ is divided into‘rational’ and ‘non-rational’);

b) or by discovery from below of groups of differencesof the same sort, as in Aristotelian division.

When the classification is justified and complete (so thatfrom its very articulation one understands that it is thus, andcannot be otherwise), it expresses an ‘ideal system’. (Such anideal system can be interpreted in different ways, as being anecessary, conventional or arbitrary structure, either ‘inreality’, ‘in thought’ or ‘in speaking’).

This implies that if two different systems ofclassification are adopted by the same speaker to divide thesame concept, they are either incompatible and successive(one being substituted for the other at a different time); orthey are simultaneous, and hence not only compatible but toa certain extent interchangeable. They are founded on aprinciple of common meaning (‘homology’), through asystem of classification involving the same concepts.

The division of the sciences is a ‘functionalclassification’. Many say that it is also justified andcomplete, and based upon an ‘ideal system’, not a ‘mereclassification’ or grouping, as Boethius thought in hiscommentary on the ‘Isagoge’. In particular, philosophy isdivided into natural, rational and moral; or into theoreticaland practical, each of which is philosophy, but not the wholeof philosophy.

In conformity with the method chosen, theBonaventurian texts concerning the division of the scienceswill first be analysed in sequence, and placed in concentriccircles in their contexts. The works of Bonaventure arestrongly structured, and so in themselves ‘classificatory’.Then they will be placed in parallel, showing theircompatibility, and re-read side by side, through the

reconstruction of the meaning of the words. Finally, they willbe re-connected to their antecedent ‘hypertexts’ (the sourcesquoted) and to analogous contemporary medieval texts. Allthis will be done so as to extract their schemes ofclassification, and then to show how such schemes are waysto situate concepts, and so be able to operate with them. Weshall further try to advance conjecturally from thosestructures which are evident to those which underlie, sustainand generate them.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE ‘REDUCTIO’

The ‘De Reductio Artium’ (fruit of university preachingand composed around 1255) contains both a macrostructuraldivision of all the ways of acquiring information about theworld (sense-perception, technical expertise, and true andproper knowledge, philosophical and theological), and anarticulated internal division of philosophy. As is known, thesecond part of the work ‘reduces’ the different modes ofacquisition to theology, proceeding through analogy andmetaphor.

«Licet […] omnis illuminatio cognitionis interna sit,possumus tamen rationabiliter distinguere ut dicamusquod est lumen exterius scilicet lumen artis mechanicae,lumen inferius scilicet lumen cognitionis sensitivae,lumen interius scilicet lumen cognitionis philosophicae,lumen superius scilicet lumen gratiae et sacrae scripturae.

Primum lumen illuminat respectu figurae artificialis,secundum respectu formae naturalis, tertium respectuveritatis intellectualis, quartum et ultimum respectuveritatis salutaris» [Red 1].*

The text opens with a declaration of intent, doublymetaphorical. It speaks of an internal illumination (meaningthe cognitive phenomenon), and distinguishes in it four(metaphorically spatial) dimensions. Bearing in mind that‘lumen sacrae scripturae’ is equivalent to ‘lumen

supernaturalis’5, we find here the classical topologicalstructure of reality, biblical in origin but thematised byAugustine (who, however, has only three dimension- extra,intra and supra).

*[My translation:“Although that illumination which is knowledge is

internal,we can yet distinguish rationally what we may callan outward light (the light of practical skill),a lower light (the light of sense-

knowledge),an inner light (the light of philosophic

knowledge)and a higher light (the light of grace and of Holy

Scripture).The first light enlightens us with respect to artificial

patterns,the second with respect to natural form,the third with respect to intellectual truth,and the fourth and last with respect to saving truth.”]

Topology of knowledge

5 In the light of Breviloquium 0.0.3.

ABOVE ––– theological knowledge ––– saving truth<supernatural>

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

WITHIN ––– philosophical knowledge ––– intellectual truth<natural>

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

BELOW ––– sensible knowledge ––– natural forms[structures]

OUTSIDE ––– technique ––– artificialdesigns [structures]

The corporeal world (commonly considered byBonaventure as exterior) appears here duplicated in a lowersphere and an outer sphere.

Such a distinction reflects a double dynamism(described in chapter 2 of the ‘Itinerarium’) with which, bymeans of the body (an element hinged between the two-nowadays we would speak of ‘the body we have’ and ‘thebody we are’), the human microcosm is related to themacrocosm. Through perception or sense-knowledge themacrocosm comes to be ‘interjected’ as to its structures orforms into the ‘lower’ (corporeal) sphere of the microcosm.In return, through technical skill, the microcosm projects andimposes its own designs (figurae- or, if we may put it thisway, ‘structures of structures’) on the external macrocosm.(For example, the design of an artefact is simply a structurewhich organises as one many natural things, each with itsown form). Elsewhere6 the ‘lower dimension’ is given adifferent interpretation, as the fallenness and mortality of

6 Cf for example Solil 0.2.

human nature; but this is not a problem, because there theauthor speaks metaphorically, whereas here he speaksconventionally.

Precisely because of this opposed dynamism,perception, though sensible, is already termed ‘knowledge’,whereas technical expertise [or ‘know-how’] on the contraryis not. True knowledge is then a second stage divided intotwo in the scheme. On the one hand there is natural truth, onthe other supernatural truth (we shall have to return to thispoint).

So then: in the realm of natural philosophic knowledge,Bonaventure distinguishes three parts and nine sciences:

«Tertium lumen quod illuminat ad veritatesintelligibiles perscrutandas est lumen cognitionis PHILO-

SOPHICAE quod ideo interius dicitur quia interiorescausas et latentes inquirit et hoc per principiadisciplinarum et veritatis naturalis quae homininaturaliter sunt inserta.

Et hoc triplicatur in rationalem, naturalem etmoralem. […]

[1.] Sermocinalis sive rationalis PHILOSOPHIA

triplicatur […] in grammaticam, logicam et rhetoricam[…].

[2.] Rursus quoniam intellectus noster dirigi habet iniudicando secundum rationes formales et hae tripliciterpossunt considerari – vel in comparatione ad materiam etsic dicuntur rationes formales, – vel in comparatione adanimam et sic intellectuales, – vel in comparatione addivinam sapientiam et sic ideales, ideo naturalis

PHILOSOPHIA triplicatur – in physicam proprie dictam, –in mathematicam – et in metaphysicam, ita quod

physica consideratio est circa rerum generationem etcorruptionem secundum virtutes naturales et rationesseminales,

mathematica est circa considerationem formarumabstrahibilium secundum rationes intelligibiles,

metaphysica circa cognitionem omnium entium quaereducit ad unum primum principium a quo exieruntsecundum rationes ideales, sive ad deum in quantumprincipium finis et exemplar. Licet inter metaphysicos dehuiusmodi rationibus idealibus nonnulla fueritcontroversia.

[3.] Postremo […] moralis PHILOSOPHIA triplicaturscilicet in monasticam, oeconomicam et politicam» [Red4] .*

The premise for this division of the sciences modifiesthe concept of the ‘natural’. It says that all philosophy lieswithin the sphere of natural truth, but it specifies that thiscomes about inasmuch as it operates by natural principlesinserted into man (i.e. philosophy is natural but not innate-rather it is acquired, though naturally). Within it, thethreefold division into rational, natural and moral philosophyis assumed, not justified (Bonaventure will do that in thetexts which follow).

We should note that rational philosophy is placed at thebeginning (in accordance with the traditional scheme whichBonaventure will progressively change), inasmuch as itfurnishes the criteria for scientific knowledge, and inasmuchas it corresponds (pedagogically) to laying the foundation

which a student must have. We should note in particular thesynonymy between rational (rationalis) and logical(sermocinalis) philosophy, a sign of the close relationshipalready achieved in the Faculty of Arts between logicalanalysis and reflection on language. Perhaps that is why thetrio of rational sciences is closed by rhetoric, and not logic.

We should note the reduplication in the classification of‘rationes’, the object of natural philosophy. In general, theyare all ‘formal’, but properly speaking it is those that relate tothe forms of matter which are termed ‘formal’. For greaterprecision, a little later on, (and again in what follows) theyare called (in Augustinian terminology) ‘seminales’, insofaras they contain the diversity of things seminally orpotentially. The intellectual reasons are formal, but in anintentional sense; the ideal reasons are formal, but in anexemplary sense.

*[My translation:“The third light, which gives light for the investigation

of intelligible truths, is the light of philosophical knowledge.It is called ‘inner’, because it inquires into inner and

hidden causes, and it does this by the principles of learningand natural truth which are innate in man.

These are three in number: rational, natural and moral,[…]

(1) The logical or rational philosophy may take threeforms:

grammatical,logicaland rhetorical. […]

(2) Further, because our intellect takes its direction injudging according to formal reasons, and these three can beconsidered in three ways:

by comparison with the material, (termed ‘formalreasons’);

by comparison with the soul, (‘intellectual reasons’);or by comparison with the divine wisdom, (‘ideal

reasons’);so natural philosophy is divided into three:

physics, properly so called;mathematics;and metaphysics.

Physical study treats of the generation and corruptionof things

according to their natural powers and seminalprinciples;

mathematics treats of abstract forms according tointelligible principles;

metaphysics concerns the knowledge of all beings,as reducible to a first principle from which they

have come according to ideal principles,or to God as beginning, exemplar and end

(although there has been some disagreement amongmetaphysicians about these ideal principles).

(3) Lastly, […] moral philosophy is divided into three,to whit

monastic,economicand political]

Natural philosophy is said to be concerned, not withthree classes of different objects, but with three levels of

rationes (seminal, intellectual and ideal) of each object (i.e.the things in the world). In other words, each sensible objecthas in itself seminal reasons which make it an object ofphysics, intellectual reasons which make it an object ofmathematics, and ideal reasons which make it an object ofmetaphysics. The consequence of such a formulation (as weshall see) is that metaphysics does not properly study supra-sensible reality, but its reflection, through exemplarycausality, in sensible things.

We should note, finally, that the order of naturalphilosophy is here, once again, an ascending one; fromphysics to mathematics, to metaphysics. The three sciencesor, better, the natures that they include, include theirrespective rationes. They will then be related to the threenatures of Christ.7

7 «Summa perfectio et nobilissima in universo esse non possit nisi [1]

natura in qua sunt rationes seminales [2] et natura in qua sunt rationes intel-lectuales [3] et natura in qua sunt rationes ideales simul concurrant in unita-tem personae, quod factum est in filii dei incarnatione. Praedicat igitur totanaturalis PHILOSOPHIA per habitudinem proportionis dei verbum natum etincarnatum» [Red 20].

My translation:

“the supreme and most noble perfection in the universe cannot be,

unless the nature in which there are seminal rea-sons

and the nature in which there are intellectual rea-sons,

and the nature in which there are ideal reasons,come together in the unity of a person; which came

about in the incarnation of the Son of God.

According to the Chalcedonian doctrine, the two naturesin Christ, human and divine, are distinct and inseparable.Bonaventure, by contrast, emphasises the further distinctionbetween corporeal and spiritual nature in the human nature ofChrist. This is because of the debated scholastic questionregarding Christo in triduo, that is, the ontological state ofChrist’s body in the three (incomplete) days during which itremained in the tomb, separated from the soul but not fromthe divinity, and therefore truly to be adored. This disputebore within it important implications regarding the unity(according to Thomas) or plurality (according to moreAugustinian theologians) of the substantial form.

As far as moral philosophy is concerned, the divisioninto monastic (the ethics of the individual), economic (theethics of the family) and political (the ethics of the civilcommunity weakly echoes the three classical works ofAristotle on practical philosophy (the Nichomachean Ethics,the Economics- attributed to him by the medievals- and thePolitics). On the other hand it mainly reflects the Christianassimilation of ethics. Here ‘monastic’ alludes properly tomonastic discipline (or rather the ascesis of Christian monks,according to the ‘topos’ of monachism as philosophy)8,

Therefore the whole of natural philosophy preaches, by

disposition of proportion, that the Word of God is born andincarnate.”

8 Cf Hex 2.3 (quoting Eth. Nic. 2.4), in which ‘disciplina scholastica’ iscontrasted with ‘disciplina monastica sive morum’, although both are necessa-ry for attaining wisdom. Cf also R. QUINTO, «Scholastica». Contributo allastoria di un concetto. I – Sino al secolo XIII, in “Medioevo”, 17 (1991), p. 1-82.

while economics and politics are probably just words tocomplete the trio.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE ‘ITINERARIUM’

A brief and as it were fleeting paragraph in the‘Itinerarium’ (conceived at the end of 1259) offers the mostclear and concise formulation of the theory of the division ofthe philosophical sciences and their theological reduction.

«Omnis PHILOSOPHIA aut est naturalis aut rationalisaut moralis.

Prima agit de causa essendi et ideo ducit in potentiampatris, secunda de ratione intelligendi et ideo ducit insapientiam verbi, tertia de ordine vivendi et ideo ducit inbonitatem spiritus sancti.

Rursus prima dividitur in metaphysicam,mathematicam et physicam. Et prima est de rerum essen-tiis, secunda de numeris et figuris, tertia de naturis,virtutibus et operationibus diffusivis.

Et ideo prima in primum principium patrem, secundain eius imaginem filium, tertia ducit in spiritus sanctidonum.

Secunda dividitur in grammaticam quae facit potentesad exprimendum, in logicam quae facit perspicaces adarguendum, in rhetoricam quae facit habiles adpersuadendum sive movendum. Et hoc similiter insinuatmysterium ipsius beatissimae trinitatis.

Tertia dividitur in monasticam, oeconomicam etpoliticam. Et ideo prima insinuat primi principii inna-scibilitatem secunda filii familiaritatem tertia spiritussancti liberalitatem» [Itin 3.6].*

The text opens with a complete functional classification(of the type: “Every A is either X or Y or Z”), and so withthe formulation of an articulated system. The contrastbetween ‘divide’ and ‘lead’ shows us a single process (of aneoplatonic pattern, but also biblical) of the one to the many(divisio) and of the many to the one (reductio). Thesynonymity of ‘lead’ and ‘suggest’ reveals the true characterof ‘reductio’- it is not a ‘reduction’ in the modern sense ofthe term, but a ‘leading back’ by allusion. It consists inmaking known the isomorphism between two structures (inthis case, the structure of the sciences and the structure of theTrinitarian doctrine) and in associating an element of the firstwith an element of the second, such that the first is ‘full of itsmeaning’. (Paradoxically, in the ‘Reductio’ the idea of‘reduction’, although more developed, is less clear thanhere.)

Precisely because of the ‘reduction’ to the Trinity(according to the Augustinian appropriation of power,wisdom and love to the three Persons), the traditional order ischanged. So, natural philosophy and, in its turn, metaphysicsare placed first (although respectively they come second andlast), the better to correspond with the power of the Father;and rational philosophy, and in turn logic, are placed second(although they come, respectively, second and last+), thebetter to correspond with the wisdom of the Son.

*[Ewart Cousins’ translation (SPCK, London, 1978):“For all philosophy is either natural or rational or moral.

The first deals with the cause of being and therefore leads tothe power of the Father; the second deals with the basis ofunderstanding and therefore leads to the wisdom of the Son;

the third deals with the order of living and therefore leads tothe goodness of the Holy Spirit.

Again, the first, natural philosophy, is divided intometaphysics, mathematics and physics. The first deals withthe essences of things; the second with numbers and figures;and the third with natures, powers and diffusive operations.Therefore the first leads to the First Principle, the Father; thesecond to his Image, the Son; and the third to the gift of theHoly Spirit.

The second, rational philosophy, is divided intogrammar, which makes men able to express themselves;logic, which makes them skilful in arguing; and rhetoric,which makes them capable of persuading and moving others.This likewise suggests the mystery of the most blessedTrinity.

The third, moral philosophy, is divided into individual,domestic and political. The first suggests the unbegottennessof the First Principle; the second, the relatedness of the Son;the third, the liberality of the Holy Spirit.”]

+ surely this should be ‘first and second’? [Trans]Beyond the problem of homology in philosophical and

theological structures (both, as we shall see, have a commoninternal structure), there exists anyway good reason for thischange of order. Putting metaphysics first and rhetoric lastcorresponds in fact to the profound needs of an arrangementwhich is inspired both by the biblical message and by theneoplatonic plan. We can show this by using modernterminology.9 Metaphysics considers the transcendent andtranscendental ontological structures of things themselves

9 But it reflects well the Augustinian teaching on the three modes of exi-

stence of things (in their material nature, in the created intelligence, and in themind of the Creator), which, as we shall see, is one of the sources on which itrests.

