Cap. 6
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/6/q/bon-itin-c6
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### Cap. VI. *On the speculation of the most blessed Trinity in its name, which is the good.*

1. After the consideration of the essential attributes, the eye of the understanding must be raised to the contuition of the most blessed Trinity, so that the one Cherub may be set beside the other. Now just as, for the vision of the essential attributes, *being* itself is the radical principle and the name through which the rest become known; so, for the contemplation of the emanations, the *good* itself is the most principal foundation.

2. See therefore and attend, since the best is that which simply is that than which nothing better can be thought; and such a thing is so, that it cannot rightly be thought not to be, because it is altogether better to be than not to be; so it is, that it cannot rightly be thought without being thought three and one. For «the good is said to be diffusive of itself»; the highest good, therefore, is supremely diffusive of itself. But the highest diffusion cannot be, unless it is *actual* and *intrinsic*, *substantial* and *hypostatic*, *natural* and *voluntary*, *liberal* and *necessary*, *unfailing* and *perfect*. Unless, therefore, there were eternally in the highest good a production *actual* and *consubstantial*, and a *hypostasis* as noble as is the producer, by way of generation and of spiration — so that it is of an eternal principle eternally co-principiating — so that there were a beloved and a co-beloved, one begotten and one spirated, that is, Father and Son and Holy Spirit; it would in no way be the highest good, because it would not diffuse itself *supremely*. For the diffusion in time *in the creature* is only central or punctual in respect of the immensity of the eternal goodness; whence too some diffusion can be thought greater than that one, namely that in which the one diffusing communicates to another the whole substance

and nature. It would not therefore be the highest good, if it could lack these either in reality or in understanding.

If, therefore, you can behold with the mind's eye the purity of the goodness, which is the pure act of a principle lovingly loving with a love *gratuitous* and *owed* and *mixed of both*, which is the fullest diffusion by way of *nature* and of *will*, which is the diffusion by way of the *Word*, in whom all things are said, and by way of the *Gift*, in whom the other gifts are given; you can see, through the highest communicability of the good, that there must be a Trinity of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. In whom, on account of the highest goodness, there must be the highest *communicability*, and from the highest communicability the highest *consubstantiality*, and from the highest consubstantiality the highest *configurability*, and from these the highest *coequality*, and through this the highest *coeternity*, and from all the foregoing the highest *cointimacy*, by which one is necessarily in the other through the highest circumincession and one operates with the other through an omnimodal indivision of the *substance* and the *power* and the *operation* of that same most blessed Trinity.

3. But when you contemplate these things, see that you do not think yourself to comprehend the incomprehensible. For you have still, in these six conditions, to consider that which vehemently leads the eye of our mind into the stupor of admiration. For there is there the highest *communicability* with propriety of the persons, the highest *consubstantiality* with plurality of hypostases, the highest *configurability* with distinct personality, the highest *coequality* with order, the highest *coeternity* with emanation, the highest *cointimacy* with emission. Who would not rise into admiration at the sight of such great marvels? — But we understand all these things most certainly to be in the most blessed Trinity, if we raise our eyes to the most superexcellent *goodness*. For if there is there the highest *communication* and a true diffusion, there is there a true origin and a true distinction; and because the whole is communicated, and not a part; therefore that very thing is given which is had, and the whole of it: therefore there is one emanating and one producing, and they are distinguished by properties and are essentially one. Because, therefore, they are *distinguished* by properties, they have personal properties and a plurality of hypostases and an emanation of origin and an order not of posteriority but of origin, and an emission not of local change but of gratuitous inspiration, by the account of the authority of the producer, which the sender has in respect of the one sent. — But because they are substantially *one*, it must therefore be that there is unity in essence and form and dignity and eternity and existence and incircumscriptibility. — While therefore you *consider these things singly* in themselves, you have whereby to contemplate the *truth*; while you *compare them with one another*, you have whereby to be suspended in the highest *admiration*: and therefore, that your mind may through admiration ascend into admirable contemplation, these things are to be considered together.

4. For the Cherubim also signify this, which looked upon one another mutually. Nor is it without mystery that they looked *with faces turned toward the propitiatory*, so that what the Lord says in John might be verified: *This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.* For we ought to admire not only the essential and personal conditions of God *in themselves*, but also *by comparison* with the supermarvellous union of God and man in the unity of the person of Christ.

5. For if you are a Cherub in contemplating the *essential attributes* of God, and you marvel that the divine being is at once *first* and *last*, *eternal* and *most present*, *most simple* and *greatest* or *uncircumscribed*, *wholly everywhere* and *nowhere comprehended*, *most actual* and *never moved*, *most perfect* and having nothing superfluous nor diminished, and yet immense and infinite without term, *supremely one*, and yet *omnimodal*, as having all things in itself, as being all power, all truth, every good; look to the *propitiatory* and marvel that in it the first principle is joined with the last, *God* with man formed on the sixth day, the *eternal* is joined with temporal man, born of the Virgin in the fulness of times, the *most simple* with the supremely composite, the *most actual* with the one supremely suffering and dead, the *most perfect* and immense with the small, the *supremely one* and *omnimodal* with an individual composite and distinct from the rest, namely the man Jesus Christ.

6. But if you are the other Cherub in contemplating the *proper attributes of the persons*, and you marvel that *communicability* is with propriety, *consubstantiality* with plurality, *configurability* with personality, *coequality* with order, *coeternity* with production, *cointimacy* with emission, because the Son was sent by the Father, and the Holy Spirit by both, who nevertheless is always with them and never departs from them; look into the propitiatory and marvel that in Christ there stands a *personal union* with a trinity of substances and a duality of natures; there stands an *omnimodal consent* with a plurality of wills, there stands a *co-predication* of God and man with a plurality of properties,

there stands a *co-adoration* with a plurality of nobilities, there stands a *co-exaltation* above all things with a plurality of dignities, there stands a *co-dominion* with a plurality of powers.

7. Now in this consideration is the perfection of the mind's illumination, when, as on the sixth day, it sees man made to the image of God. For if an *image* is an expressive likeness, then, while our mind contemplates in Christ the Son of God, who is the image of the invisible God by nature, our humanity so marvellously exalted, so ineffably united, seeing at once in one the first and the last, the highest and the lowest, the circumference and the centre, the *alpha and the omega*, the caused and the cause, the Creator and the creature, that is to say *the book written within and without*; it has now arrived at a certain perfect thing, so that with God it may arrive at the perfection of its illuminations on the sixth step as on the sixth day; nor does anything further now remain but the day of rest, on which, through the transport of the mind, the perspicacity of the human mind may rest *from all the work which he had done*.

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