Scholion
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/8/q/bon-itin-scholion
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### SCHOLION

The teaching of this golden little work has not rarely been understood, even by learned men, either imperfectly or altogether wrongly. For some have judged that certain of its propositions are not to be understood in the strict sense of the words, but to be expounded or excused by a kindly interpretation, as having been said in a *mystical* book and not in a scientifically theological one. Others, not a few, have abused certain manners of speaking that occur there to confirm their own false opinions. — Considering the sublimity of this little book and the brevity of its exposition, it is no wonder that erroneous interpretations should have slipped in, whether among those little versed in the teaching of the Seraphic Doctor, or among those not attending to the special character and the whole context of this writing. Nevertheless this little book has been rightly celebrated by the wisest men of the last centuries as altogether singular in its kind, composed with marvellous art, and never sufficiently to be praised. It contains in fact teachings sound, most lofty, most wholesome, and expressed with a careful choice of words; and the whole doctrine is wholly consonant with that which the Saint professes in his theological writings and there expounds more at large. This can already be sufficiently established from the testimonies we have adduced in the notes; as to a few of the more difficult matters, we refer the reader to the Disputed Question reprinted above at page 47, and published, together with other questions of authors of the Bonaventurian school, first in the little work *On the Manner of Human Cognition*, brought out by us from the press of the College of St. Bonaventure in 1883 — and especially to the introductory Dissertation (ibid. pp. 1–47).

For the reader's convenience, however, it has seemed opportune to subjoin here a few brief observations, so that an easier way may be prepared toward the right understanding of the more difficult passages.

1. As to the peculiar character of the little work, we note that it is rightly reckoned among the *mystical* works, without its being on that account deprived of its place among the works pertaining to *theological* and even *philosophical* science. It is a *mystical* work, regard being had both to the *end* intended by the author and to the *dispositions* of soul which he requires in his readers; which is manifestly established from the Prologue and the beginning of chapter 1. For the author did not write with the design of teaching, after the manner of the schools, a purely theoretical science, or of refuting errors, but in order directly to promote devotion and the contemplation of divine things. For he says: « To those willing to be at leisure for magnifying, admiring, and even tasting God, I propose the speculations set forth below » (Prolog. n. 4.). But for the *disposition* of the reader the human intellect is said not to suffice, however acute and cultivated, not even with the addition of those principles which faith sets before all Christians; rather let him be « *a man of desires* », let him be prevented by grace, humble, pious, compunct, devout, and given to contemplation; because, as is observed, « of little or no avail is the mirror set outwardly before us, unless the mirror of our mind has been wiped clean and polished ». Indeed, as though presaging events to come, the author forewarns that, when that disposition to contemplation is wanting and the mind's eye is ill disposed, one must beware « lest perchance from the very speculation of the rays you fall into a graver pit of darkness » (ibid. n. 4.). There is required therefore, for enjoying this little book well, that *eye of contemplation* of which, treating of the threefold eye, the Saint speaks above in Breviloq. p. II. c. 12. (cf. on the gift of contemplation II. Sent. d. 23. a. 2. q. 3. in corp. and ad 6.).

Nevertheless the, so to speak, *material* part of this little work, which sets forth the very *objects* to be considered, is drawn from the theological and philosophical disciplines; and this learnedly and profoundly exhibits certain recondite teachings of Christian philosophy concerning the *manifold relation*, of the natural as well as of the supernatural order, which created things have to the first efficient, exemplar, and final cause. For all things caused by God in the natural and supernatural order, the real and the ideal, are set forth as so many mirrors to the purified and illumined eye of the mind, for contemplating the divine attributes and the mysteries of the Trinity and of the incarnation. While therefore ordinary books of meditations usefully set forth the very mysteries of faith, many of them, to be meditated upon, this one sets forth that hidden *bond* by which the natural and supernatural order of creatures is joined with the first principle, which, on Augustine's testimony, is of all things the « cause of being, the ground of understanding, and the order of living ». Thus it can come about that « according to the state of our condition the very universality of things is a ladder for ascending into God » (c. 1. n. 2.).