(which are conditioned ‘a priori’). Mathematics considersintellectually transcendent mathematical structures of things(also conditioned ‘a priori’). Physics considers the immanentstructures of things (learned ‘a posteriori’). Finally, rhetoricmarks the passage from the intellectual sphere to thevolitional, through the formulation of practical syllogismsneeded for choices.

A VARIANT: THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE ‘TEN SILVER

COINS’

In a celebrated sermon (the third for Epiphany),preached to the clergy of the University of Paris at anuncertain date, Bonaventure propounds the same scheme ofclassification of the nine sciences as in the ‘Itinerarium’, butwith some important variations, some of which he does notput forward again in succeeding divisiones. (This permits usto give a probable dating for the sermon between 1260 and1267.)

«“Mulier”, anima rationalis, “habens decem drachmas”[Lc 15,8-9], id est decem illuminationes, quarum tresprincipales, scilicet naturalis, moralis et rationalis, etquaelibet istarum habet tres.

Naturalis continet physicam, mechanicam etmathematicam;

rationalis similiter continet tres: grammaticam,rhetoricam, logicam;

moralis tres: monasticam, politicam, oeconomicam,et ultra istas est decima illuminatio, scilicet

cognitio divina.

Et istam ultimam cognitionem anima rationalis amisit;quia dicit Hugo [De sacr. chr. fidei 1.10.2], quod “oculus

carnis in sua luce remansit, oculus rationis obnubilatus,oculus divinae contemplationis excaecatus est”. Quiaigitur anima rationalis istam decimam drachmam, scilicetdivinae cognitionis et contemplationis, amiserat, ideoquaerit eam modo historice, modo allegorice, modotropologice, modo anagogice, quousque eam inveniat»[De modo inveniendi Christum, 7-8].*

*[My translation:“‘The woman having ten drachmas’ is the rational soul,

which has ten illuminations. These have three headings,namely natural, moral and rational, and each of these hasthree more.

The natural contains physics, mechanics andmathematics;

the rational similarly contains three: grammar, rhetoricand logic;

the moral three: individual, political and domestic,and after these is the tenth illumination, namely divine

knowledge.It is this last knowledge that the rational soul has lost.

As Hugh says, ‘The eye of flesh retains its own light, the eyeof reason is clouded over, and the eye of divinecontemplation is blinded.’ And so because the rational soulhad lost this tenth drachma, to whit that of divine knowledgeand contemplation, she seeks it sometimes historically,

sometimes allegorically, sometimes tropologically andsometimes anagogically, until she finds it.’ ”]

We will look only at some variations in theclassification of the sciences already examined. As torational philosophy, Bonaventure here returns to thetraditional order of the three. But in natural philosophy,Bonaventure strangely (for him, that is, not for us) includestechnique (mechanica), immediately after physics and beforemathematics (as though in an intermediate degree ofabstraction: probably that of figurae artificiales); even morestrangely, this insertion of mechanics is made in place ofmetaphysics, which moreover is here identified (according tothe Aristotelian model) with ‘divine knowledge’ or‘contemplation’. This, according to a typical procedure of thelatest Bonaventurian speculation, is the object of a researchwhich naturally is as much necessary as impossible: all thesciences are intrinsically philo-sophical (desiring wisdom),without however being able to achieve wisdom.

Here we come up against the paradox of research,enunciated first by Plato in the ‘Meno’, developed in aChristian way by Augustine, and reformulated byBonaventure (and again later on by Pascal and Blondel).10

The very one who seeks (precisely because he does not yetknow just what he is looking for, and on the other hand doesnot want to give up the credit of success in finding it) risksnot recognising it and not getting it when, all unexpectedly,he happens to come across it. It is necessary, then, to changethe manner of research, passing from the investigativemethod of philosophy to the investigative method ofScripture. The first way is ‘scientific’, the second is, rather,‘hermeneutical’, investigating in their depth the progressive

10 Cf A. DI MAIO - S. GUACCI - G. STANCATO, Il concetto di ‘quaerere’(“cercare”) in Tommaso d’Aquino, in «Medioevo» 22 (1996), p. 39-135. It isthe famous question of the natural desire for the supernatural, discussed byHenri DE LUBAC in Surnaturel.

senses of the sacred text, which show (in the light ofBonaventure’s whole complex doctrine on the matter) aninteresting structural homology; the literal sense, theallegorical sense (concerning faith in the mysteries it makesknown as past), the tropological sense (concerning charity toact in the present) and the anagogical sense (concerning hopein what is desired in the future).11

THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE ‘GIFTS’

In 1267 Bonaventure, then residing at Paris as Generalof the Order of Friars Minor, preached a cycle of collationeson the Decalogue to the friars of the University of Paris. Thisis presented as the general Plan (to be precise, the Law) ofGod for humanity. In 1268 he preached a second cycle ofcollationes on Grace, and in particular on the Gifts of theHoly Spirit. These are the divine inspirations, in the exerciseof which man progresses along the path of actualising theLaw. This work becomes a summa of ascetic and dynamictheology. While the ‘Itinerarium’ (as also the ‘De TripliciVia’) offers a predominantly speculative itinerary, in whichthe successive stages are in logical order, but certainly notpedagogical (indeed, recognising God in the ‘vestige’ iscertainly not a job for beginners), the collationes de donis(and their continuation in the Hexaëmeron) provide aconcrete ascetical itinerary which goes its way step by step.According to scholastic theology, the seven ‘gifts’ of theSpirit are infused together in the justified soul; but they are‘exercised’ (and ‘established’) by the spiritual man one afteranother.

11 Cf Hex 2.12-19, 13.11.

Beginning with the exercise of the fear of God (andhence of contrition), the spiritual man little by little, throughpiety (and prayer) begins to grow in the interior knowledge ofthe mysteries of God, in strength to bear witness, in counselfor adapting to the particular will of God regarding him, andlastly, through the spiritual understanding (or intuition) ofChrist in his own heart, he attains more and more wisdom,the experimental knowledge of God. In this itinerary, it is notpossible to avoid the delicate relationship between the giftsof knowledge, understanding and wisdom (in the biblical andspiritual tradition), and the dianoëtic habits of the same nametreated by Aristotle. We can find clarifications and somevery interesting classifications at the end of our study.

«Hic notandum est, quod <est> claritas scientiaePHILOSOPHICAE, scientiae theologicae, scientiae gratuitae etclaritas scientiae gloriosae.

Claritas scientiae PHILOSOPHICAE est magna secundumopinionem hominum mundialium, parua tamen est incomparatione ad claritatem scientiae christianae. […].

Verum est quod scientia PHILOSOPHICA et theologica estdonum dei; proprie uero est donum dei scientia gratuita;scientia uero gloriosa non tantum est donum sed etiampraemium. […].

Scientia PHILOSOPHICA nihil aliud est quam ueritatis utscrutabilis notitia certa. Scientia theologica est ueritatis utcredibilis notitia pia. Scientia gratuita est ueritatis ut diligibilisnotitia sancta. Scientia gloriosa est ueritatis ut desiderabilisnotitia sempiterna. Primo incipiamus a scientia PHILOSOPHICA.[…]. Ipse [Deus…] describit scientiam PHILOSOPHICAM

tripliciter, id est secundum triplicem rationem describit eam, utnaturalem, ut rationalem, et ut moralem, scilicet in quantumest causa essendi, ratio intelligendi et ordo uiuendi. […].

PHILOSOPHICA scientia uia est ad alias scientias sed qui ibiuult stare cadit in tenebras» [Don 4.3 + 4.5-6 + 4.12].*

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Human and philosophical knowledge is contrasted withChristian knowledge, which is three-fold: theological,gratuitous and eternal. The text shows a profound depthwhich has already been noted by scholars.1

Type of knowledge ‘epistomologicalstatus’ formality required:

‘notitia’truth, as object of

[natural]philosophical certain

rational inquiry[supernatural]

theological piousfaith

gratuitous holycharity

glorious eternalhope

Note that only gratuitous knowledge (in solidarity withglorious knowledge) is counted among the gifts of the HolySpirit. The other two, natural (philosophical) andsupernatural (theological) knowledge, are rather dianoëticalvirtues, or intellectual habits: except that theologicalknowledge starts from articles assumed by faith (through theintellectus fidei), while philosophical knowledge starts fromfirst principles acquired through the habit of intellectusprincipiorum. The theological difference between theologicalknowledge and gratuitous (gift) knowledge, is that the first

1 Cf J.-F. BONNEFOY, Le Saint Esprit et ses dons selon Saint Bonaventu-

re, Paris 1929.

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can be acquired by study applied to faith, even merelyunformed faith (i.e. not necessarily informed by grace), andhence it is not lost by sin; whereas gratuitous knowledge isgiven by the Holy Spirit to all the faithful who are in grace,even the unlearned.

*[Translation from ‘Franciscan Archive’ website:www.franciscan-archive.org/

“Here it must be noted, what is the brightness ofphilosophical knowledge, of theological knowledge, ofgratuitous knowledge, and (what is) the brightness ofglorious knowledge. The brightness of philosophicalknowledge is great according to the opinion of worldly men,nevertheless it is small in comparison to the brightness ofChristian knowledge. […]

Philosophical knowledge is nothing other than a certainknowing of the truth as scrutable. Theological knowledge isa pious knowing of the truth as credible. Gratuitousknowledge is a holy knowing of the truth as loveable.Glorious knowledge is a sempiternal knowing of the truth asdesirable.

First let us begin from philosophical knowledge.[…] He [God} describes philosophical knowledge in a

threefold manner, that is He describes it according to athreefold reason, as natural, as rational, and as moral, that is,inasmuch as it is "the cause of existing, the reason forunderstanding and the order of living. […] Philosophicalknowledge is the way to the other sciences; but he whowants to stand still [stare] there, falls into darkness.”]

THE MACROSTRUCTURE OF THE ‘SIX VISIONS’

We have arrived, finally, at the last and most articulateof Bonaventure’s expositions of the division of the sciences,

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contained in the (reported) text of the Collationes inHexaëmeron, preached at Paris before the Friars Minor of theUniversity, between Easter and Pentecost 1273, andinterrupted, as we know, by the naming of Bonaventure asCardinal Bishop of Albano. We possess two recensions ofthese conferences.2

The Collations in Hexaëmeron wish to guide thehearers, who are all committed Christians, in the exercise ofthe final gifts, and in particular in developing the intuition ofthe inspired Word through six stages, the first of which(paradoxically) will include philosophy.

«Clavis […] contemplationis est intellectus triplex,scilicet intellectus Verbi increati, per quod omniaproducuntur; intellectus Verbi incarnati, per quod omniareparantur; intellectus Verbi inspirati, per quod omniarevelantur. […]. Intelligentia enim opus est in visione.Visio autem est triplex […]: corporalis, imaginaria,intellectualis. […]. Praeter has est visio sestuplex […]quibus minor mundus fit perfectus, sicut maior mundussex diebus. Est visio intelligentiae [1] per naturaminditae, et visio intelligentiae [2] per fidem sublevatae, [3]per Scripturam eruditae, [4] per contemplationemsuspensae, [5] per prophetiam illustratae, [6] per raptumin Deum absorptae. Ad has sequitur visio [7] septimaanimae glorificatae» [Hex 3.2 + 3.22-24].*

‘Intellectus’, here, is not the faculty but its habit (orrather its habitual activity, in the background). To translate it,

2 The first (longer) recension is that of the editio maior of Quaracchi; the

other (shorter, but which the reportator says was revised and corrected byBonaventure himself) has since been edited by Fr Delorme (cf supra, note 4).

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we may use the English terminology (made famous byLonergan) of ‘insight’, or else the Italian terms ‘intelligenza’or ‘intellezione’ (making clear that we are not talking of anaction at a point in time, but a continuing activity), or else‘intuizione’ (which, however, is not immediate). The source,often misunderstood, of this concept is probably the doctrineof ‘epignosis’, contained in the first chapter of the SecondEpistle of Peter: the intuition of Christ ‘according to theSpirit’ which the Christian has by faith, and on which everyvirtue and Christian ‘gnosis’ is based. Behind this doctrine isthe problem of ‘second hand Christians’, who like Paulhimself3 had not known the historic Jesus (‘according to theflesh’), but only the Christ of faith (‘according to the Spirit’),which was however the essential Christ. (In a nutshell, this isthe solution to the problem that Kierkegaard handed onhistorically as ‘Lessing’s Problem’) . This conception ofbiblical origin obviously interweaves with the Aristoteliandoctrine of understanding as the dianoëtic habit of the firstprinciples.

*[José de Vinck’s translation (St Anthony Guild Press,Paterson N.J., 1970):

“And so, the key to contemplation is a threefoldunderstanding: of the Uncreated Word by whom all things

3 Cf 2Cor 5,16; HexD 2.2.6-7.

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are brought forth; of the Incarnate Word by whom all thingsare restored; and of the Inspired Word by whom all thingsare revealed. […] Understanding is needed in the case of avision… Generally speaking, there are three kinds of vision:the bodily, the imaginary, and the intellectual. […] Besidesthese visions, there is one that is sixfold: […] through thesethe lesser world is made perfect, as was the greater one in sixdays. There is a vision through that understanding which isgiven by nature, and a vision through that understandingwhich is lifted up by faith, taught by Scripture, exalted bycontemplation, enlightened by prophecy, absorbed by rapturein God. And after these there is a seventh vision of theglorified soul.”]

There is a distinction between an intuition of theuncreated Word (which all men have in a general way inevery true knowing), one of the incarnate Word (which allbelievers have in recognising Jesus as the Christ), and one ofthe inspired Word (which only the just have). Only this lastintuition is the understanding which is a gift of the HolySpirit. An extraordinary effect of this understanding is thethreefold vision (bodily, imaginative and intellectual) grantedto ‘visionaries’, according to a classical distinction stemmingfrom Augustine.4 But an ordinary effect of suchunderstanding is the sixfold vision granted to the just whilestill in via. Clarifying the list in the light of the succeedingtreatment, we can say that they are six chronologicallysuccessive phases (and six levels of growing perfection anddifficulty) in the exercise of the understanding: innateresearch, hearing by faith, biblical meditation, contemplation,prophecy and mystical union. (The two last are in fact

4 De Genesi ad litteram 1.12.6.15.

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achieved by very few, but in principle they are accessible toall believers).

THE INTRODUCTORY CLASSIFICATION OF THE FIRST VISION

We come, then, to the first vision, introduced by arigorous and complete classification which is thephilosophical basis of the structure of philosophy itself.(Nevertheless, this must not make us forget that we arewithin the first vision given by the understanding of theinspired Word).

«Prima visio animae est intelligentiae per naturaminditae. […]. PHILOSOPHI dederunt novem scientias etpolliciti sunt dare decimam, scilicet contemplationem.

Sed multi PHILOSOPHI, dum se voluerunt dividere atenebris erroris, magnis erroribus se immiscuerunt;“dicentes enim, se esse sapientes, stulti facti sunt” [Rm1,22]; superbientes de sua scientia, luciferiani facti.

“Apud Aegyptios densissimae tenebrae erant, sedsanctis tuis maxima erat lux”. Omnes, qui fuerunt in legenaturae, ut patriarchae, prophetae, PHILOSOPHI, filiilucis fuerunt 5. Lux animae veritas est; haec lux “nescitoccasum”. Ita enim fortiter irradiat super animam, utetiam non possit cogitari non esse nec exprimi, quinhomo sibi contradicat: quia si veritas non est, verum est

5 In the alternative reportatio, the philosophers too stand in the darkness,

while only the sacred writers, the authors of the Bible, are children of light:«“apud Aegyptios erant tenebrae, filiis autem tuis”, scilicet patriarchis, legi-slatoribus, sacerdotibus, prophetis, apostolis, “fuit lux” […] in revelationeapertae veritatis » [HexD 1.1.1; cf Wisd 17,20; 18,1]. [With the Egyptians wasdarkness, but with your children, that is, the patriarchs, lawgivers, priests,prophets, apostles, was light… in the revelation of open truth.] Either versionis plausible, but personally I prefer the other.

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veritatem non esse; ergo aliquid est verum; et si aliquidest verum, verum est veritatem esse: ergo si veritas nonest, veritas est […].

Emittit autem haec lux tres radios primos; unde inEcclesiastico: “Tripliciter sol exurens montes”. Est enimveritas rerum, veritas signorum seu vocum et veritasmorum. Veritas rerum est indivisio entis et esse, veritassermonum est adaequatio vocis et intellectus, veritasmorum est rectitudo vivendi. Et istae sunt tres partesPHILOSOPHIAE, quas PHILOSOPHI non invenerunt, utessent; sed quia iam secundum veritatem essent, in animaadverterunt, secundum Augustinum [De civ. Dei 16.5].

