Cap. 4
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/6/d/4/q/bon-itin-c4
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### Ch. IV. *On the speculation of God in his image reformed by the gifts of grace.*

1. But since it happens that the first principle is contemplated not only *through us*, by passing over, but also *in us*; and this is greater than the preceding: therefore this mode of considering obtains the fourth step of contemplation. Now it seems a wonder, since it has been shown that God is so near to our minds, that it belongs to so few to speculate upon the first principle in their very selves. But the reason is ready to hand: because the human mind, distracted by cares, does not enter into itself through *memory*; clouded over by phantasms, it does not return to itself through *understanding*; enticed by concupiscences, it in no way turns back to its very self through *desire* of interior sweetness and spiritual gladness. Therefore, lying wholly in these sensible things, it cannot re-enter into itself as into the image of God.

2. And since, where a man has fallen, he must needs lie there, unless someone lay hand to him and *add that he may rise again*; our soul could not be perfectly raised up from these sensible things to the beholding of itself and of the eternal Truth in her very self, unless Truth, having taken on human form in Christ, became for it a ladder repairing the former ladder, which had been broken in Adam.

Therefore, however much a man be enlightened by the light of nature and of acquired knowledge, he cannot enter into himself so as to *be delighted in the Lord* within himself, except through the mediation of Christ, who says: *I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved; and he shall go in and go out, and shall find pastures.* But we do not draw near to this *door* unless we *believe* in him, *hope* in him and *love* him. It is necessary therefore, if we wish to re-enter to the enjoyment of Truth as into
paradise, that we go in through the *faith*, the *hope* and the *charity* of the mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ, who is as the *tree of life in the midst of paradise*.

3. The image of our mind must therefore be clothed over with the three theological virtues, by which the soul is *purified*, *illuminated* and *perfected*, and thus the image is reformed and made conformable to the supernal Jerusalem and a part of the Church militant, which is, according to the Apostle, the offspring of the heavenly Jerusalem. For he says: *That Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother.* — The soul therefore *believing*, *hoping* and *loving* Jesus Christ, who is the Word *incarnate*, *uncreated* and *inspired*, that is, the *way*, the *truth* and the *life*; while through *faith* it believes in Christ as in the *uncreated* Word, which is the Word and the splendour of the Father, recovers the spiritual *hearing* and *sight* — *hearing* for receiving the discourses of Christ, *sight* for considering the splendours of that light. While through *hope* it sighs to receive the *inspired* Word, through desire and affection it recovers the spiritual *smell*. While through *charity* it embraces the Word *incarnate*, as receiving delight from him and as passing over into him through ecstatic love, it recovers *taste* and *touch*.

These senses being recovered, while it sees and hears its Bridegroom, smells, tastes and embraces him, it can sing as the bride the Canticle of Canticles, which was made for the exercise of contemplation according to this fourth step, which *no man* grasps *save he that receiveth it*, because it lies more in affective experience than in rational consideration. For in this step, the interior senses being repaired for sensing the supremely beautiful, for hearing the supremely harmonious, for smelling the supremely fragrant, for tasting the supremely sweet, for apprehending the supremely delightful, the soul is disposed for mental *transports*, namely through *devotion*, *admiration* and *exultation*, according to those three exclamations which are made in the Canticle of Canticles. Of these the first is made through the abundance of *devotion*, by which the soul becomes *as a pillar of smoke from the aromatical spices of myrrh and frankincense*; the second through the excellence of *admiration*, by
which the soul becomes *as the morning rising, as the moon* and *as the sun*, according to the procession of the illuminations that uplift the soul to admire the Bridegroom it has considered; the third through the superabundance of *exultation*, by which the soul becomes *flowing with delights* of the sweetest pleasure, *leaning* wholly *upon her beloved*.

4. These things being attained, our spirit is made *hierarchic* for ascending upward according to conformity to that supernal Jerusalem, into which no one enters unless it first descend into his heart through grace, as John saw in his Apocalypse. But it then descends into the heart when, through the reformation of the image, through the theological virtues and through the delectations of the spiritual senses and the upliftings of the transports, our spirit is made *hierarchic*, that is, purged, illuminated and perfected. — Thus also it is marked with the steps of the nine orders, while there are ordinately disposed within it *announcing*, *dictating*, *leading*, *ordering*, *strengthening*, *commanding*, *receiving*, *revealing*, *anointing*, which correspond step by step to the nine orders of Angels — so that the first of the three aforesaid steps regard *nature* in the human mind, the three following *industry*, and the three last *grace*. These being had, the soul, by entering into itself, enters into the supernal Jerusalem, where, considering the orders of the Angels, it sees in them God, who, dwelling in them, works all their operations.

