Prologus, §1
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/0/q/bon-brev-prol-s1
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### § 1. *On the breadth of sacred Scripture.*

If, then, we wish to contemplate the *breadth* of sacred Scripture, at first sight Scripture presents itself to us as to be divided into two testaments, namely the old and the new. — Now the old presents itself with a multitude of books. For it has books *legal, historical, sapiential*, and *prophetic*, such that the *first* are five, the *second* ten, the *third* five, and the *fourth* are six, and through this in *all* twenty-six. — The new testament likewise has books corresponding to these according to a fourfold form. For to the *legal* books correspond the books of the Gospels; to the *historical*, the Acts

of the Apostles; to the *sapiential*, the Epistles of the Apostles and especially of Paul; to the *prophetic* corresponds the book of the Apocalypse — so that there is a wondrous conformity between the old and the new testament, not only in the content of their meanings, but also in the fourfold form of their parts. — As a figure and seal of this, Ezekiel saw wheels of four faces and a wheel in the midst of a wheel, because the old is in the new and conversely; and in the legal and evangelical books there is the face of the *lion* on account of the excellence of authority; in the historical, the face of the *ox* on account of the examples of virtue; in the sapiential, the face of the *man* on account of sagacious prudence; in the prophetic books, the face of the *eagle* on account of penetrating understanding.

And rightly is sacred Scripture divided into the old and the new testament, and not into theoretical and practical as philosophy is: because, since Scripture is founded properly upon the cognition of faith, which is a virtue and the foundation of morals and of justice and of all right living, the knowledge of things or of what is to be believed cannot be separated in it from the knowledge of morals. But it is otherwise with philosophy, which treats not only of the truth of morals, but also of the true considered in bare speculation. Since, therefore, sacred Scripture is a knowledge that moves toward the good and calls back from evil — and this is through fear and love — therefore it is divided into two testaments, of which « the brief difference is fear and love ».

And because one can be moved to good and called back from evil in four ways — namely through the *precepts* of a most powerful majesty, or through the *teachings* of a most wise truth, or through the *examples* and *benefits* of a most innocent goodness, or *from all these* gathered into one — therefore in the new testament as well as in the old the books containing sacred Scripture are handed down in a fourfold manner according to a correspondence with the four things premised. For the *legal* books move through the precepts of a most omnipotent majesty; the *historical*, through the examples of a most innocent goodness; the *sapiential*, through the teachings of a most provident truth; the *prophetic* move from the gathering together of all the aforesaid, as manifestly appears in them. Hence they are, as it were, recollective of all legal wisdom and teaching.

Sacred Scripture is therefore like a very wide river, which from the confluence of many waters is gathered more and more according as it runs further. For whereas at first there were in Scripture the *legal* books, afterwards there came upon them the water of the wisdom of the *historical* books; third there came in addition the teaching of *the most wise Solomon*; after these also the teaching of the *holy Prophets*; and at last the *evangelical* teaching was revealed, uttered by the mouth of Christ's flesh, written down by the Evangelists, spread abroad by the holy Apostles — with the addition also of the teachings which the Holy Spirit, coming upon them, taught us through them: so that thus, taught all truth by the Holy Spirit according to the divine promise, they might give to the Church of Christ the doctrine of all saving truth, and, by bringing sacred Scripture to completion, might spread abroad the knowledge of truth.

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