Haec triplex veritas consideratur ex parte principiioriginantis, ex parte subiecti suscipientis et ex parteobiecti terminantis.

Respicit autem originans principium in ratione tripliciscausae: originantis, exemplantis et terminantis. […].

Ex parte autem animae omnis irradiatio veritatis superintelligentiam nostram fit tripliciter: aut fit super ipsamabsolute, et sic pertinet ad notitiam rerumspeculandarum; aut in comparatione ad interpretativam,et sic est veritas vocum; aut in comparatione adaffectivam et motivam, et sic est veritas operabilium.

Ex parte obiecti sic. Omne quod est, aut est a natura,aut a ratione, aut a voluntate. Secundum primam estnotitia, quae est de rebus, secundo modo de sermonibus,tertio modo de moribus» [Hex 4.1-5].*

Leaving aside the problem of the threefold definition oftruth, and going back to the problem of the tenth,contemplative, knowledge, let us concentrate on thecomplete classification of the three parts of philosophy (thatfor the structure of philosophy in itself, not according to

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historical contingencies). All that exists is either a res or asign or behaviour. If it is a res (which does not have theimpersonal overtones of our term ‘thing’), it is inserted intothe ‘world’ of nature (which we know to be on three planes:divine, spiritual and corporeal; the last being endowed withthree types of ‘reason’- the seminal, internal to itself, theintellectual and the ideal which are internal to spiritual anddivine nature respectively). If it is a sign it is inserted into the‘world’ of reason (and is regulated by its laws). If it isbehaviour, it is inserted into the ‘world’ of the will (and isregulated by its rules).

The classification is so strict that even the supernaturaldimension cannot be conceived as a reality external tonature: it is in fact understood as the capacity to act which isproper to the divine nature but gratuitously communicated byGod to angelic and human nature (this trans-natural action iscalled ‘sursumactio’). In other words, there is no such thingas a ‘supernature’, but an exercise of a created naturesupernatural to the created nature itself.

Correspondence between the quality of the Subject, the Object and thePrinciple

SPHERE TYPE OF OBJECT FACULTY OF THE SUBJECT

“QUALITY” OF THE PRINCIPLE

natural things (of nature) <intellect> speculative originating princ

rational of reason <intellect> interpretative exempla

moral of will affection terminating <end

artificial <of art> <effect>

*[José de Vinck’s translation:“The first vision of the soul is by means of

understanding naturally given. […]

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The philosophers have offered nine sciences andpromised a tenth: contemplation. But many philosophers,while attempting to avoid the darkness of error, havethemselves become involved in major errors. Whileprofessing to be wise, they have become fools [Rom 1.22].Because they boasted of their knowledge, these philosophershave become the likes of Lucifer. With the Egyptians was thedensest darkness, but with your saints was the greatest light.All those who properly followed the Law of Nature, thepatriarchs, the prophets, and the philosophers, were the sonsof light.

Truth is the light of the soul. This light never fails.Indeed, it shines so powerfully upon the soul that this soulcannot possibly believe it to be non-existing, or abstain fromexpressing it, without inner contradiction. For if truth doesnot exist, it is true that truth does not exist: and so somethingis true. And if something is true, it is true that truth exists.Hence if truth does not exist, truth exists! […]

Now this light sends out three primary radiations, hencein Ecclesiasticus: The sun, three times as much, burneth themountains [Ecclus 43.4]. There is, indeed, a truth of things, atruth of signs or words and a truth of behaviour. The truth ofthings is indivision between existence and essence, the truthof words is equality between expression and understanding,the truth of behaviour is the rectitude of a morally good life.And these three are the three parts of philosophy which thephilosophers did not invent, since they are: but because theyalready existed in the order of truth, they became the concernof the soul, as Augustine explains.

This threefold radiation may be considered from theviewpoint of the originating principle, from that of thereceiving subject, and from that of the object in which itterminates. For it concerns the originating principles in terms

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of the three causes: the primary (efficient), the exemplar(formal), and the final. […]

On the part of the soul [the receiving subject], everyradiation of truth over our power of understanding comesabout in one of three ways: it shines upon it absolutely, andthen refers to things to be seen; or in relation to theinterpretative faculty, and then it consists in the truth ofwords; or in relation to the affective or motive faculty, andthen it is the truth in things to be done.

It is the same as regards the object. Everything thatexists depends upon essence, reason, or will. The first leadsto the knowledge of things, the second to the knowledge ofwords, and the third to the knowledge of behaviour.”]

Natural philosophy studies things (that is, objects: notethat here Bonaventure already makes use of the ‘subject/object’ pairing in what would become the modern or post-Cartesian sense). Rational and moral philosophy study thoseparticular ‘things’ or events which are language (note thequasi-synonymity between ‘signa’, ‘voces’ and ‘sermones’)and behaviour endowed with meaning. This formulationreminds us of the structure of ‘World 2’ within ‘World 1’,according to Popper.

The fact that here the philosophers are mentioned asbeing ‘ancient’ has led to some errors in interpretation, as ifphilosophy itself was for Bonaventure merely a past stage,no longer repeatable. Certainly, for him, to turn tophilosophy would not be the mark of true philosophers(understood properly as ‘lovers of wisdom’), but of‘philosophisers’,6 because philosophy is a ‘way’: “To wantto stop in it is a fall into darkness”; in the sciences there is a

6 Cf respectively Itin 1.9 and De Tribus Quaestionibus 12; HexD

1.15-16.

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very great danger (and the argument here is either with theheterodox artistae, or with his confrère Roger Bacon, sodevoted to the experimental sciences), the danger preciselyof “turning back to the slavery of Egypt”.7 All the same- onemust be exact- this is only a danger, into which it is possiblebut not necessary to fall; it is also opportune to run the riskfor the benefit of the Church, given that in theology as wellone must first investigate the literal sense, that is, fill the jarof water right to the brim.8

In effect, Bonaventure freely admits that “there are inthe Church […] <different classes of person, among whomare> the masters, or those who teach either philosophy, law,theology, or any good art through which the Church ispromoted”; the same philosophers are among those groupedwith the angels and prophets in the perception of truth.9

With logical argument (clearly Aristotelian) andpragmatism, Bonaventure not only utilises the principle ofnon-contradiction, but also the self-reference of truth. Itslight, “which knows no setting” (a biblical quotationmediated through the ‘Paschal proclamation’10), alludes toChrist who is Wisdom, and hence to the doctrine of thenatural and supernatural illumination on the part of theWord. The whole Bonaventurian dynamism regardingknowledge is in this ‘chiaroscuro’: it is not possible to

7 Don 4.12; Hex 17.25; 19.12; Hex 1.9; for the argument, cf Bérubé, cit.;

P. Michaud-Quantin, Études sur le vocabulaire philosophique du moyen âge,Roma, Ateneo 1970.

8 Cf Hex 19.15 and 22.9; 19.8.9 Hex 22.9 and 1.13.10 Wisd. 7,10, applied (in the proclamation) to the Paschal candle, the

symbol of Christ the light of the world.

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maintain that one cannot know any truth, but it is notpossible either to maintain that one does not fall into at leastsome error; “The philosopher is bound to fall into some errorunless he is helped by the light of faith”; on this pointThomas is still more radical: for him, ‘pure’ reason, ininvestigating reality, makes mistakes usually (‘plerumque’)and not just sometimes.11

THE VARIANT OF THE SEVEN CENTRES

By way of parenthesis, we can take a step backwards inthe reading of the text. The first three collations inHexaëmeron constitute a general statement of intent and thedetermination, respectively, of the centre and middle of thejourney (Christ), of its goal (the gift of wisdom) and of thepoint of action at which the hearers should already havearrived (the gift of understanding). Thus, at the verybeginning, Bonaventure has a way to illustrate his meaningin the concrete context of his hearers (student friars andprofessors at the University), with the effective andparadoxical affirmation of the Christocentrism of all thesciences.

«Propositum igitur nostrum est ostendere, quod inChristo “sunt omnes thesauri sapientiae et scientiae Deiabsconditi” [Col 2,3] et ipse est medium omniumscientiarum. Est autem septiforme medium, scilicet[1] essentiae, [2] naturae, [3] distantiae, [4] doctrinae,[5] modestiae, [6] iustitiae, [7] concordiae.

[1] Primum est de consideratione metaphysici,[2] secundum physici, [3] tertium mathematici,

11 The two texts, already compared by Van Steenberghen, are in Sent

2.18.2.1 ad 6; SCG 1.4.5.

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[4] quartum logici, [5] quintum ethici, [6] sextum politiciseu iuristarum, [7] septimum theologi» [Hex 1.11]*

In the continuation of the text, it is said that Christbecomes the centre of each science in a particularChristological mystery; moreover metaphysics, physics andpolitics are treated in a fuller way than usual, as we shall seein the following scheme.

Without getting involved in Christological questions, itis enough for us to note some important variants in theclassification of the sciences. The need to associate thesciences with the Christological mysteries, conventionallybut happily seven in number, obliges Bonaventure tocombine several sciences, but the criterion for combinationinvolves something more than the way it was perceived atthe time in the concrete articulation of the University ofParis. The first discipline (Metaphysics), part of the second(Physics), the third (Mathematics), the fourth (Logic), thefifth (Ethics) and part of the sixth (Politics) constituted theteaching of the Faculty of Arts. Grammar and Rhetoric arenot counted, probably because they are not separate from thecompetence of Logic. In the second and the sixth science,then, there were included the teaching of the Faculties(respectively) of Medicine and of Law (significantly,connected with the corresponding philosophical sciences).On the other hand, the seventh science, which constitutes theteaching of the Faculty of Theology, is entirely autonomouswith respect to philosophy, and crowns the sequence of thesciences with an interesting notation: “Theology […]considers how the world made by God is led back to God.Theology, in fact, although also dealing with the works ofcreation, deals above all with the works of reconciliation.”

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As a whole, perhaps, there emerges as well a new wayof speaking. Anticipating the modern way of looking at thematter, the sciences are divided not only ‘in res’, but also ‘inscientes’; that is, they are articulated according to thefunctional divisions of the scientific community.

*[José de Vinck’s translation: “Our intent, then, is to show that in Christ are hidden all the treasures

of wisdom and knowledge, and that He Himself is the central point of allunderstanding. He is the central point in a sevenfold sense, in terms ofessence, nature, distance, doctrine, moderation, justice and concord.

The first is in the metaphysical order, the second in the physical, thethird in the mathematical, the fourth in the logical, the fifth in the ethical, thesixth in the political or juridical, and the seventh in the theological.”]

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Another variant in the classification of sciences is as itwere hidden in a paragraph treating of metaphysics.

«Metaphysicus […] licet assurgat ex considerationeprincipiorum substantiae creatae et particularis aduniversalem et increatam et ad illud esse, ut habetrationem principii, medii et finis ultimi, non tamen inratione Patris et Filii e Spiritus sancti.

Metaphysicus enim assurgit ad illud esseconsiderandum in ratione principii omnia originantis; etin hoc convenit cum physico, qui origines rerumconsiderat. Assurgit etiam ad considerandum illud esse inratione ultimi finis; et in hoc convenit cum morali siveethico, qui reducit omnia ad unum summum bonum ut adfinem ultimum, considerando felicitatem sive practicam,sive speculativam. Sed ut considerat illud esse in rationeomnia exemplantis, cum nullo communicat et verus estmetaphysicus» [Hex 1.13].

The interweaving of Aristotelian, Neoplatonic andChristian ideas is interesting. God is considered as auniversal substance by the non-finiteness of his being, and sothe universality of his influence. Rather than speaking ofefficient cause, Bonaventure speaks of originating principle,using therefore a more general metaphysical notion, so as tobe able to attribute it to God, and really in God (the Father);if Aristotle had directed Physics towards research intoorigins (but not only that) and ethics to the determination ofends, Bonaventure makes for it a specific domain; with asevere but sharp criticism, he considers the Metaphysics ofAristotle as a masked Physics and Ethics (that is to say,limited to immanence) through the rejection of exemplarycausality. We should say that for Bonaventure, exemplarycausality (which filters Neoplatonism through Christianity)

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means simply to affirm that God knows and wills theworld,12 while for us it means that the truth of the world isreally meta-physical: deny that, and one sets off a chain ofconsequences.

Finally, some stylistic features are significant: if in thefirst text the term ‘verus metaphysicus’ implies ametaphysics of biblical and Neoplatonic inspiration aimed attranscendence, and not reducible to physics or ethics (as thatof Aristotle would risk), in the following part of the collatiothe terms ‘verus metaphysicus’, ‘nostra metaphysica’,‘nostra logica’, ‘iudicium nostrum’ send us back explicitly tothe idea of Christian philosophy (which we shall discuss atthe end).

*[José de Vinck’s translation: “Although the metaphysician is able to rise from the

consideration of created and particular substance to that ofthe universal and uncreated and to the very notion of being,so that he reaches the ideas of beginning, center and finalend, yet he does not attain the notions of Father, Son andHoly Spirit.

For the metaphysician rises to the notion of this beingby seeing it in the light of the original principle of all things,and in this he meets physical science that studies the originof things. He also rises to the notion of this being in the light

12 Cf Hex 6.1-6

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of the final end, and in this he meets moral philosophy orethics, which leads all things back to the one Supreme Goodas to the final end by considering either practical orspeculative happiness. But when he considers this being inthe light of that principle which is the exemplary of allthings, he meets no other science, but is a truemetaphysician.”]

THE PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE ‘FIRST VISION’

After treating in a summary way (but completely) thecontents of the nine philosophical sciences, and beforepassing to the treatment of philosophical Wisdom,Bonaventure recapitulates the division of philosophy.

«Haec sunt novem lumina illustrantia animam, scilicetveritas rerum, vocum, morum: rerum, scilicetessentiarum, figurarum, naturarum quantum adquidditatum differentias occultas, quantum adquantitatum proportiones manifestas, quantum adnaturarum proprietates mixtas.

Primo metaphysica, secundo mathematica, tertionaturalis seu physica.

Veritas vocum tripliciter: quantum ad locutiones,argumentationes, persuasiones; primo quantum adlocutiones indicantes mentis conceptus; secundo quantumad argumentationes trahentes mentis assensus; tertioquantum ad persuasiones inclinantes mentis affectus;prima grammatica, secunda logica, tertia rhetorica.

Veritas morum tripliciter: quantum ad modestias,industrias, iustitias: modestias, quantum ad exercitationesconsuetudinales; industrias, quantum ad speculationesintellectuales; iustitias, quantum ad leges politicas. prima

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virtus consuetudinalis, secunda virtus intellectualis, tertiavirtus iustitialis.

Has novem scientias dederunt PHILOSOPHI et illustratisunt. “Deus enim illis revelavit”. Postmodum volueruntad sapientiam pervenire, et veritas trahebat eos; etpromiserunt dare sapientiam, hoc est beatitudinem, hocest intellectum adeptum; promiserunt, inquam, discipulissuis» [Hex 5.22-23].*

Some considerations on the novelty of this classificationas regards the usual schemes: above all, the text opens andcloses (by ‘thematic inclusion’) with a reference to the‘illustratio’ of the philosophers, making plain that the hiddentheme of the text is illumination.

We should note that all the objects of science are in theplural, which sounds rather unusual in scholastic Latin, andis a constant marks of Bonaventure’s style. Science is in factthe consideration of objects, and such a consideration ispossible only by differentiating, or leading back multiplicityto different unities. The plurals might not be limited simplyto indicating the gradations of essences, but also the singulardifferences (according to a concrete usage). Essences,configurations (‘figurae’) and natures are usually not threethings, but three ontological and epistemological levels of thesame things. The ‘consideratio scientialis’ (or theobservation of things, regarded strictly as objects) iscontrasted with ‘contemplatio sapientialis’ (or the calm

*[José de Vinck’s translation (words in <brackets>added):

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“These are the nine luminaries enlightening the soul, towit, the truth of things, words and actions; of THINGS, that is,of essences, of figures, and of natures; in their ‘suchness’referring to hidden differences, in their quantity referring tomanifest proportions, in their nature referring to mixedproperties.

<The first is metaphysics, the second mathematics, thethird natural science or physics.>

The truth of WORDS is threefold, in regard toexpressions, arguments and persuasions: first in regard toexpresions concerning mental concepts; second, in regard toarguments drawing rational agreement; third, in regard topersuasions producing inclinations of the heart.

<The first is grammar, the second logic, the thirdrhetoric.>

The truth of ACTIONS is threefold: in regard toproprieties, activities and lawful relationships. Proprieties areconcerned with the observance of conventions; activitiesdepend upon intellectual speculations; relationships arebased on civil law.