Whence Bernard says to Eugenius that « God in the Seraphim loves as charity, in the Cherubim knows as truth, in the Thrones sits as equity, in the Dominations rules as majesty, in the Principalities governs as principle, in the Powers guards as salvation, in the Virtues works as power, in the Archangels reveals as light, in the Angels stands by as piety ». From all which *God* is seen to be *all in all* through the contemplation of him in minds, in which he dwells through the gifts of most abundant charity.

5. Now to this step of speculation the consideration of sacred *Scripture*, divinely sent, is specially and chiefly a support, as philosophy was to the preceding. For sacred Scripture is principally about the works of restoration. Whence it also treats chiefly of faith, hope and charity, by which virtues the soul has to be reformed, and most especially of charity. Of which the Apostle says that it *is the end of the commandment*, according as it is *from a pure heart and a good conscience and an unfeigned faith*. It is the *fulness of the Law*, as the same says.

And our Saviour asserts that the whole Law and the Prophets hang upon two commandments of the same, namely the love of God and of neighbour; which two are intimated in the one Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ, who is at once neighbour and God, at once brother and lord, at once also king and friend, at once the Word uncreated and incarnate, our former and our reformer, as *alpha and omega*; who is also the supreme hierarch, purging and illuminating and perfecting the bride, that is, the whole Church and every holy soul.

6. Of this hierarch, therefore, and of the ecclesiastical hierarchy is the whole of sacred Scripture, through which we are taught to be purged, illuminated and perfected — and this according to the threefold *law* handed down in it, namely of nature, of Scripture and of grace; or rather according to its threefold *principal part*, namely the Mosaic law purging, prophetic revelation illustrating, and evangelical instruction perfecting; or most of all according to its threefold *spiritual understanding*: the *tropological*, which purges unto uprightness of life; the *allegorical*, which illuminates unto clarity of understanding; the *anagogical*, which perfects through mental transports and the sweetest perceptions of wisdom — according to the three aforesaid theological *virtues* and the reformed spiritual *senses* and the three *transports* spoken of above and the *hierarchic acts of the mind*, by which our mind returns to what is within, that there it may speculate upon God *in the splendours of the Saints* and in the same, as in couches, may *sleep in peace and rest*, the Bridegroom adjuring that it be not awakened until it proceed of his own will.

7. Now from these two middle steps, through which we go in to contemplating God *within us* as in the mirrors of created images — and this as it were after the manner of wings spread out for flying, which held the middle place — we can understand that we are led by the hand into divine things through the powers of the rational soul itself *naturally implanted*, as regards their *operations*, their *relations* and their *scientific habits*; according as appears from the third step. — We are led by the hand also through the *reformed* powers of that same soul, and this by the gratuitous *virtues*, the spiritual *senses* and the mental *transports*; as is clear from
the fourth. We are led by the hand nonetheless through the *hierarchic operations*, namely of the purgation, the illumination and the perfection of human minds; through the hierarchic revelations of the sacred Scriptures given to us through Angels, according to that word of the Apostle, that the Law was given *by Angels in the hand of a Mediator*. And at last we are led by the hand through the *hierarchies and the hierarchic orders*, which have to be disposed in our mind after the likeness of the supernal Jerusalem.

8. Our mind, filled with all these intellectual lights, is inhabited by the divine Wisdom as the house of God; it is made the daughter, the bride and the friend of God; it is made a member of Christ the head, his sister and coheir; it is made nonetheless the temple of the Holy Spirit, founded through faith, raised up through hope and dedicated to God through the sanctity of mind and body. All of which the most sincere charity of Christ works, which *is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us* — without which Spirit we cannot know the secrets of God. For as *the things that are of man no one knows but the spirit of man that is in him, so also the things that are of God no one knows but the Spirit of God*. — In charity therefore let us be rooted and grounded, *that we may be able to comprehend with all the Saints what is the length* of eternity, *what the breadth* of liberality, *what the height* of majesty, and what the *depth* of the judging wisdom.

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