Pars 2, Cap. 12
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/5/d/2/q/bon-brev-p2-c12
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### Chapter XII. *On the completion and ordering of the whole consummated world.*

From the foresaid, moreover, it can be gathered that the creation of the world is a kind of *book* in which the fabricating Trinity shines forth, is represented and is read, according to a threefold grade of expression — namely, by way of *vestige*, of *image* and of *likeness*; in such a way that the character of a *vestige* is found in all creatures, the character of an *image* only in intellectual beings or rational spirits, and the character of a *likeness* only in the deiform. And from these, as by certain ladder-like steps, the human intellect is born to ascend by degrees to the highest principle, which is God.

Now the reason for the understanding of the foresaid is this: that since all creatures have a relation and a dependence upon their Creator, they can be compared to him in three ways — namely, either as to a *creative principle*, or as to a *motive object*, or as to an *indwelling gift*. In the first way every effect of his is compared to him; in the second way every *intellect*; in the third way every *spirit just and acceptable to God*. For every *effect*, however little it has of *being*, has God as its principle. Every *intellect*, however little it has of light, is born to grasp God through knowledge and love. And every *just and holy spirit* has the gift of the Holy Spirit infused into it.

And since a creature cannot have God as its *principle* without being *configured* to him according to unity, truth and goodness; nor God as its *object* without *grasping* him through memory, intelligence and will; nor God as an *infused gift* without being *configured* to him through faith, hope and charity, or the threefold dowry; and since the first conformity is remote, the second near and the third nearest: hence it is that the first is called the *vestige* of the Trinity, the second the *image*, and the third the *likeness*.

The rational spirit, therefore, is midway between the first and the last, in such a way that it has the first below it, the second within it, and the third above it. And therefore in the state of innocence, when the image was not vitiated but made deiform through grace, the *book of creation* sufficed, in which man might exercise himself in beholding the light of divine wisdom — so that he might be wise in this way: seeing all things *in themselves*, seeing them *in their proper genus*, and seeing them also *in the art*; according as things have *being* in three ways, namely in *matter* or their proper nature, in *created intelligence*, and in the *eternal art*. And according to these three Scripture says: *God said: let it be made; he made it, and it was made*.

On account of which threefold vision man received a threefold eye, as Hugh of St. Victor says — namely, of the *flesh*, of *reason* and of *contemplation*: the eye of the *flesh*, by which he might see the world and the things that are in the world; the eye of *reason*, by which he might see the mind and the things that are in the mind; the eye of *contemplation*, by which he might see God and the things that are in God. And thus by the eye of the *flesh* man would see the things that are outside himself; by the eye of *reason*, the things that are within himself; and by the eye of *contemplation*, the things that are above himself. And this eye of *contemplation* does not have its act in perfection except through glory — which it loses through guilt, but recovers through grace and faith and the understanding of the Scriptures, by which the human mind is purged, illumined and perfected for the contemplation of heavenly things; to which fallen man cannot attain unless he first recognize his own defects and darkness; which he does not do unless he consider and attend to the ruin of human nature.