Prologus
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/0/q/bon-itin-prol
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### Here begins the Prologue to the Journey of the Mind into God.

1. In the beginning I invoke the First Beginning, from whom all illuminations descend as *from the Father of lights, from whom is every best gift and every perfect gift* — the eternal Father, namely — through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that by the intercession of the most holy Virgin Mary, mother of the same God and our Lord Jesus Christ, and of blessed Francis, our leader and father, he may *give enlightened eyes* to our mind *to direct our feet into the way* of that *peace which surpasseth all understanding*; which peace our Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed and gave; and the repeater of his preaching was our father Francis, announcing peace at the beginning and at the end of every sermon of his, wishing peace in every greeting, sighing after ecstatic peace in every contemplation, as a citizen of that Jerusalem of which that man of peace speaks — he who *with them that hated peace was peaceable*: *Pray ye for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem*. For he knew that the throne of Solomon stood only in peace, since it is written: *In peace is his place made, and his abode in Sion.*

2. Since, therefore, after the example of the most blessed father Francis, I sought this peace with panting spirit — I, a sinner, who, unworthy in every way, succeed in the place of that most blessed father after his passing as seventh in the general ministry of the brethren — it came to pass that, by the divine nod, about the time of the passing of the Blessed one himself, in the thirty-third year, I turned aside to Mount Alverna, as to a quiet place, out of love of seeking peace of spirit; and abiding there, while I turned over in my mind certain mental ascensions into God, there occurred among other things that miracle which in the aforesaid place befell the blessed Francis himself — the vision, namely, of the winged Seraph after the likeness of the Crucified. In the consideration of which it at once seemed to me that this vision set forth the uplifting of that father himself in contemplating, and the way by which it is arrived at.

3. For by those six wings can rightly be understood six upliftings of illumination, by which the soul, as by certain steps or journeys, is disposed to pass over into peace through the ecstatic transports of Christian wisdom. Now the way is by nothing else than the most ardent love of the Crucified, which so transformed Paul, *rapt to the third heaven*, into Christ, that he said: *With Christ I am nailed to the cross; and I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me*; which also so absorbed the mind of Francis that his mind lay open in his flesh, while for two years before his death he carried the most sacred stigmata of the passion in his body. The effigy, therefore, of the six seraphic wings intimates six ladder-like illuminations, which begin from creatures and lead through even unto God, to whom no one rightly enters except through the Crucified. For *he that entereth not by the door, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber*. But *if any man* shall have *entered in* by this door, *he shall go in, and go out, and shall find pastures*. Wherefore John says in the Apocalypse: *Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city*; as though he should say that one cannot enter the supernal Jerusalem by contemplation unless one enter through the blood of the Lamb as through a gate. For a man is in no way disposed to divine contemplations, which lead to mental transports, unless with Daniel he be *a man of desires*. Now desires are inflamed in us in a twofold way, namely through *the cry of prayer*, which makes one roar *from the groaning of the heart*, and through *the flash of speculation*, whereby the mind turns itself most directly and most intensely toward the rays of light.

4. Therefore, to the groaning of prayer through Christ crucified, by whose blood we are purged from the filth of vices, I first of all invite the reader, lest perchance he should believe that reading suffices him without unction, speculation without devotion, investigation without wonder, observation without exultation, industry without piety, knowledge without charity, intelligence without humility, study without divine grace, the mirror without wisdom divinely inspired. — To those, therefore, who are prevented by divine grace, to the humble and pious, to the compunct and devout, to those anointed with *the oil of gladness* and the lovers of divine wisdom, inflamed with desire for her, to those wishing to give themselves free to magnifying God, to admiring him, and even to tasting him, I propose the speculations that follow, intimating that little or nothing is the outward mirror set before us, unless the mirror of our mind have been wiped and polished. Exercise thyself, therefore, O man of God, first upon the sting of conscience that bites back, before thou lift thine eyes to the rays of wisdom gleaming in her mirrors, lest perchance from the very speculation of those rays thou fall into a deeper pit of darkness.

5. Now it has pleased me to divide the treatise into seven chapters, prefixing titles for the easier understanding of the things to be said. I ask, therefore, that the intention of the writer be weighed rather than the work, the sense of the words rather than the unpolished speech, truth rather than beauty, the exercising of affection rather than the erudition of the intellect. And that this may be so, the progress of these speculations is not to be run through in a perfunctory manner, but to be ruminated with the utmost slowness.

HERE ENDS THE PROLOGUE.

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