<The first is conventional virtue, the second intellectualvirtue, the third justiciary virtue.>

Philosophers offered these nine sciences and gaveexamples of them. But God has manifested it to them. Later,they sought to reach wisdom, and truth was leading them:and they promised to procure wisdom, that is, beatitude, thatis, an intellect having attained its goal. They promised it, Imean, to those who would follow them.”]

contemplation of the Principle).13 From consideratio theeye of the soul must be turned first upon

13 HexD 1.3.1

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itself (‘convertere super se’) by reflection, and thendirected by speculation to the intelligences, so as to be able,finally, to attain the contemplation of God; by way ofreasoning, experience and ‘contuition’ (that is, not immediateintuition, but mediated by the world ‘understood as a whole’dependent upon the Creator).

The distinction which is formally made here of thewisdom of metaphysics (understood as ontology) is a mostremarkable fact, philosophically. Although the wholeNeoplatonic tradition had already distinguished ‘henology’and ‘ontology’, we have here a quite different terminology.Wisdom, according to a rule which unites Greek andChristian tradition (biblical and monastic), and which may becalled ‘Christian Socratism’ is the understanding of self, ofthe intelligences, and of God.

Man understands things (and the artificial world oflanguage and institutions) as objects by science, which is thefoundation; while he understands himself as subject byreflection, the intelligences by speculation, and God assource by reasoning, experience and contuition.14

The division of moral philosophy is new, and showstraces of the vigorous debate at the time regardingAristotelian ethics. The terminology adopted by Bonaventureimmediately recalls the Nicomachean Ethics.

Thus, the term ‘virtus consuetudinalis’ translates the‘aretè ethiké’ of Aristotle, that is, the overall name for allthese moral virtues- such as temperance, fortitude, liberality

14 Cf Hex 6.

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etc.- which are acquired by good habit and which regulatethe various passions according to the just mean. Thetreatment of them covers Books III and IV of theNicomachean Ethics. The term ‘virtus intellectualis’ in turntranslates ‘aretè dianoetiké’, the overall name for thedianoëtic virtues (habits of thought such as prudence,knowledge, art, understanding, wisdom).15 Their treatment isin Book VI of the Ethics. The term ‘virtus iustitialis’corresponds to the Aristotelian ‘dikaiosýne’ (but it alsoincludes ‘philía’), whose treatment not only occupies BooksV, VIII and IX of the Ethics, but in a sense the whole of thePolitics as well.

In his last systematisation of moral philosophy, then,Bonaventure on the one hand eliminates ‘economy’ andreduces ‘politics’ to the part of ethics that studies justice andthe relational virtues (such as friendship), and on the otherhand re-reads ethics, gathering it into three parts: the ethicsof the passions (or of the affection), the ethics of thought (orof the intellect) and the ethics of actions (or of effect), as abasis for a threefold partition of the whole matter of morality,common also to Thomas.16

From the contemporary Parisian artists, Bonaventuretakes the idea of a metaphysics of a sapiential and beatifyingtendency: while condemning it in the name of Christian faith,he does not in fact undervalue the neo-Aristotelian ideal of

15 Cf Eth Nc 1.13 (1103a). The dianoëtic habits (not to be confused with

the supernatural virtues and gifts which have the same or similar names) areabove all- circa necessaria- wisdom (circa causas altissimas: principles ofbeing), understanding (circa principia- principles of knowing), knowledge(circa conclusiones- the contents of knowledge), and then- circa contingentia-prudence (as to agibilia) and art (as to factibilia) [HexD 1.2.12].

16 Cf 3SN 33.2.1d co; 34.3.2a co.

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the beatitude of the intellect that has attained its goal(‘intellectus adeptus’).17 He makes of it on the contrary akey-structure in his doctrine of natural desire for thesupernatural, a desire which, however, is of itself necessarilyput into check (having to desire the impossible), and sobecomes aware of the new possibility of grace.

17 Hex 5.22 and 33

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SYSTEMATIC:THE TAXONOMIC SCHEMATIZATION

OF THE TEXTS

In virtue of the principle of homology betweenhomogeneous complete taxonomies, we must suppose theirinvariance unless there are precise reasons for change overtime (if the author has changed the terminology of thesystem, in such a way that the succeeding terminology issubstituted for the preceding). Bonaventure, then, haselaborated various tentative divisions of knowledge,convergent but not totally identical. Leaving aside themarginal differences, and taking into consideration thedevelopments which we have noted, we can try to‘reconstruct’ a more comprehensive division than all theothers.

First of all, we can in this regard point to the completeinternal articulation given by Bonaventure to theologicalknowledge.18 One can speak of God “vel per positionem, velper ablationem”: “per affirmationem, a summo usque adinfimum; per ablationem, ab infimo usque ad summum; etiste modus est conveniens magis”19; but this doubledynamism corresponds perfectly to the articulation oftheology set out respectivly in the Breviloquium and theItinerarium. The first treats all the theological matter in

18 Cf A. DI MAIO, San Bonaventura e la teologia francescana, § 9 and

14, in G. OCCHIPINTI, Storia della Teologia. 2. Da Pietro Abelardo a RobertoBellarmino, Roma - Bologna 1996, p. 59-104.

19 Respectively De Triplici Via 3.11 (which recalls Augustine and Dio-nysius); Hex 2.33

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seven parts “a summo, quod est Deus altissimus […] adinfimum, quod est infernale supplicium” (in other words,from top to bottom), but also “a primo, quod est primumprincipium […] ad ultimum, quod est praemium aeternum”(or from first to last, according to the economy of salvation).The second goes back over the whole gamut of theology inseven stages (three double steps, then the destination) as“ascensus non corporalis, sed cordialis ab imo ad summum”.A third division of theology, however, in terms of thethreefold reading of Scripture- allegorical, tropological andanagogical- is only hinted at.20

Thus we distinguish an affirmative and descendingtheology, structured as a chronological process (God ineternity; the formation by nature at the beginning of time; thede-formation by sin; the re-formation by grace in the fullnessof time by means of the missions of Christ and of the Spirit;the sacramental con-formation by Christ in the Church; thedei-formation by glory at the end of time); and a negative,ascending theology, structured according to a ‘topological’procedure: symbolic theology (of the vestige of God in theexternal macrocosm), the theology we may call ‘iconic’ (ofthe image and likeness of God in the internal microcosm),theology proper (of the names of God in his own superiornature) and mystical theology (of the union with God). Thewhole system of knowledge and reality is in the end placedwithin the threefold work of the Word: as uncreated, he is thelight which enlightens every man, and the (general)foundation of philosophy; as incarnate he is the fullness ofrevelation and the foundation of theology; as inspired (orrendered present by the Spirit in the heart of every believer)

20 Respectively Breviloquium 1.1.2 (and cf. 0.6.5 and capitula); cf Itine-

rarium capitula and 1.1-9; Reductio 5

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he is the foundation of the inner Christian knowledge andwisdom.21

We see, then, a uniting together of philosophy, theologyand mysticism in a typically Bonaventurian scheme.Moreover- proper to him, maybe- he has played anhistorically important role in bringing together ‘mysticism’in the sense (usual today) of spiritual ascesis and‘mystagogy’ and ‘mystical theology’ in the Dionysianunderstanding (the culmination of negative theology).

21 The sequences correspond to those of the parts of the Breviloquium

and to those of the chapters of the Itinerarium (in the light of Itin 1.7). Theexpressions ‘-formation’ are intended to express (on the basis of Bonaventu-rian vocabulary) the structure of the titles of the parts of the Breviloquium, inthe light (for example) of the Soliloquium 0.2, Itin 1.6 and 4.5, Hex 21.18; forthe triple book, cf. De Mysterio Trinitatis 1.2 co, Lignum Vitae 41 and 46;Hex 3 and 12.

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Bonaventurian system of knowledge

“INTELLECTUS” [regarding principles] = “intuition” of the WORD

uncreated incarnate inspir

reading of the book of nature reading of the book of Scripture reading of the b

(exterior = Jesus, abbreviated wordand interior)

“SCIENCE”

gratui natural science supernatural science gift of k

= PHILOSOPHY = THEOLOGY

A: natural A: affirmative/descending B: negative/ascending1. physical 1. God in himself Recognition of God2. mathematical 2. Formatio by nature 1-2. By and in his

vestigia3. metaphysical 3. Deformatio by sin in corporeal nature

B: rational 4-5. Reformatio by grace 3-4. By his images &4. grammatical of Christ & of the Spirit in his likeness5. logical 6. Conformatio in spiritual nature Six6. rhetorical by means of the sacraments illuminaC: morale 7. Deiformation by glory 5-6. By his

manifestation – enquiry7. ethical as Being – hea8. “dianoetic” & in his revelation – medit9. political as Good (= Love) – con

7. directly in ecstasy – prophecy – ecst

“WISDOM”

philosophical wisdom: theological wisdom true Christian w

- reflection on self (knowledge of God) = gift of wisdom

- speculation on the intelligences (myst

- contemplation of God byreason, experience, contuition= insufficient !

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QUESTIONS:PROBLEMS CONCERNING THE TEXTS

The texts as schematised present no small difficultiesand problems of interpretation. Above all, there is a two-foldproblem about the reductio of the parts of philosophy totheological principles as set out by Bonaventure. In general,the procedure itself is perplexing, because the same elements(grouped in sets- ‘number groups’- having in common afixed number ‘n’) can be taken back to different principles.In particular, then, one does not understand the value of anassociation of such heterogeneous elements: what do thesciences have to do with the divine persons or the nature ofChrist or with his mysteries?

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Problems regarding reductio

Father Son Holy Spirit

NATURALPHILOSOPHY

RATIONALPHILOSOPHY

MORALPHILOSOPHY

Divine natureof Christ

Metaphysics Grammar Individualethics

Spiritualnature of Christ

Mathematics Logic Economy

Bodily natureof Christ

Physics Rhetoric Politics

There then follow many problems about the value of theconcept of ‘nature’, which we find at several levels of theBonaventurian division. Are we dealing with an equivocalterm? Further, what relationship is there between thephysical plane and the natural plane, and between themetaphysical plane and the supernatural plane (given that theterms are etymologically equivalent)? An analogous problemis that of the different meanings (due to the bringing togetherof philosophical and biblical sources) of the terms ‘scientia’,‘intellectus’ and ‘sapientia’.

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Problems regarding the concept of ‘nature’

[natural sphere]

0– [Prescientific knowledge]

0.1– Tecnique: application of knowledge to the realisation of artificialplans

0.2– Sensible knowledge: knowledge of natural forms

1–Natural science = Philosophy

1.1– natural

1.1.1– metaphysics [etymologically equivalent to supernatural]: studies the ideal reasons of things, which are in the divine nature

1.1.2– mathematics: studies the intellectual reasons of things, which are in thespiritual nature

1.1.3– physics [etymologically equivalent to natural]: studies the seminal reasons of things, which are in the corporeal nature

1.2– rational

1.3– moral

[supernatural sphere in the wide sense]

2– Supernatural science [in the strict sense] = theology

3– Gratuitous science + 4– Glorious science

Finally, there arises the problem of the massive weightBonaventure gives to topological metaphors. Whatphilosophical value do metaphors have? And however cantheir application to concepts and things be entirely differentfrom univocal?

Problems regarding topological metaphors

“place”

nature reasons steps lights

[beyond]

ecstasy

above

naturadivina

idealreasons of things

divinenames [= theologyof revelation]

supernatural light ofScripture

within

naturaspirituale

intellectual reasons ofthings

images &likeness

interiorlight of reason

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[under]

outside

naturacorporea

= thingsin their naturapropria

seminalreasons of things

vestige inferiorlight ofperception

exteriorlight oftechnique

Things are still more complicated if we take intoconsideration all the correspondences betweenBonaventure’s established , but very variable, ‘numbergroups’.22

Ultimately, the relations between philosophy andtheology raise a series of difficulties and questions. Howevercan philosophy, which corresponds to the book of naturecontaining the manifestation of the uncreated Word, fit in asthe first vision of the inspired Word? How can philosophy bescience which by its nature tends towards wisdom, but is notable to attain it? And what does this mean in the context ofthe radical Parisian Aristotelianism? And what underlies thereductio, making the correspondence between the theological‘number groups’ and the philosophical ones?

22 By way of example, one may consider the following groups with an

internal numbering that does not allow an isomorphic combination: 1 Begin-ning, 2 Middle, 3 End; 1 fontal fullness of the Father, 2 procession (by gene-ration) of the Son, 3 procession of the Spirit, 1/4 Creation; 1 Unity, 2 Truth, 3Goodness, 4 Beauty or Justice; 1 things (grasped by the speculative intellect),2 understanding, 3 affection, 4 effect; 1 natural, 2 rational, 3 moral, 4 artifi-cial; 2 faith, 3 hope, 4 charity; 1 literal sense, 2 allegorical sense, 3 anagogicalsense, 4 moral sense.

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METHODOLOGY:THE CONCEPT OF ‘NATURE’

AS KEY TO THE TEXTS

We shall try to resolve, or at least confront, theaforesaid questions with the help of a lexicographicalmethod.

As to the question of the apparent terminologicalconfusion in the conceptual and translinguistic (from Greekto Latin) history of the threefold division of philosophy, wemust have recourse to the principle of the ‘specialisation offoreign words’, whereby when one language imports wordsfrom another, in respect of their lexical equivalent in thesame language, the imported word tends to acquire arestricted and technical meaning, and no longer have itsgeneral meaning.

Let us take the three pairs of terms ‘naturalis’ and‘physicus’, ‘rationalis’ and ‘logicus’, ‘moralis’ and‘ethicus’. Among the elements of each pair there would beexpressed, from a merely morpholexical point of view, thesame concept; but by the phenomenon of the specialisationof foreign words, they end up not only by differing, but byplacing themselves on two different taxonomic levels.

We must say first that the aforesaid terms of Greekorigin were be imported from the technical language ofphilosophy, where they operated at first as feminine singular

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adjectives (‘physiké’, ‘loghiké’, ‘ethiké’) attached to thesubstantive word ‘philosophia’ (expressed or oftenunderstood), or else as neuter plurals (‘ta physiká’, ‘ta metàta physiká’, ‘ta ethicá’ etc.), to indicate the (specificallyAristotelian) treatise. Imported into Latin, where thetermination of the nominative feminine singular and of thenominative neuter plural of first-declension adjectives is thesame, the words ‘logicus’, ‘physicus’, ‘ethicus’, theneologism ‘metaphysicus’ (and other similar combinedwords) were each changed from simple adjectival words intosets of three substantive sub-terms: the masculinesubstantives ‘logicus’, ‘physicus’, ‘ethicus’, ‘metaphysicus’etc. to indicate the students of the respective disciplines; thefeminine substantives ‘logica’, ‘physica’ etc. to indicate thedisciplines themselves; and the neuter plural substantives(e.g. ‘physica- physicorum’) to indicate the respectiveAristotelian treatises (this last linguistic phenomenon iscertainly connected with the scholastic approach to studyinga discipline by studying the established texts). Hence, nolonger functioning as adjectives, and characterisedimmediately as words in a technical language, no longercommon, and referring to a very precise range of disciplines,the foreign words ‘logica’, ‘physica’, ‘ethica’ are no longersemantically equivalent to (respectively) ‘rationalis’,‘naturalis’ and ‘moralis’, but end up by constitutinghyponyms (just like other similar foreign words, such as‘grammatica’, ‘rhetorica’, ‘metaphysica’, ‘politica’…).

As regards the different meanings of ‘scientia’,‘intellectus’ and ‘sapientia’, the principle of ‘thecombination of strange and foreign words with the samemeaning’ has force (as we shall see in reconstructing thesources). The fact that different concepts, from outside alanguage, come to be expressed (for reasons of translation)

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by the same term within the language, on the one handreflects a certain semantic affinity perceived by thetranslators, and on the other hand constrains speakers(philosophers and theologians in particular) to harmonise allthe meanings inherited from tradition around a significantnucleus (the so-called ‘vertex of the semantic cone’).

As to the question of the apparent equivocity of theconcept of ‘nature’ (which looks to be a privileged key tounderstanding the deeper structure of the Bonaventuriansystem), we must have recourse to the principle of ‘mutualdetermination of antonyms’ and to the ‘principle of use’.

