Pars 2, Cap. 3
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-c3
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### Chapter III. *On corporeal nature as regards its being.*

Concerning corporeal nature as regards its *being*, these things are to be held: that the whole machinery of the corporeal world consists of a *celestial* and an *elemental* nature, in such a way that the *celestial* is distinguished into three principal heavens, namely the empyrean, the crystalline and the firmament. — Within the firmament, moreover, which is the starry heaven, are contained the seven orbs of the seven planets, which are: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon. — But the *elemental* nature is distinguished into four spheres, namely of fire, of air, of water and of earth; and thus, proceeding from the highest pole of heaven down to the centre of the earth, there are met ten celestial orbs and four elemental spheres; out of which the whole machinery of the sensible world is integrated and constituted, distinctly, perfectly and in order.

Now the reason for the understanding of the foresaid is this: that since *corporeal* nature, for its own perfection and for the expression of the manifold wisdom of the first principle, requires a manifoldness of forms — as appears in minerals, plants and animals — it was necessary to posit certain *simple* bodies which *could be mingled* in manifold ways for the introduction of manifold forms; and such is the nature subject to contrariety, and this is the *elemental*. It was necessary also that there be made a nature through which these contraries might be *reconciled in the mixture*; and such is the nature far removed from

contrariety, of which kind is the nature *of light and of the supercelestial body*.

And since *mixture* cannot come about except through contraries acting and being acted upon, therefore it was necessary that a twofold contrariety be made in the elements, namely as regards the *active* qualities, which are the hot and the cold; and as regards the *passive*, which are the moist and the dry. And because every element both acts and is acted upon, it therefore has two qualities, one active and the other passive, yet in such a way that one is principal and proper to it: and through this it is necessary that there be only four elements according to the four foresaid qualities, combined in a fourfold way.

But the *celestial* nature is either *uniform and immobile*, and this is the empyrean, because it is *pure light*; or *mobile and multiform*, and thus the *firmament*; or *mobile and uniform*, and thus the heaven midway between the empyrean and the starry, which is the *crystalline heaven*. But the fourth member, namely that it should be multiform and immobile, cannot stand, because multiformity disposes toward a variety of motion, not toward a uniform rest.

There are therefore three heavens, of which the first is luminous throughout, namely the *empyrean*; the second transparent throughout, namely the *crystalline*; the third joined out of both, namely the *firmament*. Since therefore there are three incorruptible heavens and four variable elements, then — that there might come about a due connexion, concord and correspondence — God disposed seven orbs of planets, which by their variety of motions and incorruptibility of forms should be as it were a certain bond and juncture of the lower elemental orbs and the higher celestial ones, for the perfecting and adorning of the universe; which universe is said to be ordered and bound together according to numerical proportions by the ten of the celestial orbs and the four of the elements, these rendering it proportionally as beautiful as it is perfect and ordered, so that in its own manner it may represent its principle.