2. Three *distinctions* are to be noted. — a. Threefold is the creatures' *comparison and dependence upon God:* « either as to a *creative principle*, or as to a *motive object*, or as to an *indwelling gift*. In the first mode every *effect* of his is compared to him, in the second mode every *intellect*, in the third mode every *spirit just and acceptable to God*. For every *effect*, however little it has of *being*, has God as its principle. Every *intellect*, however little it has of light, is born to lay hold of God through cognition and love. And every *just and holy spirit* has the gift of the Holy Spirit infused into it » (Breviloq. p. II. c. 12.). — With this distinction coheres another, concerning the four degrees of that knowledge of God which can be had *on the way*. « For God is known in a *vestige*, he is known in an *image*, he is known also in the *effect of grace*, he is known too through the intimate *union of God and the soul*; according to which the Apostle says [I. Cor. 6, 17.]: *He who adheres to God is one spirit.* And this is the most excellent knowledge, which Dionysius teaches, which indeed lies in ecstatic love and raises above the knowledge of faith according to the common state » (III. Sent. d. 24. dub. 4.).

b. Threefold is the *mode of existence of things*. « Things have *being* in three ways, namely in *matter* or their proper nature, in *created intelligence*, and in *the eternal art*; according to which three Scripture says: *God said: let it be made; he made it, and it was made* » (Breviloq. p. II. c. 12; cf. there Prolog. § 3; I. Sent. d. 36. a. 2. q. 2. in corp. and II. Sent. d. 3. p. II. a. 2. q. 1. fundam. 6; Quaest. disp. de scientia Christi, q. 4. in corp.).

c. In a threefold mode *the intellect can turn itself* to considering the mirror of creatures, both outward and inward; because « the sense of the flesh [and the same holds of the interior sense] either serves the intellect *rationally investigating*, or *faithfully believing*, or *intellectually contemplating* » (here c. 1. n. 10.). Whence in a threefold mode the intellect can *pass over* from effects to causes, from creature to God, namely either by the sole force of the natural light and in the philosophical mode, or with the principles of faith adjoined, or even with the illuminating gifts of the Holy Spirit.

3. Concerning the mode by which the intellect *rationally investigating* passes over, especially from the interior image to God, another distinction is to be noted, between the *apprehending* and the *resolving* intellect, and the resolving either *half-fully* or *fully*; by which distinction is also understood the account of *explicit* and *implicit* cognition, and in what sense it is true that a created being cannot be known by the *fully resolving* intellect unless it be helped by the understanding of the first being (c. 3. n. 3. and c. 5. n. 3. with the notes.). — The holy Doctor therefore says of this (I. Sent. d. 28. dub. 1.): « As regards the *apprehending* intellect, nothing can be understood without something which is to it *the ground of understanding*, as *God* apart from deity and *man* apart from humanity; yet an *effect* can be understood without the *cause* being understood, and an *inferior* without the *superior* being understood, because one can apprehend *man* without any of the superiors being understood. And so the Philosopher says that he who says *one* in a certain manner says *many*, not *simply*, but *in a certain manner*, because *implicitly*. — In another way it happens that something is understood apart from another by the *resolving* intellect; and this intellect considers those things which are essential to the thing, just as a subject can be understood without its proper attribute. And this can be in two ways: either by the intellect *resolving fully* and *perfectly*, or by the intellect falling short and *resolving half-fully*. By the intellect *resolving half-fully* it can be understood that something is, without the first being being understood. But by the intellect *resolving perfectly* nothing can be understood without the first being being understood ». Cf. II. Sent. d. 1. p. II. dub. 2, where it is taught that *being*, with *goodness* abstracted, « can be understood by the *apprehending* intellect and by the intellect *half-fully resolving*; but by the intellect *fully comparing to causes* it cannot be understood without that being understood ».

4. Although « every creature leads more into God than into anything else » (I. Sent. d. 3. p. I. q. 2.), nevertheless, since actual cognition begins from sense and advances from the exterior to the interior, from the imperfect to the more perfect, scarcely any other way of *rationally investigating* God lies open to a still ruder intellect than by ascending from the sensible world or from the *vestige* of God. Hence it is said: « Let us place the first step of the ascent at the bottom, setting this whole *sensible* world before us as a mirror, through which we may pass over to God, the supreme craftsman » (c. 1. n. 9.). Further, the shadows and vestiges of creatures are « set before minds still rude and sensible, so that through the sensible things which they see they may be carried over to the intelligible things which they do not see, as through signs to the things signified » (c. 2. n. 11.). — Yet the author lingers little over describing the particular things of the sensible world (c. 1.), but passes over at once (c. 2.) from the *material* (real) world to the *ideal* world, or to that *being*, not physical but metaphysical, which the world has in the human mind. For the *apprehending* intellect itself naturally and necessarily transcends the concrete order of existing of particular and contingent things, whose species it conceives within itself by abstracting and purifying, and thus as it were raises things above the material order and clothes them with a certain garment of the spiritual order, that is, with certain ideal properties, namely of universality, immutability, eternity, and necessity, which by no means belong to the real order itself of material things. Further, that ideal order has its supreme *root* and *ultimate foundation* in God, and leads into him. « Truths understood *are founded upon something eternal*. And they are founded upon the first Truth itself as upon a universal cause, containing all truth » (S. Thom., S. c. Gent. II. c. 84.). « The unchangeable rules (of the intellect) are rooted in the eternal light and lead into it » (S. Bonav., Hexaëm. collation 2.). « Hence the intellect itself, considering the conditions of being according to the relation of cause to caused, *carries itself over from the effect to the causes and passes over to the eternal grounds* » (ibid. coll. 5.). This passage