In general, but above all in the case of philosophical ortheological terminology, always analogous and shifting,every concept is determined in relation to and in oppositionto others. In the linguistic sense, omnis determinatio estnegatio. So, to understand properly the meaning of a term,one must first determine precisely what antonym it isopposed to. Therefore, the word ‘natura’ will signifydifferent things if we oppose it to ‘persona’, or to ‘voluntas’,or to ‘ars’ or to ‘gratia’. In the first case (for example whenwe say that in God there is one nature in three persons),‘natura’ will mean ‘ontological commonness’ or ‘essence’;in the second case, ‘natura’ will indicate the field of what isconditioned ontologically or physically, in opposition to thefield of liberty; in the third case, ‘natura’ will indicate(within the field of everything physically conditioned) therealm of living and non-living beings which produce andreproduce of themselves, as opposed to the field of humanproduction; finally, in the fourth case, ‘natura’ will indicatethe foundation that man has by creation, ‘gratia’ on the otherhand being ‘superadditum’, and hence ‘not owed’ in theorder of creation.

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Through lexicographical reconstruction, drawing on thedifferent meanings of the words of the group ‘-natur-’actually used by Bonaventure (without however takingaccount of the explicit reductive definitions which the authorhimself gives of them),23 we can get back, conjecturally, tothe vertex of the semantic cone: ‘natura’ has as its first andmost general meaning nothing else but the notion of‘ontologically communicable’ (every ‘quality’ the object ofpossible static commonness or dynamic communication onthe part of one or more subjects), as opposed to ‘res’,understood as ‘ontologically incommunicable’ (every subjectunrepeatable as to commonness or communication, above allthe ‘person’). Nature so understood is at determined leastimplicitly by an adjective which expresses its ontological‘measure’: ‘natura divina’, ‘natura spiritualis’, ‘naturacorporea’, ‘natura humana’ (intersecting the previous two),‘natura creata’ (or ‘natura naturata’, or simply ‘natura’ or‘creatura’, understood as the union of the preceding naturesas opposed to the creating divine nature. In this usage,‘natura’ has a triple function (constitutive, concrete andcollective): for instance, ‘natura humana’ signifies either theconstitutive ‘quality’ which makes a subject a human being,or the concrete man (but in general, not this or that man), orthe collection of all men; similarly ‘natura’ (‘creata’understood ) would mean either the ensemble of all creatures(in a collective sense), or the creation itself (in a concretesense: as universe and as book) or creatureliness (in aconstitutive sense, opposed to grace and to glory, and

23 Cf A. DI MAIO, Il vocabolario bonaventuriano per la Natura, in “Mi-

scellanea Francescana” 88 (1988), p. 301-356; La dottrina bonaventurianasulla Natura, ibid. 89 (1989), p. 335-392; La concezione bonaventurianadella Natura quale potenziale oggetto di Comunicazione, ibid. 90 (1990), p.61-116.

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characterised by the laws of nature); while ‘natura’(‘corporea’ understood) would mean either the ensemble ofsensible beings (in a collective sense), or the physical world(in a concrete sense, as ‘machina mundialis’), or the naturalor physical dynamic itself (in a constitutive sense, as thephysical causal process).

Since in general every nature is communicable by anaction (the divine processions in the divine nature, creationbetween the divine nature and created nature, generationwithin the various corporeal natures, and in an imperfectmanner human art as a product of artificial design), we meanby ‘natural’ every perfection which is innate andontologically connatural to a determinate nature, by‘naturally acquired’ every perfection which while it is notinnate comes about from a proper action of the nature itself,and by ‘supernaturally infused’ every perfection that isunable to follow from created nature, but is obtained by thegratuitous gift of the divine nature. And since human nature(made in the image of the divine) has the power tocommunicate also by intelligence and will, we see that withthe natural sphere in the strict sense there are associated therational and moral spheres (which yet belong to the sphere ofthe naturally acquired).

From this brief notation, it is clear that the confusion isnot in the Bonaventurian use of the concept of nature, but inthe unthinking way in which the modern reader confuses thedifferent meanings and levels of terminology (one thinks ofthe frequent equivocation in mistaking ‘natural law’understood as an ethical norm situated in created naturegenerally and human nature in particular, for ‘natural law’understood as a causal physical process…).

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As regards, then, the question of the evident variabilityof the reductio, and of the use of corresponding metaphors,we must recall both the principle of homology betweenhomogeneous taxonomies, and a principle of metaphoricalrelativity.

Let us recall schematically the Bonaventurian semanticsystem of reductio (freely inspired by Dionysius): 24 reductiois making evident the latent unity in the division of the many,just as resolutio is making evident the latent simplicity in thecomposition of the multiplicity.

Semantic system of “reductio”

divisio :: reductio compositio :: resolutio

MULTA :: UNUM MULTIPLEX :: SIMPLEX

latet patet latet patet

Every classification, then, whether it be conventional orentitrely arbitrary, which is constructed according to adiairetically exhaustive criterion, must be superimposableupon any other classification which (though it be entirelydifferent in its contents) is constructed according to anhomologous criterion. In other words, it will always bepossible to establish an isomorphism between oneclassification and the other, varying according to how thecriterion selected by the correspondence varies (as we shallsee better in the last section). Ultimately, if in order toexhaustively divide the semantic universe it is decided toadopt the metaphorical classification of ‘supra’, ‘intra’,‘infra’, such a classification must be isomorphic not only to

24 Cf Sent 2.24a.2.1 ad 8; Red 7 & 26; Hex 1.17 & 3.32.

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the three fundamental ontological dgrees of being (or thethree natures, divine, spiritual and corporeal), but also to theclassification of the three levels or rationes (ideal,intellectual and seminal) contained in corporeal nature alone,without this implying any incoherence or vagueness in thesystem (in fact there is a rigorous way of treating even vagueconcepts).

This is the more so because many of the metaphorsadopted by Bonaventure are relational, and hence theychange meaning according to the purpose for which they arechosen. It would be like accusing someone of incoherence ifhe said he had left a book inside the room but outside thedrawer, or someone else who when asked by two beggarswhich way to go, regarding the same destination but fromopposite directions, told the first to turn right and the secondto turn left…

Finally, as to the question of philosophy (the knowledgeof the per se natural) being located as the first vision of theunderstanding of the inspired Word (which is supernatural),one can answer in the first place that Christian asceticsretraces the study of philosophy, placing it within a new(Christocentric) horizon of meaning, and in the second placethat philosophy is the object of the understanding of theinspired Word, not as regards the nine sciences but asregards the wisdom promised by philosophy and not givenby them. In other words, grace would bring to a conclusion aprocess natural in itself, but incurably interrupted by sin. Onecan discuss the teaching from a theoretical point of view, butone cannot surely accuse it of incoherence or confusion ofplanes.

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FINAL HERMENEUTIC

In the light of all the points considered so far, we can tryto put forward an hypothesis for a global interpretation: theBonaventurian division of knowing is based upon the idea ofan “original and originating structure” of reality.

We may presume (although we cannot prove it) thatBonaventure visualised the original and originating structuremetaphorically like a Franciscan cross or T.

According to Ezekiel the Tau- the last letter of theHebrew alphabet and thus a symbol of completion- was the“sign of the most High God on the foreheads of the elect; inthe Apocalypse the Tau- a Greek letter in the shape of thecross of Jesus- was stamped by the angel of the sixth seal andby another angel who came from the East, identified by thesecond generation of Franciscans with Francis, the alterChristus 25.

25 Cf Hex 16.29 & 20.29-30.

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The original and originating theological structure (the “Tau” and theintelligible “circle”)

Natura divina Father Son / Word HolySpirit / Love [natura naturante]

Natura spirituale “formatio” (nature) Human souldeiformatio (glory)

[natura naturata] of Christ

Natura corporea “deformatio” (sin) Human body conformatio

“reformatio” (grace )

To be sure, Bonaventure did not explicitly describe theCross, but in various texts he shows that it was very present to hissymbolic imagination. The Cross is for him the symbolicrecapitulation of the whole divine work of manifestation andrevelation (“omnia in cruce manifestantur”); the universal measurewhich measures the measurer himself, showing him the centre ofreality (just as in geometry the crossing of the two diagonals of asquare circumscribing a circle serves to find the centre of the circlethat has been lost); it is the intersection of the various dimensionsof the real (“crux beata, quatuor finibus terminata”: i.e. inside,outside, above and below), within the intelligible circle of thereductio.26

More precisely, in the prologue to the Breviloquium(freely quoting the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians),Bonaventure elaborates the theory of the ‘intelligible cross’,resulting from the intersection of certain axes (breadth,length, height and depth), of which the first two (breadth anddepth) refer to Scripture; and the other two (length, ortemporal extension, and height, or hierarchical disposition)

26 Cf respectively De triplici via (3)5; Hex 1.24; Soliloquium 0.2; Red 7,

Hex 1.17 e 3.32.

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refer to reality.27 In fact, to the real universe (which is initself impossible for man to traverse, either in ‘time’ or‘space’) there corresponds the textual universe of the Bible,which is as it were an intelligible image of it, whosehorizontal axis is the collection of sacred books (or, so tosay, the extensive plane of things with meaning), and whosevertical axis is the totality of the four scriptural senses (or theintensive plane of what is meant): the literal sense and, at adeeper level, the three further mystical senses known byfaith, charity and hope.28

To the ‘quaternary’ just illustrated (length, breadth,height and depth), Bonaventure joins the ‘ternary’ or “ratiocausae triformis” (originating, exemplifying, finishing), suchthat the septenary which results “derives its reason and originfrom the archetypal uncreated world”, but is reflected in thecreated world.29 The archetypal ternary allows us to thinkand to distinguish in God the three divine persons byappropriation (or by the isomorphism which the theologianestablishes in virtue of revelation between the three aspectsof primal causality and the Father, Son and Holy Spirit); thetriad is reflected in the created world both by the three causesof things (efficient, exemplar and final), and in the threefaculties which the soul (subject) has of knowing (intellect),desiring (affection) and doing (effect):30 we note theinversion of order (in man, doing comes last) and thecorrespondence with the tetrad already examined in thedivision of knowledge: natural, rational, moral (thephilosophical trio) and artificial.

27 Cf Brev 0.6.4, 0.0.6 & Hex 2.17.28 Cf Brev 0.2.4 & 0.3.2; Brev 0.1 & 0.4; Red 5; Hex 2.12-19.29 Cf Hex 16.9 & HexD 3.4.8-9.30 Cf Hex 1.12-13; 16.9; Brev 0.4.5, Hex 4.2-5.

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In our visual reconstruction of the intelligible Cross, thearchetypal ternary functions as the horizontal axis, which wemay call the cosmological axis, because it scans the universalorder, starting from that of the three persons in one divinenature; in turn, the other ternary of height or hierarchicaldisposition functions as the vertical axis, which we may calltopological, because it corresponds to the threefolddetermination of above, within and below, or to the threeontological grades of the three fundamental natures(corporeal, spiritual, divine) united by the incarnation of theone person of Christ: there is, then, a certain mirror-symmetry between these two ternaries, which Bonaventuredescribes by the metaphor of the “two trisagions”31.

The topological axis measures every hierarchy of the real. Inits complete fulfilment (i.e. in Christ) it constyitutes the ladderwith three rungs for accomplishing the ascent to God; this ladderrepairs (after sin) and perfects the previous created ladder, that is,the threefold mode of existence in things (in matter, in the mindand in God, in virtue of- respectively- the seminal, intellectual andideal reasons), extracted by man basically at the different levels ofknowledge (the triple ‘eye’ of the flesh, the soul and the mindwhich is split in two at every step: sense towards the outside,imagination towards the inside; reason towards the low andunderstanding towards the high; the intelligence and the apex ofthe mind): as one climbs the ladder, God is re-cognisable incorporeal nature by the ‘vestige’, in spiritual nature by images andin likeness, in his own divine nature by natural manifestation (asBeing) and by supernatural revelation (as Good, or love).32 Whensuch a union happens, man is hierarchically ordered, that is, placed

31 Cf respectively Red 20; Hex 8.9.32 Cf Itin 1.3 & 4.2; Brev 0.3.1 & 2.12.4; Itin 1.2-3 1.6 and the titles of

the capitula.

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in order in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, in solidarity with theangelic hierarchy and united with the Trinitarian hierarchy.33 Thetopological axis gives us the reason for the structure of naturalphilosophy, but also of negative and ascending theology.

The structural correspondence between the cosmological and topologicalaxes and the spheres of knowledge and reality

TRIPLE EXISTENCE OF THINGS INTELLECT AFFECTION EFFECT

Ideal reasons

Intellectual reasons Language Behaviour Technique

Seminal reasons

“natural” “rational” “moral” “artificial”

There remains for us to consider the axis of ‘temporalextension’, which we may call chronological. In ourproposed visual reconstruction, it consists in the temporalcircle which distinguishes the state of the ‘ladder’ at differentmoments, that is, the successive moments of formativity (theoriginal formatio by nature at the beginning of time, theoriginal deformatio by sin, the reformatio by grace in thefullness of time, conformatio in the sacraments of ecclesialtime, dei-formatio by glory at the end of time).

Suggestively, Bonaventure attempts a translation of thesetheological categories in anthropological terms: “Examine whatyou are, what you were, what you should have been, what you mayyet be”.34 The chronological axis gives us the reason not only ofthe structure of affirmative theology, but also that of the “double

33 Cf Hex 21 & 2.16 (the source of this doctrine is not Dionysius, but the

commentary of Hugh of Dionysius).34 De perfectione vitae 1.5.

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plan” which unites philosophy (as natural knowledge) andtheology (as supernatural knowledge or grace).

In this manner the neoplatonic circle of exitus andreditus is subordinated to the necessity of an a-temporalprocess without beginning or end, and is firmly articulated inthe very limited times of history, to manifest the eternalcircle of the immanent love of God; the chronological axisalso structures the textual universe of the Bible, articulatingits contents into the ‘lex naturae’ given in Genesis, the ‘lexscripta’ given to Moses and the ‘lex gratiae’ given byChrist.35

We arrive now at a capital point in our hermeneuticalreconstruction. Although the intelligible cross has anintrinsically theological value, its conceptual structure is initself logical and ontological.

When Bonaventure leads back natural philosophy (forexample) to the person of the Father, and physics to the corporealnature of Christ, we cannot attribute to him with much certaintythe idea that such sciences actually study, even in a very generalway, this or that (and it is quite true that he himself is happy tolead back physics to the person of the Holy Spirit too…); but weshould not even charge him with causing confusion, or of justspeaking poetically. What Bonaventure means to do is simply tonote an isomoerphism between two different conceptual structures(in this case, between the structure of philosophical knowledge andthe structure of Trinitarian and Christological theology). But aword of caution: the isomorphism works in two ways. If in fact thewhole of reality can be thought of as isomorphic with the divinehumanity, on the other hand the same divine humanity can bethought about man only insofar as it is isomorphic with the

35 Cf Sent 1.45.2.1 co; Itin 1.12.

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ontological structure of reality: “The Father is in the order of theoriginating principle, the Son in the order of the exemplatingcentre, the Holy Spirit in the order of fulfilling end. […] Althoughthe metaphysician […] attains knowledge of God as beginning,centre and final end, yet he does not attain the notions of Father,Son and Holy Spirit.” 36. Within the expression ‘in the order of’(‘in ratione’ followed by the genitive) there is hidden theBonaventurian sense of the ‘division’ and ‘leading back’ of the‘number groups’. Therefore, where one has a systematic division,it is necessary for there to be an a priori criterion for the division.So two systematic homologous divisions should be able to besuperimposed by isomorphism.

The following scheme tries to extrapolate the possibleinternal logical structure which unites all the other structures.

The archetypal structure

“cosmological” axis

“topological” Beginning Middle Endaxis ULTERIORITY

of thehierarchical beginning of time INTERIORITY end oftimedisposition [= past at the origin]

EXTERIORITY

decadence “present” time [= past from the origin]

fullness of time [= centre]

“cronological” axis of the course of time

36 Cf Hex 1.12-13. (Translation José de Vinck, altered slightly)

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Certainly, for Bonaventure the intelligible cross is notan empty conceptual structure: the person of Christ is, so tospeak, nailed upon it, filling it with meaning and reality. Thelogic of the Cross37 (expressed by the dialectical syllogism“Christ is immortal by nature; but Christ died for love;therefore Christ is risen again”), while closely following theneoplatonic dialectic of affirmation, negation and eminence,does not remain a merely conceptual procedure for sayingthe unsayable. It presents itself as an interpretation of theglobal historical process. From this perspective, theologymakes explicit the christocentrism of all the sciences: notonly because the individual sciences (if only in a generalway) study Christ, but because “in omni ergo scientia sineChristo evanescit sciens”.38

37 Cf Hex 1.25-30, which I have analysed in this perspective in La logica

della Croce in Bonaventura e Tommaso: il sillogismo di Cristo e il duplicemedio, in T. P. ZECCA (ed), La Croce di Cristo, unica speranza. Atti del IIICongresso internazionale “La sapienza della Croce oggi”. Roma, 9-13 gen-naio 1995, San Gabriele - Roma 1996, p. 373-398.

