Pope Benedict on Bonaventure (His book: The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure)

A great book. Before I go into details, I want to enhance some important points and thoughts which occurred to me while reading:

1) The notion of history with an emphasis on the future in the theology of Bonaventure is quite interesting, Pope Benedict could be thinking of the Council Document "Gaudium et Spes" while writing;

2) the Notion of Tradition is interesting, against a static understanding of Tradition, this point, according to my understanding, is responsible for the "Hermeneutic of Continuity" of our Holy Father;

3) The development of the understanding of the Scripture;

On the 14th. of July, the Church celebrated the Feast Day of St. Bonaventure, the Doctor Seraphicus. Already at the age of 36 he was elected the seventh Superior General of the Franciscan Order. He doesn't belong to the most famous or the popular saints, though he was already raised to the altar on the on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the Church in the year 1588 by Pope Sixtus V. Nevertheless, Saint Bonaventure is not only a key figure in the history of philosophy and theology, his thought is even today of actuality, because his thinking is important for a better understanding of the theology of our Holy Father Benedict XVI.

Our Holy Father wrote as a young man his qualification's writing for a teaching position (Habilitationschrift) on the theology of St. Bonaventure (engl. translation by Zachary Hayes OFM, The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1971), in which the young theologian Joseph Ratzinger explored Bonaventure's attitude to Joachim of Fiores conception of history and prophecy. The abbot Joachim was a controversial figure in the Church history. He was considered by many as a Saint, though never officially approved, and his Feast Day was celebrated, unofficially, on the 29th. of May. And Dante made him immortal in the Divina Comedia, as standing at the side of St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure:

... e lucemini da lato
il Calavrese abate Gioachino
de spirito profetico dotato. (Parad., XII, 130-141)

But Joachim's teaching on the Trinity was criticised by the famous Peter Lombard, whose Sententiae was generally used as a textbook in the scholastics. Peter Lombard opined that Joachim presented a kind of Quartenitas, which took the Trinity as fourth unity besides the God Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. And some other points of Joachim's teaching were examined in year 1254, though he was never officially accused of heresy by the Church. Nevertheless, his followers, the Joachimites were condemned by Pope Alexander IV. in 1256.

In his thesis, Joseph Ratzinger takes a close look at Bonaventure's Collationes in Hexaemeron, which presents a fundamental treatment of the theology of history. Through careful textual analysis, Ratzinger shows that in difference to the traditional schema of seven ages, which goes back to Augustine (De civitate Dei ), or the schema of five ages based on the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt. 20, 1-16). Bonaventure offers a new schema of two ages which consists of the age of the Old Law and the New Law. Significant for Bonaventure's theology of history is also the inner-worldly, inner-historical messianic hope, while he rejects the view that with Christ the highest degree of inner-historical fulfilment is already realized so that only an eschatological hope for that which lies beyond all history is left (op. cit. 14). The future has its seeds in the past, and history is not a concatination of blind and chance happenings. With this, the rational structure of history is decisively affirmed. The real point, thus writes Ratzinger, is not the understanding of the past, but prophecy about that which is to come. But a knowledge of the past is necessary for the grasp of the future.

Though Bonaventure borrowed the two ages schema from Joachim, he did condemn the latter's idea of an eternal Gospel, which was supposed to take the place of the New Testament. And whilst Joachim expresses the idea of a new Order in which the ecclesia comtemplativa makes up the final age, while Bonaventures sees the new Order only as a fuller insight into the Scripture. In opposition to the Spirituals led by figures like Joachim and Johannes of Parma, Bonaventure stressed that Francis' own eschatological form of life could not exist as an institution in this world; "it could only be realized as a break-through of grace in the individual until such time as the God-given hour would arrive at which the world would be transformed into its final form of existence" (op. cit. 51).

"Francis is the apocalyptic angel of the seal from whom should come the final People of God, the 144,000 who are sealed. This final people of God is a community of contemplative men; in this community the form of life realized in Francis will become the general form of life. It will be the lot of this People to enjoy already in this world the peace of the seventh day which is to precede the Parousia of the Lord. [...] When this time arrives, it will be a time of contemplatio, a time of the full understanding of Scripture, and in this respect, a time of the Holy Spirit who leads us into the fullness of the truth of Jesus Christ" (op. cit. 54-55).

2. revelation: Bonaventure didn't talk of the "revelation" like we do today in the Fundamental Theology, but of "revelations". Three meanings in the works of Bonaventure: 1) In the Hexaemeron, revelatio means the unveiling of the future; 2) the hidden "mystical" meaning of Scripture; 3) that imageless unveiling of the divine reality which takes place in the mystical ascent (cf. Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite).

According to Bonaventure, the goal of Chrisitan learning is Wisdom, which can be divided into the following degrees:

sapientia multiformis - Epistle to the Ephesians
sapientia omniformis - Salomon
sapientia nulliformis - the mystic approaches in silents to the threshold of the mystery of the eternal God in the night of the intellect (Paul taught it to Timothy and Dionysius)

Bonaventure doesn't refer to the Scriptures themselves as "revelation". Instead, the revelation for him is the spiritual sense of Scripture.

Three visions (like Rupert of Deutz and St. Augustine): visio corporalis, visio spiritualis, viso intellectualis. Bonaventure holds that the content of faith is not found in the letter of Scripture but in the spiritual meaning lying behind the letter. But this view ought not to be understood as a kind of subjective actualism. because the deep meaning of Scripture is not left up to the whim of each individual. Instead, the content of the Faith "has already been objectified in part in the teachings of the Fathers and in theology so that the basic lines are accesible simple by the acceptance of the Catholic Faith. [...] Only Scripture as it is understood in faith is truly holy Scripture. Consequently, Scripture in the full sense is theology" (op. cit. 67).

Bonaventure believes that there is a gradual, historical, progressive development in the understanding of the Scripture which was in no way closed.

3) the Concept of Tradition and the Franciscan Order

According to Martin Grabmann, for Hugo of St. Victor, Scripture and the Fathers flow together into one great Scriptura Sacra. And at the time of Bonaventure, the Canon was set down for him as it stands today. But St. Francis challenged with his life according to the Sermon on the Mount this overtly statistic concept of Tradition.

4) Bonaventure in context of his time

under the influence of Rupert of Deutz (the emphasis on the future), Honorius of Autun and Anselm of Havelberg (the eschatological aspect of history).

"In contrast with Aquinas, Bonaventure expressly recognized Joachim's Old Testament exegesis and adopted it as his own. In this case, Thomas is more an Augustinian than is Bonaventure. [...] But the difference that separates Bonaventure from Joachim is greater than it may seem at first. Bascially he is in agreement with the Thomistic critique, for he also affirms a Christo-centrism. Bonaventure does not accept the notion of an age of the Holy Spirit which destroyed the central position of Christ in the Joachimite view" (op. cit. 117).

5) the Anti-Aristotelism of Bonaventure:

for a Christian understanding of time. For Aristotle, the world is eternal, which is contra the Christian teaching.
Philosophy as a "lignum scientiae boni et mali". but also as the Beast from the Abyss (Hexaemeron XVI), reason, the Harlot and the prophecy of the end of rational theology.