can be made by arguing and resolving on the part of the intellect *rationally investigating*; but it is made more perfectly by the same intellect illumined and *intellectually contemplating*. — This *ideal* order, obscure and almost unknown to the ordinary intellect, is set forth by St. Bonaventure, under the lead of St. Augustine, with special care in chapters 2, 3, 5, 6, so that the contemplative eye may *pass over* to contemplating divine things. That threefold *being* of the same thing being supposed, such a passage is not understood with difficulty; yet it must be well attended to that one is the account and the way by which the intellect passes from the *real* order to the *ideal*, and another that by which from this it ascends to the *divine* order (cf. on this the Dissertation cited, pp. 22–25).

5. The ancient Scholastics commonly, with St. Thomas (de Verit. q. 22. a. 2. ad 1.), taught « that all knowing things *know God implicitly in whatever is known* » (cf. the Dissert. cited, pp. 17, 18); and according to this *implicit* and *confused* cognition of whatever sort they assert that it can be said that the existence of God is naturally known (S. Thom., S. I. q. 2. a. 1. ad 1.). « The motion therefore of our intellect, while it understands, while it reasons, begins from an *implicit* cognition of God and terminates in an explicit cognition of God »; so the distinguished Fr. Lepidi O. Praed. (the periodical *Divus Thomas* 1881, n. 11. ff.).

6. Between the human mind and God, inasmuch as he is the supreme « cause of being, ground of understanding, and order of living », no creature is intermediate; this however does not prevent creatures from being a *disposing* medium and, as it were, one leading by the hand to the knowledge of God, as St. Bonaventure well explains, I. Sent. d. 3. p. I. q. 3. ad 1. and II. Sent. d. 3. p. II. a. 2. q. 2. ad 6. — Although therefore the human intellect in the state of the way by no means knows God *immediately*, but only in the mirror of creatures, it is nevertheless rightly said in itself to be *joined to God*, *near to God*, or *reaching unto God*, as occurs throughout here in cc. 2 and 3, and in Augustine, who teaches that the intelligible nature is *connected* not only with intelligible but also with immutable things (I. Retract. c. 8. n. 2.). Yet the Seraphic Doctor warns (Quaest. disp. de scientia Christi, q. 4. ad 19.): « Few there are who know that they attain to those grounds in that manner; nay, what is more, few there are who are willing to believe this, because it seems difficult to an intellect not yet raised to contemplating eternal things that it should have God so present and near, although Paul says (Acts 17, 27.) that *he is not far from every one of us* ».

7. The common opinion likewise teaches as certain the *general concurrence of God*, active and immediate, in any actions whatever of creatures; whence « created light cannot perfect its own operation *without some cooperation of the uncreated light*, by which every man is illumined who comes into this world » (S. Bonav., II. Sent. d. 28. a. 2. q. 3. in corp.). For « in this God works continually in the mind, that he causes in it the natural light *and directs it to seeing;* and *thus* the mind does not proceed to its operation without the operation of the first cause » (S. Thom., Opusc. 63, or on Boethius's book de Trin. q. 1. a. 1. ad 6.). This immediate cooperation of the first light is called by Augustine and the Scholastics a certain *irradiation* or *illumination* of minds, which besides the created intellect is in its own way a certain supreme *principle*, *by which* knowledge is had; or, as St. Bonaventure says, it is itself the *motive* ground, *leading into another*, or *regulating*; and in this sense « after the manner of a candlestick the light of truth shines back in the face of our mind » (c. 3. n. 1.); yet the first light is not the *principle* *which* is (directly) known, or the object *terminating*, *bringing to rest*, and leading *into itself*. Of this the whole q. 4 among the Disputed Questions de scientia Christi treats, which is more fully explained by Matthew of Aquasparta (de Hum. Cognitionis ratione, pp. 87–108; cf. ibid. the Dissert. cited, pp. 26–44). Of the highest moment is both this *distinction* between the *principium quo* and the *principium quod* of cognition, or between the *medium* (ground) and the *object* of knowing, and the *teaching* of all the Scholastics that something can be the medium *by which*, or the *ground of knowing*, without its being itself the *object* of cognition, so that « it *lies hidden* as an object of cognition, but *lies open* as a ground of knowing » (so Matthew of Aquasparta, q. disp. 3. ad 4; cf. ibid. ad 6. and S. Thom., I. Sent. d. 3. q. 4. ad 5.). Chiefly because this distinction and teaching were neglected did the false interpretations of the Itinerarium arise, of which we treat immediately.