38 HexD 0.1.39.

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DIACHRONIC

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GENESIS:RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOURCES, OR

HYPERTEXTUALIZATION ‘A PARTE ANTE’

We have already noted, in the textual analysis, thevarious sources of the Bonaventurian division. We shall nowtry to reconstruct, layer by layer, the various classifications(which articulate and contain philosophy) inherited byBonaventure 1. From a lexicographical point of view, thistask consists in identifying the hypertextual links “a parteante”, that is, the connections which the Bonaventurian textshave, explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, withthose that went before.

Our position here is that, through history, taxonomicconcepts have changed in language (from Greek to Latin), givingrise to the curious phenomenon (already pointed out in the courseof the synchronic linguistic analysis) of the specialization offoreign terms.

1 On the history of the division of knowledge in the Middle Ages, cf the

clasical works J.A. Weisheipl, Classification of the Sciences in MediaevalThought, “Mediaeval Studies” (1965), p. 54-90; F. Van Steenberghen, LaPhilosophie au XIIIme siècle, Louvain 1966; and, among recent studies, J.R.Martínez (ed), Unità e autonomia del sapere. Il dibattito del XIII secolo, Ro-ma 1994 (Studi di filosofia) with contributions by J.R. Martínez, Unità e di-versità nelle scienze. Radici e prospettive di un dibattito, p. 7-19; A. Maierù,La concezione della scienza tra i secoli XII e XIII, p. 23-39; S.L. Brock, Au-tonomia e gerarchia delle scienze in Tommaso d’Aquino, p. 71-95; J.-I. Sara-nyana, Lo statuto epistemologico della teologia nell’Università di Parigi (sec.XIII), p. 135-56; and finally the papers prsented to the seventh meeting of the“Società Italiana per lo studio del Pensiero Medievale” (La divisione della fi-losofia e le sue ragioni – Assisi 1997), in course of publication (ed by G.d’Onofrio) on “Schola Salernitana”.

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THE ‘PLATONIC’ THREE-FOLD VERTICAL DIVISION.

The first division of philosophy is the ‘Platonic’ three-fold vertical division into Physics (seen as the science of theefficient causes of the world), Ethics (seen as the science ofthe final causes, especially of man),and Metaphysics in thesense of Dialectic (seen as the science of exemplar causes orideas) and even of revealed Theology. This division, hiddenin Bonaventure (probably because he did not know itsorigin), is indirectly reducible (as to the division itself, not asto the names of the parts) to the “change of course” 2 fromthe search for the causes of physical things and final causesto that specifically for ideas, provided that a divine revelationhas not allowed a “safer course” (in a formulation antelitteram of the “double scheme” of a revealed theology and anatural theology, a concept which would, throughAugustine,3 become wide-spread in the Middle Ages).

The same division is echoed, in a slightly altered form,by Origen.4 He divides philosophy into ethical or moral,physical or natural, and ‘enoptic’ or contemplative (pluslogical, which is really included in the foregoing). To thesecorrespond, respectively, the three sapiential Biblical booksattributed to Solomon (Proverbs to moral philosophy,

2 Which in the Phaedo [45-47 (96a-99d) and 35 (85c-d)] Plato attributes

to Socrates, but which in reality is his own. For an unconscious echo in Bona-venture see Hex 1.13.

3 De civitate Dei 8.4 In the Preface to the Commentary on the Canticles, known in the tran-

slation of Rufinus; ed. W. A. Baehrens, Die griechischen christlichenSchriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte, vol. 33, 1925, p. 61-88. This divi-sion (mentioned also in Evagrius [Practicus, 1] which divides Christianity-“true philosophy”, practiced by monks- into practical, physical, theological),notwithstanding the condemnation of Origenism, entered the western mona-stic tradition (through monastic tradition, Bernard in particular).

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Ecclesiastes to natural, and Canticles to contemplative). Thisis explicitly cited by Bonaventure.5

THE HELLENISTIC AND AUGUSTINIAN THREE-FOLD HO-

RIZONTAL DIVISION

The division which has enjoyed the greatest success isthe horizontal three-fold division (apparently the same as thePlatonic, and put forward as the view of Xenocrates, butreworked by hellenistic philosophy- academic, stoic andepicurean- and interpreted in a Christian way by Augustine6).In this, philosophy is divided into Logic (rational philosophy,for the Latins), Physics (or natural philosophy) and Ethics (ormoral philosophy). In this re-working the three parts are noton three different levels, but all on the same plane, andordered according to a purely methodological sequencewhich is therefore variable, though it usually begins withLogic (which, as for Aristotle, provides the criteria forknowing), and ends with Ethics (which in turn provides thecriteria for the life of the savant). Augustine provides anontological foundation7 for the three-fold division intonatural, rational and moral in God, viewed as “cause ofbeing, reason for knowing and order for living,” such that theclassification is not historically contingent, but systematicand complete (even if the order of the parts is never entirelyfixed). This three-fold division eventually comes, inBonaventure, to have a Trinitarian connotation (and it is

5 In Hex 6.25 and 19.2.6 Cf Diogenes Laertius, Vitae 7.39-41 and 55; Cicero, De finibus 4.4; in:

Stoici Antichi, Tutti i frammenti collcted by H. von Armin (ed. R. Radice),Rusconi, Milano 1998, p. 26-29, 1483 and 1489); Augustine, Contra Acade-micos 3.11-13; De civitate 8.4; 11.25.

7 We should remember that, for Bonaventure, «Augustinus […] fuit altis-simus metaphysicus» [Sent 2.3a.1.2 co].

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noteworthy that, with the exception of the De Reductione,natural philosophy, appropriated to the Father, comes beforerational philosophy, appropriated to the Son).

THE ARISTOTELIAN SYSTEMATIZATION OF THE SCIENCES

ACCORDING TO THEIR OBJECTS

The most organic speculative division in antiquity(which although it came before the hellenistic wasassimilated later in the Middle Ages) is the systematizationby objects elaborated by Aristotle, reflecting the division ofhis esoteric writings and set out systematically in theMetaphysics8: after the “Organon” (corrsponding to Logic),prior to but outside the system, Philosophy is dividedaccording to the three human aptitudes into theoreticalphilosophy (comprising, in ascending order, Physics,Mathematics and First Philosophy, also called Theology orWisdom, and later on Metaphysics); practical philosophy(comprising, in order of complexity, Ethics, Economics andPolitics); and poetic philosophy (comprising, besides Poetry,Rhetoric as well). The fact that in the thirteenth centuryUniversity ‘to study philosophy’ meant, in parctice, to studythe works of Aristotle gave rise to a curious situation9: theAristotelian division was employed to characterise theindividual sciences, but for their organization as “parts” ofphilosophy the traditional latinized hellenistic systemprevailed. In particular, the use of foreign terms made itpossible to combine the two schemes, which were otherwiseincompatible (for instance, physics was situated withinnatural philosophy, which should have been the equivalentof physics!)

8 In Metaph. 6.1 (1025b-1026a).9 Cf the student guide published by Grabmann and quoted in F. Van

Steenberghen, La Philosophie au XIIIme siècle, Louvain 1966.

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The division of philosophy into ‘theoretical’ and‘practical’ is noted by Bonaventure 10, who refers to it inpassing in the prologue to the Breviloquium 11 (by way ofcontrast, making the point that theology must be divided in away not isomorphic with philosophy). But then in theconstruction of a system of knowledge, theoreticalphilosophy becomes identified with natural philosophy(joining the criterion of distinction by objects to that byaptitudes); practical philosophy coincides without difficultywith moral philosophy; and the Organon is no longer prior tothe system, but part of it, usually in the second position (andcharacterised as “philosophy in the genitive”). Poetics ismissing, in line with the scant knowledge and considerationof the works in the universtities of the period, and rhetoriccomes to be inserted as the conclusion of rational philosophy(whether by the influence of the division of the Trivium, orby identification with the Topics on probable arguments, orby the new connotation of “logic of morality”).

Moreover, as we know, the three theoretical scienceswere repositioned in inverse order, and distinguished not onthe basis of their material objects (all three study things), buton the basis of their formal objects (or rationes) and thus ofthe human faculties. Finally, Aristotle’s First Philosophy wasdivided into two (with a distinction that, despite someresemblances, does not anticipate that of Wolff, but reflectsthe Christian Socratism of Augustine and Bernard), i.e. intometaphysics (understood as ontology) and wisdom(understood as knowledge of self and of God).

10 Terms of the form ‘philosoph-’, i.e. ‘philosophia’, ‘philosophicus’,

‘philosophus’ (whether in the ordinary sense, or in the antonomastic usage tomean Aristotle), ‘philosophari’ – recur in the Bonaventurian works includedon the CD-ROM of CLCLT-3 (cit. in the first part of the article) 197 times in 182distinct phrases.

11 Cf Brev 0.1.2.

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THE NEOPLATONIC CRITERION OF THE DIVISION OF THE

SCIENCES ACCORDING TO THE FACULTIES

Moreover, Bonaventure did not inherit from theneoplatonic tradition new divisions of knowledge, but newways of understanding the Aristotelian classification.

From Plotinus, through the eighth chapter ofMacrobius’ commentary of the Somnium Scipionis12

Bonaventure took the doctrine of the four levels of the fourphilosophical virtues (relating to the active life, thecontemplative life, the perfect or ‘pure’ life, and the divinelife) and made of them a route-map to arrive at philosophicalwisdom.

The same four cardinal virtues exist in four different degrees:as civil virtue (politicae), that is, of the active life; as purifying(purgatoriae), that is, of the contemplative life; purely (animi iampurgati), that is, in the perfect life; and as exemplars (exemplares),that is, existing in God., from whom they flow down to men. Thecardinal virtues are four in number, because they are the hinges forthe proper exercise of the four human faculties: the intellect, orcognitive faculty (by prudence); the affection or affective faculty(by temperance and fortitude); the effective or operative faculty(by justice).

Boethius’ system, mediated by Hugh of St Victor13, re-established the three-fold Aristotelian division of theoreticalphilosophy into physics, mathematics and theology, but re-interpreted it in a neoplatonic sense based not only on thedistinction of classes of different objects, but even more onthe cognitive faculties employed and their methods, reachinga distinction of three planes of knowledge (respectively the

12 Abundantly quoted in Hex 6.13 Cf Boethius, De Trinitate 2 and the two commentaries In Porphyrium;

Hugh of St Victor, Didascalicon 2.2.

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sensible, the intelligible, and the ‘intellectualizable’)14. Thisstructure approaches also the three-fold vertical division ofthe sciences of natural philosophy, in virtue of the threetypes of “rationes”, seminales, intellectuales and ideales,which partly echo Augustine, by the doctrine of the three-fold existence of things: the first (which we may call“transcendent”) is in the mind of the Creator, the second(which we may call “transcendental”) is in the createdintelligence, and the third (which we may call “immanent”)is in their own nature, or in matter (which for Bonaventure isthe potential receptivity in general, whether corporeal orspiritual). Such a three-fold existence is founded,creationally, on the original three-fold vision and action ofGod (“fiat, fecit, factum est”), and is known by man in virtueof the three levels of his cognitive ability (the “triple eye” ofwhich Hugh speaks)15.

First Boethius and then Hugh16 perceived the centraltaxonomic character of the concept of “nature”: the first byunderstanding the structural foundation of Christian teaching,which is the Incarnation, and the second by understandingthe distribution of the sciences: thus both (and the secondfollowing the first) felt the need to clarify, linguistically, themeaning of the term ‘nature’, reviewing the usage traditionalup to them, without in the end obtaining a definitive andcomplete clarification. Bonaventure had their definitions inmind, and quotes them17, but his considered doctrine of

14 Cf G. d’Onofrio, Severino Boezio: la philosophiae divisio tra essere e

conoscere, relazione tenuta al VII convegno della Società Italiana per lo stu-dio del Pensiero Medievale (Assisi 1997), in course of publication for “ScholaSalernitana”.

15 Cf Augustine, De genesi ad litteram 2.8.16-20 and passim; Hugh of StVictor, De sacramentis 1.10.2; Brev 2.12.4 e Hex 5.24.

16 Respectively in De duabus naturis and in Didascalicon 1.10.17 Cf Sent 3.5.2.1 sc 4, MyTrin 2.2 co.

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“nature” (through articulating the usage of the linguisticfamily of the term “natura”) comes to be quite different, aswe have seen in the course of the synchronic analysis.

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS IN LATE

ANTIQUITY AND THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES

Finally, the systematization of the seven liberal arts inlate antiquity18 and the high Middle Ages, surviving in themedieval University in the actual name of the faculty ofphilosophy (‘Facultas Artium’), was inherited byBonaventure through Hugh of St Victor19, who had alreadybegun to fuse it with the Aristotelian division: to themechanical arts (‘mechanicae’ or servile, or really‘moecanicae’ or adulterous) he opposes the liberal arts: theTrivium or Logic (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic: this lastadvances into second place), theoretical philosophy,comprising the Quadrivium or Mathematics (arithmetic,geometry, music and astronomy), Physics and (natural)Theology; and finally practical philosophy. We should notethat in Bonaventure’s time grammar was no longer theclassic linguistic discipline, but something “speculative”.

THE BIBLICAL SCHEME OF THE “DOUBLE” KNOWLEDGE

(NATURAL AND REVEALED)

As we have already noted in the course of thesynchronic analysis, the structure of the internal division ofphilosophy comes to be inserted (through theJudeo-Christian context) in a macrostructure which we may

18 Cf H.I. Marrou, Histoire de l’éducation dans l’antiquité, Paris 1948.19 Cf Didascalicon 1-3; but especially 2.20 e 3.1.

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call the “double scheme”, in common with confessionaltheology.

Fleetingly outlined by Plato (it is said), this scheme isabsent from classical philosophical thought, although it isimplicitly constitutive of the Biblical message.

In some Biblical texts (and in the interpretative traditionthat follows) such a scheme is also explicitly expressed: inPsalm 61, «God has said only one thing: only two do Iknow», namely “power” and “grace”: the one divine Word isexpressed in the economy as a twofold Word, Creator andRevealer. The first explicit text is Psalm 18, with the praiseof the two-fold manifestation of God: in the created World(«The heavens declare the glory of God […]; No utterance atall, no speech, no sound that anyone can hear») and in therevealed Law, or Torah («The Law of the Lord isperfect…»). Moreover, the redactor of the first chapter ofGenesis had already inserted symbolically into his account ofthe creation “ten words” (“God said”).

The Psalm does not specify whether the knowledge ofGod through creation is possible even outside the context offaith: it would be for the inter-testamental anddeutero-canonical book of Wisdom to affirm it without anypossible equivocation, in virtue of analogy. (One maydiscuss how a deutero-canonical book, received by theCatholic and Orthodox Churches, but not by the Reformedtradition, can determine the different treatment of thetheological and philosophical question in the differenttraditions).20

20 Cf Wisd 13,1-9 (Jerusalem Bible version): «Yes, naturally stupid are

all men who have not known God and who, from the good things that areseen, have not been able to discover Him-who-is, or, by studying the works,have failed to recognise the Artificer. […] If, charmed by their beauty, theyhave taken things for gods, let them know how much the Lord of these excelsthem, since the very Author of beauty has created them. And if they have

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This scheme was subjected to re-interpretation by StPaul, who applied it to the knowledge of God and of his Lawas much in the theoretical as in the practical sphere21: theheathens who are entirely without revelation can know thatthere is a God, although they cannot know God..

If experience had made him conscious of the characteristicfoolishness of preaching22, Paul did not, nevertheless, belittle thegeneral importance of the “double doctrine”, as is shown a littlelater in his letter to the Romans.

The procedure illustrated by Luke in his reconstructionof Paul’s discourse on the Areopagus23 consists in four

been impressed by their power and energy, let them deduce from these howmuch mightier is he that has formed them, since through the grandeur andbeauty of the creatures we may, by analogy, contemplate their Author. Smallblame, however, attaches to these men, for perhaps they only go astray intheir search for God and their eagerness to find him; living among his works,they strive to comprehend them and fall victim to appearances, seeing somuch beauty. Even so, they are not to be excused: if they are capable of ac-quiring enough knowledge to be able to investigate the world, how have theybeen so slow to find its Master?».

21 Cf respectively Rom 1,19-21; 2,14-15 (Jerusalem Bible version): «Forwhat can be known about God is perfectly plain to them [= all men who havenot known the Hebraic revelation], since God himself has made it plain. Eversince God created the world his everlasting power and deity- however invisi-ble- have been there for the mind to see in the things he has made. That iswhy such people are without excuse: they knew God and yet refused to ho-nour him as God or to thank him »; «Pagans who never heard of the Law butare led by reason to do what the Law commands, may not actually ‘possess’the Law, but they can be said to ‘be’ the Law. They can point to the substanceof the Law engraved on their hearts- they can call a witness, that is, their ownconscience- they have accusation and defence, that is, their own inner mentaldialogue.».

22 Cf 1Cor 1-2.23 Cf Acts 17,23-28 (Jerusalem Bible version): «<The Unknown God>

[…] whom you already worship without knowing it <is the God whom I pro-claim>. Since the God who made the world and everything in it is himselfLord of heaven and earth, he does not make his home in shrines made by hu-man hands. Nor is he dependent on anything that human hands can do for

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phases: an initial appreciation of the implicit religious sensein Greek religion (that is, a sense of the divine); a leadingback, by a “philosophical” procedure, from such objects ofworship to the author of the world; a consequent critique ofthat religion and a criterion for authentic religion; andfinally, the announcement of faith in Christ. The not veryenthusiastic response to the discourse must not deceive usabout Luke’s intentions: even if the majority of listenerslaughed at Paul, some were converted who, perhaps, wouldnot have been converted but for this intercultural approach.

But the most relevant formulation of the double scheme,ontologically, is the Johannine Prologue24, with its explicitaffirmation that the one Word, both as co-Creator and thelight which implicitly enlightens all men (who may notknow, however, that they are enlightened by the Word), and

him, since he can never be in need of anything; on the contrary, it is he whogives everything- including life and breath- to everyone. From one singlestock he not only created the whole human race so that they could occupy theentire earth, but he decreed how long each nation should flourish and what theboundaries of its territory should be. And he did this so that all nations mightseek the deity and, by feeling their way towards him, succeed in finding him.Yet in fact he is not far from any of us, since it is in him that we live, and mo-ve, and exist, as indeed some of your own writers have said: We are all hischildren.».

24 Cf John 1,1-18 (Jerusalem Bible version): «In the beginning was theWord: the Word was with God [= the Father] and the Word was God. He waswith God in the beginning. Through him all things came to be, not one thinghad its being but through him. All that came to be had life in him and that lifewas the light of men: […] The Word was the true light that enlightens allmen: […] The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glo-ry, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.[…] No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to theFather’s heart, who has made him known ». The relevance of this prologue isemphasised by R. Imbach, La filosofia nel prologo di S. Giovanni secondo S.Agostino, S. Tommaso e Meister Eckhart, in “Studi. Istituto San Tommaso.Pontificia Universitas a S. Thoma Aq. in Urbe” 2 (1995), p. 161-82.

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also as incarnate, is the fulness of revelation given explicitlyto believers.

Onto this doctrine there is grafted that of the inspiredWord, or of the Word of God made present by faith, bymeans of the Holy Spirit, in the hearts of the faithful.25.

As has already been emphasised, the source (oftenmisunderstood) of this concept is probably the doctrine (containedin the first chapter of the second letter of Peter) of ‘epígnosis’, theintuition by faith that the Christian has of Christ “according to theSpirit”, and which is the foundation of every virtue and Christian‘gnosis’. At the back of this doctrine was the problem of thedisciples “of the second stage”, who like Paul himself26 had notknown the historic Jesus (“according to the flesh”), but only theChrist of faith (“according to the Spirit”), which was essential,however. It was not by chance that Bonaventure associates the actof the Word sending forth the Holy Spirit with the incident of therisen Christ’s meeting– not recognised as such– with the twodisciples at Emmaus, who felt precisely that “their hearts burnedwithin them”27.

AFFIRMATIVE AND NEGATIVE THEOLOGY; DOGMATIC,MORAL AND SPIRITUAL

At this point it is interesting to note also the sources forBonaventure’s divisions of theology. To start with,Bonaventure drew on the monastic tradition in his initialproject of articulating theology according to the books of theBible, although he did not carry it out, or according to thethree spiritual senses of Scripture28, and on the ancient andrecent auctoritates referring to the reading of the Bible

25 Cf Hex 3 and 12.26 Cf 2Cor 5,16; HexD 2.2.6-7.27 Cf Lc 24 and In Lucam 24.39-40.28 Cf respectively Brev 0; Red 5.

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according to each sense: Augustine and Anselm for theallegorical sense (referring to faith, i.e. actual dogmatictheology); Gregory and Bernard for the moral sense(referring to behaviour, i.e. actual moral theology);Dionysius and Richard of St Victor for the anagogic sense(referring to the end, i.e. actual spiritual or mystical theology.The association of these last makes shows thatBonaventure’s ‘Dionysian’ approach was very ‘latinized’);and for every sense, Hugh of St Victor (who was forBonaventure, at least at the time of the De reductione, themost relevant recent theological auctoritas. A contemporarysource, but altered and undeclared, was the controversialJoachimite tradition for articulating the theology of history(developed above all in the collationes in Hexaëmeron).

Fundamentally, however, Bonaventure adopted atwo-fold way of doing theology: «vel per positionem, vel perablationem. Primum ponit Augustinus, secundumDionysius»29. The “Augustinian” affirmative theology isarticulated by Bonaventure especially in the Breviloquium(strictly according to the order of the Lombard’s Sentences,which he had already commented upon). The “Dionysian”negative theology, much re-interpreted, is articulated in threeparts, plus one (in the Itinerarium): symbolic theology,consisting in the recognition of God in his vestigia; thetheology of the image (which Dionysius does not distinguishfrom the preceding, and which is not given a name byBonaventure, but which we may call iconic), which consistsin the recognition of God in his image; theology proper,consisting in the recognition of God in his names (reducedby Bonaventure to two, Being and Good, understoodrespectively as the Old and New Testament revelations); and

29 De Triplici Via 3.11.

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mystical theology, understood by Bonaventure as ecstasy inChrist30.

UNIVERSITY STRUCTURE AT THE TIME OF BONAVENTURE,AND DOCTRINAL DISPUTES

One last note: as well as of different sciences,Bonaventure speaks of different types of scientist (ofmedicine, politics, natural history, philosophy, law,theology…)31. The Bonaventurian division of the sciencesdoes not, then, depend only upon the articulation of reality(as in Aristotle), but also on that of the cognitive faculty (asin the neoplatonic tradition) and even (probably for the firsttime in the history of western thought) on the internaldivisions of the “scientific community”, which Bonaventurethought was already highly structured and even fragmentedand in competition, through a “conflict of faculties”.

As we have already been able to notice, Bonaventure tookthe idea of a metaphysic of sapiential and beatifying import fromthe Parisian artistae of the period. Although condemning it in thename of Christian faith, they did not underestimate theneo-Aristotelian ideal of a completely intellectual beatitude;(“intellectus adeptus” 32); but they used it to formulate a doctrineof the ‘chess-piece’ of a natural desire for the supernatural,opening onto grace.

Unlike Thomas (who accused Averroes of being theCorruptor rather than the Commentator of Aristotle33),Bonaventure maintained that Aristotelianism led of necessity toAverroes’ conclusions. If there are not in fact exemplar causes,God can neither know nor will the world (if he did not know and

30 The parts correspond to Itin 1-2; 3-4; 5-6; 7.31 Cf Hex 1.11-39; 5.14 and 21…32 Hex 5.22 and 33.33 Cf OCA 2.

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will it from outside it, there would be an implied passivity in Godwith respect to the world that would be incompatible with his pureact). But if God does not know, still less can he will the world;hence the world derives automatically and eternally from God. Inthat case, one must postulate an infinite succession of men; and so,as regards their intellectual soul, one must posit one of thefollowing alternatives: either it enjoys immortality andindividuality, and hence there will be an actual infinity; or else it isindividual but corruptible; or else it is immortal and ‘recyclable’through metempsychosis (wholly inadmissible from anAristotelian viewpoint); or else it has a separate identity and istherefore immortal. From the last there is ultimately implied thenegation of individual freedom, and so also of a personal eternaldestiny34.

34 Cf Hex 17.22-24 and 22.40.

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ANALOGY:HYPERTEXTUALISATION “A LATERE”

To appreciate points of identity we must notice points ofdifference; and because these are innumerable, we must limitourselves to considering a few, by way of example. Byintense hermeneutical study, we shall also gain a betterhistorical grasp, thanks to a focus on the contrasts. Therefore,as an example, it will be useful to compare the textsregarding Bonaventure’s division of knowledge with ananalogous text of Thomas Aquinas.

ANALYSIS OF THE SECOND PROLOGUE OF THE “SUMMA”

We cannot here go into the curious problem of theco-existence in Thomas (as it were in parallel) of twoclassifications of the philosophical sciences: one Aristotelian(which he follows strictly in his philosophicalcommentaries), and one Academic and Augustinian, adoptedonly “in passing”, it is true, but quite frequently35.

35 On a brief count (not including alternative readings, and without eli-

minating concurrences which are not matters of syntax) based on the CD of theworks of Thomas (cit. infra), the expression ‘philosophia rationalis’ occurs inThomas 8 times; ‘philosophia naturalis’ 52; ‘philosophia moralis’ 23. But hisfullest treatment of the Aristotelian division into theoretical (physics, mathe-matics and “theology”) and practical is found in his commentary on the DeTrinitate of Boethius [CBT]. In two texts Thomas seeks to integrate the three-fold division into natural, rational and moral (evidently current at his time)into the classical Aristotelian division: «scientiae speculativae, ut patet inprincipio metaphysicae, sunt de illis quorum cognitio quaeritur propter se ip-sa. res autem, de quibus est logica, non quaeruntur ad cognoscendum propterse ipsas, sed ut adminiculum quoddam ad alias scientias. et ideo logica noncontinetur sub speculativa philosophia quasi principalis pars, sed sicut quid-

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And so, to give a contrasting hermeneutical focus, Ithink it will be useful to put forward a text at first sightunlikely for our theme: the specific Prologue to the First Partof the Summa Theologiae (written by Thomas at Rome inabout 1267).

There have already been proposed various interpretations ofthis prologue (and consequently of the structure of the entireSumma), amongst which are the classical ones of Chenu andLafont, and the historical reconstruction of Torrell 36; but I want toemphasise here a particular structural theory based on the dam reductum ad philosophiam speculativam, prout ministrat speculationi suainstrumenta, scilicet syllogismos et diffinitiones et alia huiusmodi, quibus inscientiis speculativis indigemus» [CBT# 3.5.1 ra 2]; «ad philosophiam natu-ralem pertinet considerare ordinem rerum quem ratio humana considerat sednon facit; ita quod sub naturali philosophia comprehendamus et mathemati-cam et metaphysicam. ordo autem quem ratio considerando facit in proprioactu, pertinet ad rationalem philosophiam, cuius est considerare ordinem par-tium orationis adinvicem, et ordinem principiorum in conclusiones; ordo au-tem actionum voluntariarum pertinet ad considerationem moralis philosophi-ae» [CTC# 1.1.2].

36 Cf M.-D. Chenu, Le plan de la Somme Theologique de st. Thomas, in“Revue Thomiste” 47 (1939), 93-107 (reprinted in Id., Introduction à l’étudede Saint Thomas d’Aquin, Montréal - Paris 21954, p. 255-276); Gh. Lafont,Structure et méthode dans la Somme Théologique de saint Thomas d’Aquin,Paris 1961, 21996. A brief exposition of various tentative explanations of theplan of the Summa (by Chenu, Hayen, Guindon, Persson, Lafont, Corbin, Ab-bà) and a complete proposal (based on the knowledge of God as the principleof the operation of God, the operation of man, and revealed in Christ) is foundin the second chapter of A. Vendemiati, La legge naturale nella «Summatheologiae» di san Tommaso d’Aquino, Roma 1995, p. 35-60. A fundamentalhistorical reconstruction of the problem of the division of the Summa (in criti-cal discussion with some of the preceding interpretative proposals) with a de-monstration of its fundamentally Christocentric character is found in chapterVIII of J.-P. Torrell, Initiation à Saint Thomas d’Aquin. Sa personne et son o-euvre, Fribourg - Paris 1993; Italian translation by P. Giustiniani e G. Matera,Tommaso d’Aquino. L’uomo e il teologo, Casale Monferrato 1994, p. 169-183. Among recent studies, I will just mention W. Metz, «Aufgehobene»Mündlichkeit. Artikel-Struktur und «ordo disciplinae» der Thomasischen«Summa Theologiae», in “Philosophisches Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft”103 (1996), p. 48-61.

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lexicographical analysis of the text and of a disconcertingan-isomorphism of the two classifications (through which aparadoxical assymetry is achieved).

«Quia igitur principalis intentio huius sacrae doctrinaeest Dei cognitionem tradere, et non solum secundumquod in se est, sed etiam secundum quod est principiumrerum et finis earum, et specialiter rationalis creaturae, utex dictis est manifestum; ad huius doctrinaeexpositionem intendentes, primo tractabimus de Deo;secundo, de motu rationalis creaturae in Deum; tertio, deChristo, qui, secundum quod homo, via est nobistendendi in Deum.

Consideratio autem de Deo tripartita erit. Primonamque considerabimus ea quae ad essentiam divinampertinent; secundo, ea quae pertinent ad distinctionempersonarum; tertio, ea quae pertinent ad processum crea-turarum ab ipso.

Circa essentiam vero divinam, primo considerandumest an Deus sit; secundo, quomodo sit, vel potiusquomodo non sit; tertio considerandum erit de his quaead operationem ipsius pertinent, scilicet de scientia et devoluntate et potentia» 37.

The text, very well-known, seems clear (through awell-known phenomenon of hermeneutic projection,whereby the reader over-interprets – or in this case under-interprets the text). But the reader must be on guard: in thegeneral prologue Thomas has promised to lay out the workaccording to a pedagogical order “within the accepted limitsof the matter treated” (and so not in a system, in a strong

37 ST1 2 pr. The text is taken from the CD: R. Busa, Sancti Thomae Aqui-natis opera omnia cum hypertextibus in CD-ROM, Milano 1992; 21996. All thegraphical devices are editorial. The references are given according to the met-hod of the CD itself (and so of the Index Thomisticus).

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sense); moreover, in his lifetime Thomas elaborated varioussyntheses of Christianity (such as the Contra Gentes, the Dearticulis fidei, the Compendium Theologiae, the Collationeson the Credo, Pater and commandments) changing thescheme every time, and always leaving the systematizationpractically incomplete: either because he did not carry thework through to the end, or through having left on one sidecertain theological themes. In fact, for a taxonomicsystematization, the problems are clear.

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FIRST CLASSIFICATION

[…] principalis intentio huius sacrae doctrinae est Dei cognitionem tradere,

[A] et non solum secundum quod in se est,

[B] sed etiam secundum quod est

[Ba] principium rerum [= EXITUS]

[Bb] et finis earum, et specialiter rationalis creaturae [=REDITUS]

SECOND CLASSIFICATION

ad huius doctrinae expositionem intendentes,

1 primo tractabimus de Deo; [= VERITAS]

2 secundo, de motu rationalis creaturae in Deum; [= VITA]

3 tertio, de Christo, qui, secundum quod homo, VIA est nobis tendendi inDeum.

THIRD CLASSIFICATION

1 Consideratio autem de Deo tripartita erit.

1.1 Primo namque considerabimus ea quae ad essentiamdivinam pertinent;

1.2 secundo, ea quae pertinent ad distinctionem personarum;

1.3 tertio, ea quae pertinent ad processum creaturarum abipso.

FOURTH CLASSIFICATION

1.1 Circa essentiam vero divinam,

1.1.1 primo considerandum est an Deus sit; [quoadesse]

1.1.2 secundo, quomodo sit, vel potius quomodo nonsit; [quoad essentiam]

1.1.3 tertio considerandum erit de his quae adoperationem ipsius pertinent,

– scilicet de scientia– et de voluntate– et potentia» [ST1 2 pr].

So, while it is clear that the fourth classification isdeveloped from the first element of the third, and the latter isin its turn developed from the first element of the second, it

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remains quite impossible to connect the second (and so thethird and fourth) with the first.

If at first sight it is possible for the inexperienced readerto understand the two classifications as homologous (thetreatment of “God in himself” is spontaneously identifiedwith the treatment of God in general, and so on…), anattentive reader will notice some confusion andnon-equivalence of the two classifications. A secondproblem appears in the very order of the treatises: how canone talk about theological ethics before talking about Christ?Where is the treatment of the mission of the Holy Spirit?And why ever is true and proper Christology combined withthe sacraments and eschatology in the treatise on Christ?

On reflection, the first classification sets out in generalthe “knowledge of God” (which, playing on the ambivalenceof the genitive, subjective and objective, indicates first “theknowledge that God has of himself by nature”, and then “theknowledge that men have of God by natural manifestationand supernatural revelation”); the other classifications in turnset out the concrete treatment of this knowledge.

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First classification: cognitio Dei Alternative articulatedclassification: tractatio [de divinis]

A Deus in se [immanent theology: permanence] 1 de Deo[prima pars]

1.1 de essentia[= de Deo uno]

1.2 dedistinctione personarum [= de Deo trino]

B Deus (in alio) ––– [economy]

Ba ut principium ––––– [exitus] 1.3 deprocessu creaturarum a Deo

Bb ut finis –––––––––– [reditus] 2 de motu rationalis creaturaein Deum [secunda pars]

…… 3 de Christo via [tertiapars]

To start with, we notice a lack of correspondence withthe circular scheme (neoplatonic, but also Biblical) of thetreatment of Christ as “way”. In effect, for Thomas the Wordbecomes incarnate because of sin, that is, the “reditusinterruptus”, which requires precisely a “way”. The secundapars, then, outlines the general project of what the humanreditus to God has to be (in short, what God had proposed toman in the state of grace in Eden), and, significantly, theprima secundae closes with the consideration of sin (thesecunda secundae is not relevant to the classification,inasmuch as it is a particularised treatment, in an eminentlypractical order, of the matter of the prima secundae); thetertia however is the treatment of the way, and the followingof that way, up to the fulfilment of the reditus which hadbeen interrupted.

We should not be surprised that the tertia pars goes outsideall the schemes, neoplatonic or Aristotelian or Hebrew: the

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taxonomic notion of “way” is in faxt typically Christian.Moreover, Augustine had already, in a famous opposition38,contrasted on the one hand the Platonicorum libri (i.e.philosophy), in which one reaches a knowledge, at least implicit,of the uncreated Word and Creator, but not the incarnate Word andMediator (“ibi legi…; ibi non legi”), and on the other hand theHoly Scriptures (i.e. revelation) which precisely through humblefaith in the uncreated and incarnate Word show the way tocomplete the journey of seeking.

Continuing with our comparison of the classifications,we note the curious linking of immanent theology (of God inhimself) and the theology of creation in the prima pars. Whatat first sight might seem an odd and arbitrary choice, appearsinstead as a clear strategy if we reflect on the fact that (if notchronologically simultaneous, nevertheless as it were ideallyin parallel with the drafting of the Summa), Thomas hadundertaken a systematic commentary on the Aristotelianworks39; the correspondence between the parts of the Summaand parts of the Aristotelian works can be noticed also in thesystematic quotation of the latter in the former40.

38 Augustine, Confessionum libri tredecim, 7.9 (13-15) and in general all

the remaining chapters of Book VII, and in particular (for the notion of Christthe Way) 7.18 (24).

39 Cf Torrell, Initiation…, op. cit., chap. VIII and XII; in particular (Ita-lian translation) p. 169-172 and 257-263; which refer back to the fundamentalstudies of R. A. Gauthier.

40 Counting roughly (i.e. without eliminating potential repetitions) thebrief references to the Aristotelian works in the CD-ROM of Thomas’s works(cit.), we find in the Prima Pars the Metaphysics is quoted (as ‘Metaphysic.’)143 times, the Physics is quoted (as ‘Physic.’) 122 times (more concentratedin the section de processu creaturarum), the Ethics is quoted (as ‘Ethic.’) 63times; in the Prima Secundae the Metaphysics is quoted (this time as‘Metaph.’ or ‘Metaphysic.’) 92 times, the Physics (as ‘Physic.’) 97 times, theEthics (as ‘Ethic.’) a good 458 times (to which are added at least eighty refe-rences to the Rhetoric, here considered as belonging to the practical); in theTertia Pars, finally, Metaphysics, Physics and Ehtics are quoted, usually brie-fly, respectively 1, 30 and 45 times.

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So: the division of the treatment of theology into threeparts corrsponds perfectly, for the first two, to theAristotelian division of philosophy into theoretical andpractical.

Briefly (and only anticipating some results of researchwhich will appear in a book I am preparing on thecommunication of wisdom in Thomas), the schemesunderlying the division of the Summa are many, and they arein agreement with one another, but not by homology, that is,by a one-to-one correspondence between each element ofeach partition.

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EXPLICIT

CIRCULAR

THEOLOGICA

L SCHEME

(Biblical andneoplatonic)recalled mostoften byThomas

EXPLICIT

ORGANIC AND

PEDAGOGIC

SCHEME (Thomist)effectivelydeveloped in theSumma Theologiae

CHRISTO-LOGIC

SCHEME

ALLUDED

TO

(“Johannine”)

IMPLICIT

EPISTEMO-LOGICAL

SCHEME

(Aristotelian),traced in thephilosophicallecturae for thedetermination ofRatio

IMPLICIT

HISTORICO-

SALVIFIC

SCHEME

(Biblical-patristic), traced in theBiblical lecturaefor thedetermination ofAuctoritas

Quaestiointroductoria

De sacra doctrina

TheologicalOrganon

Sacred Scripturein general

Deus in se Prima Pars

De Deo – utexemplar[“theology” in thestrict sense]

[in himself, andknown by us via hisself-communication]

– De essentia [= deDeo Uno]

– Esse

– essentia [quomodo non sit]

– operatione

Veritas Theoreticaltheology:– theologicalmetaphysics

Old Testamentin general

– De personis [= deDeo Trino]

New Testamentin general

Deus utprincipium:

exitus

[in his effects]

– De processucreaturarum

– theologicalphysics

– de mundo

– de anima

Genesis:Hexemeron

– creation of theangels

– creatione ofthe world

– creatione ofman

– God’s rest= delegated

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action

Deus ut finis:

reditus

– inchoatus

Secunda Pars[Prima secundae]

De motu rationaliscreaturae in Deum= De Homine utImago

[“anthropology” inthe proper sense,i.e. ethics]

Vita Practicaltheology

– theologicalethics– theologicalpolitics

Genesis: Edenicstate

– interruptus theology of sin Genesis:original sin

Old Testament= Mosaic Law

[via redeundi] Tertia Pars

De Christo Via –Salvator[“Christology”]

– De Christo[capite]

Via “Poetic”theology;theological“Methodology”

Gospel

– [De Christimembris] – in via = desacramentis

Acts; Epistles

– in fine = deresurrectione

Apocalypse

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This plurality of latent schemes (elaborated and as itwere experimented with by Thomas in his other syntheses ofChristian doctrine) must surely have been hard for Thomashimself to handle. In fact, Thomas left significantlyincomplete both the Compendium (in which sacramentaltheology is hard to find), and the Summa itself. Symbolically,in one of its final pages (not long before the mysteriousexperience which would hinder- as though by an apophaticrevenge- his cataphatic work as an author) Thomas states “inpassing” that «una pars integralis potest continere totum,licet non secundum essentiam: fundamentum enimquodammodo virtute continet totum aedificium» 41.

41 ST4 90.3 ra 2.

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CONCLUSIONS

HISTORIOGRAPHIC CONCLUSIONS

At the end of this excursus, even if we can appreciatebetter the value of the great cultural synthesis of Bonaventure(which faced with various contributions from tradition optedfor an integrating solution, “et et”), we must all the sameadmit, too, that its complexity is a bit muddled and makesone wonder about the coherence of the system. Furthermore,to have reconstructed the sources of the system does notmean that we have understood it as well (rather as knowingthe ingredients of a pudding is not the same as tasting them).We must go back, then, to the deeper level of interpretation,traced in the synchronic systematization.

On the historiographic plane, the comparison betweenthe texts of Bonaventure and those of Thomas relates to thestucturing of knowledge, showing their common and theirdivergent features.

Both share a mission to communicate the “knowledge ofGod” (Thomas with a particular attention to the incipientesand to unbelievers; Bonaventure with a particular attention tothe fratres who wish to progress in the Church): to this endboth seek to elaborate an articulation of knowledge; but forThomas it had an eminently pedagogic function, and so wasconventional though not arbitrary: it is the necessary “orderwhereby understanding is made easier”42. For Bonaventure,however, (possessed of an “architectonic” taste, maybe

42 ST1 pr; but cf. also OEE pr and CDC pr.

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excessive, for articulation and enumeration) the division hada profoundly systematic rationale (theological andmetaphysical): everything is ordered because Christ is thekey to everything.

Both, then, are “scholastics” in the elaboration of theirsources, in that they do not select just some of the contents oftradition ( “aut aut”), but seek in different ways to take onand synthesise in a coherent way the whole of the traditionknown to them (“et et”). Bonaventure, (who expresslyintended “not to invent new opinions, but to weave anewthose that are common and approved” 43) took the road ofextracting individual items from their original context andinserting them into a scheme which was entirely traditionalas to its contents, but entirely new as to its structure (heseems to have been attached to this scheme, already sketchedout in the Reductio, all his life). Thomas, on the other hand,took the road of combining items through a concordance andhierarchy of schemes (which do not all have the same“weight”, and play different parts), clearly giving theepistemological primacy to the Aristotelian system, butwithout ever showing that he was entirely satisfied with theschemes obtained.

Further, in articulating philosophy and theology bothThomas and Bonaventure share the (Biblical andAugustinian) paradigm of “parallel doublets”, carrying it outwith perhaps extreme rigour, though with different shades ofmeaning: Thomas shows the natural basis of supernaturalperfection, and Bonaventure shows the necessity and naturalimpossibility of such perfection.

To reach an alternative paradigm (that of “verticaldoublets”) one must look in the end to Ockham and Luther,for whom the two spheres do not touch one another: the

43 Sent 2 pr.

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supernatural sphere is in fact withdrawn from reason by thefreedom of divine choice. (To use a metaphor, it isimpossible to predict the course of a vehicle from itsdeparture point to a point of arrival if it does not run on fixedrails, but freely on tyres…). By contrast, a way to overcomethe double scheme for unifying the two planes (that is, byeliminating divine freedom, and so supernaturality) is thedialectic of Hegel.

In general, we may say that the structured philosophy ofBonaventure is the philosophy of a theologian, while thestructured theology of Thomas is the theology of aphilosopher. While Bonaventure often underlines the non-isomorphism between philosophy and theology (the latter,i.e. Sacred Scripture, “is not divided into theoretical andpractical”, but is entirely practical, “so that we may becomegood”), and really seems to place philosophy as adevelopment of a particular sort of theology (i.e. it is part ofthe theology of creation);44 Thomas, by contrast, adopts as itwere by stealth an epistemological scheme drawn fromAristotelian philosophy, bringing it into agreement withother schemes drawn either from philosophy (neoplatonic,this time) or from the Bible. Yet, in the double scheme,Bonaventure is seeking to put forward a new philosophy, ofa “Christian quality”; Thomas is seeking to bring it intoagreement with Greek philosophy, and in fact has a moremarked philosophical sensibility than Bonaventure (thoughin the end he too is putting forward something new). Atbottom, when he attributes creation to Aristotle, or accusesAverroes of anti-Aristotelianism, does he not run the risk ofpulling the dogmatic “rabbit” out of the rational “top hat”,having first hidden it inside? And is Bonaventure

44 Cf respectively Brev 0.1.2; Sent 0.3; Hex 1.37.

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blameworthy when he shows45 the newness Christianity hasbrought even in philosophy?

From the textual comparison we also shed new light onthe so-called Bonaventurian question. In the end,Bonaventure has not fully developed a philosophy (and hereVan Steenberghen was right), and yet he has not rigorouslyelaborated a programme, alternative to- but not incompatiblewith- that of Thomas (and here Gilson was right);furthermore, if only implicitly- inasmuch as it is implied inhis theological discourse- he has refined the conceptualarmoury (as, for example, the concept of natura).

Unfortunately, however, in the immediately followingtradition (if one excludes some influence on Matthew ofAcquasparta) this philosophical programme was noteffectively picked up and realised, until a partial recovery byAntonio Rosmini and his school. (In his theory of the threeforms of being, “ideal, real, and moral”, the order of the threeis newly changed, to meet the demands of moderntranscendentalism).

METHODOLOGICAL AND THEORETICAL CONCLUSIONS

On the methodological plane, we have tried to showhow to read «non multa, sed multum», and to seek to locatethe part in the whole, and to grasp “the whole in the part”, ifpossible, through suitable and conventional projections, so asto make a geographical map with which to “navigate” betteran author’s entire body of writings (and so of his thought as awhole).

On the hermeneutical and doctrinal plane, we haveverified that the divisions and treatments of philosophy inBonaventure are all in a theological context, but also have a

45 Cf Sermo 5.4 and 10.5.

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philosophical validity. These divisions are “systematic”; thekey to the system is the incarnation of the Word, and hencethe concept of nature articulated according to the Christianvision of the world. The three “axes” which structure thissystem are the topological, the chronological and theontological.

On the systematic plane, we may note that the properlytheological character of the Bonaventurian division has nothindered a profoundly philosophical kind of consideration. Itwould be interesting, then, to try to “secularize” his doctrineof reductio, showing its philosophical inner structure (suchas the “division into three, plus a fourth”, typical ofEuropean culture, according to the brilliant recent expositionby Reinhard Brandt 46).

The philosophia essentialiter Christiana, which is givenonly conditionally, that is “supposita veritate revelationis”,but which remains philosophically thinkable, in the dialecticspace of probable argument.

If Christ is indeed and truly the Word “which enlightensevery man”, then in every philosophical system there is hidden aphilosophia naturaliter Christiana, which philosophers, asphilosophers, cannot attain without presupposing faith. In thatsense non-Christian philosophy can be “revealed in itself”, as“preparation for the Gospel”.

If Christ, then, by becoming incarnate has truly become the“centre of recapitulation for all things”, “in which are hidden allthe treasures of wisdom and knowledge”, then he also gives a phi-

46 Cf R. Brandt, D’Artagnan und die Urteilstafel: über ein Ordnung-

sprinzip der europäischen Kulturgeschichte (1, 2, 3-4), Stuttgart 1991; Italiantrans.: D’Artagnan o il quarto escluso. Su un principio d’ordine della storiaculturale europea 1, 2, 3 / 4, Milan 1998; see in particular parts A/1-2 (on thethree-fold scheme in general, with the fourth element “excluded”); part B/I/3(on the kinds of life within the social organization); the whole of part B/II (onthe organization of knowledge and of the University); part B/III/1 (on the Tri-nity).

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losophia supernaturaliter Christiana, that is, a philosophisinginternal to faith and a Christian re-reading of philosophy, and, ingeneral, of all human culture and science (which is calledChristian inasmuch as it gives a Christian sense of it). In thisconsists Christian philosophy in a fuller sense; it is based on a«certainty that cannot be <philosophically> communicated,because it arises uniquely from the heart of a perfectly personalaction» and which therefore remains philosophical only in aparadoxical sense.

The Bonaventurian reductio is, speculatively, mostinteresting for two reasons. First it is an original form ofthought which accepts the demands (neoplatonic, but notonly that) for supreme unification, without thereforesacrificing the demand (Aristotelian, but not only that) forplurality. Through the doctrine of the Trinity and of theIncarnation, in fact, the Bonaventurian reductio is not adunum but ad plura in unum. Furthermore, it imposes a theoryof distinction and isomorphism, particularly interesting todayfor thinking about the debate on “holism” and“reductionism”, in terms of a “reconductionism” which is notreductive (not counting the relevance of the doctrine of thethree-fold existence of things- categoric, transcendental andtranscendent- for the foundation of physics, mathematics andmetaphysics); also the correspondence between the realuniverse and the textual universe is a particularly fruitful andinteresting idea. Even if the discussion of these themes isbeyond the competence of this study, to have put thequestion is still worth-while. Hermeneutics views texts as thebiologist views the lens of his microscope: not to study thelens, but to study life.

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TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

I have included translations of the Bonaventurian textsquoted; where available, I have used published translations,but in other cases I have translated them myself.

A note on my use of ‘quotes’. Since I do not have the «» except when imported from the original, I have adopted thefollowing convention:

I use double quotes “ ” for actual quotations from otherauthors, and these are usually referenced in the footnotes.

I use single quotes ‘’for quotations within quotations (these are rare)to indicate that it is the word itself which is being

discussed rather than the thing the word refers to (so: ‘bean’is a noun, but a bean is a vegetable)

to indicate that the word or phrase is being used in asense that is technical (or semi-technical) rather than itscommon sense.

I am not quite sure if my rendering of “ennari” as“number-groups” is accurate- I had particular difficulty with“polinomi perionimici in un numero fisso ‘n’- which I haverendered as “grouped in sets- ‘number groups’- having incommon a fixed number ‘n’”. I hope this is not too far out!

PAUL SPILSBURY