8. These things being supposed, the genuine sense of certain manners of speaking which are taken from Augustine can be clear, and at the same time the falsity of certain interpretations which have imputed a twofold error to the Seraphic Doctor.

For first it has been said that he agrees with the ontologism of Malebranche, as though he had taught that intellectual truths are known *formally* in the eternal grounds. Yet from his own irrefragable testimonies it has already so often been demonstrated that he admits for this life not even a « *slender* » degree of *immediate* cognition of God, not even in the *highest contemplation* (at least ordinarily), nor any passage to the eternal grounds except that by which the intellect « carries itself over from the *effect* to the causes ». « Whence if any authorities be found to say this, that God is in the present seen and discerned by man, they are not to be understood as though he were seen *in his essence, but that he is known in some inferior effect* » (II. Sent. d. 23. a. 2. q. 3. in corp.). The Angels themselves by *natural* cognition could not know God except « through *effects*. And God is known through *visible effects* and through *spiritual substances* and through the *influence of the light connatural to the knowing power*, which is a certain likeness of God, not abstracted but infused, inferior to God, because in an inferior nature, as Augustine says » (IX. de Trin. c. 11. n. 16). So II. Sent. d. 3. p. II. a. 2. q. 2. ad 4. See more, I. Sent. d. 3. p. I. q. 1. scholion and the Dissert. cited, pp. 7–12. — It seems astonishing that the genuine teaching of St. Bonaventure could have been doubted on account of certain ill-understood formulas of this Itinerarium, since in the same work he most clearly (cc. 1, 2, 3) teaches nothing but an ascent *from creatures* to God; and when he employs the words *to see God*, he explains himself by adding other words, as: « we must strive *through a mirror* to see God » (c. 3. n. 1.) and « you will be able to see God *through yourself* as through an image, which is to see *through a mirror in an enigma* » (ibid.).

9. Another error has been imputed to our author through a false interpretation of chapter 5, as though he had taught both that the first thing known by the *apprehending intellect* is the *divine being*, and that he confounded *common being* with the *divine being*. This perverse interpretation is utterly foreign to the mind of the holy Doctor and is manifestly excluded by irrefragable heads of doctrine which he constantly and everywhere asserts. For he teaches in peremptory words that the divine *being* in itself can neither before nor after the first sin be known *immediately*; that it is not perceived except in the mirror of creatures and through the order which *effects* have to their cause (I. Sent. d. 3. p. I. q. 1. 2; II. Sent. d. 23. a. 2. q. 3. and everywhere); likewise, that *actual understanding* begins from sense, so that from an imperfect and confused understanding it advances to a more perfect and explicit one (cf. II. Sent. d. 39. a. 1. q. 2. and scholion, n. II, d. 25. p. II. q. 6; I. Sent. d. 8. p. II. dub. 4; II. Sent. d. 1. p. II. a. 1. q. 2. ad 2; III. Sent. d. 37. dub. 1.). Finally he so often affirms that the *divine being* is not *in a genus*, but *above every genus*, nor *univocal*, but only *analogous* with all the concepts of the mind, even the transcendental ones.

Moreover, from this Itinerarium and from chapter 5 itself the genuine sense of the author sufficiently appears. — For *first* he most clearly teaches the order and the degrees of cognition and contemplation, through which we ascend from creatures to a perfect knowledge of God, so far as is permitted (c. 1. n. 2.). For he places the first degree at the *bottom*, beginning from the *sensible* world, as we noted above (n. 4.); namely « that we may come to God, *it behoves us to pass through the vestige* » (c. 1. n. 2. and 5.). — And the higher degrees thereafter explained by him presuppose the preceding ones.

*Secondly*, concerning the *concept* of τοῦ *esse* the author has already spoken in the third degree (c. 3. n. 3.) according to the *apprehending* and the *resolving* intellect (see above n. 3.); where it is said that « our intellect does not come *as fully resolving* to the understanding of any one of created beings unless it be helped by the understanding of the purest being » etc. Not therefore except by ascending from caused things and by *resolving* — nay, by resolving not *half-fully* but *fully* — does the intellect conceive the purest and most absolute being.

This being supposed, in c. 5. n. 3. also he distinguishes a threefold *being*, namely in things (outside us) « *particular being*, which is *being* constricted, because it is mingled with potency »; in the intellect (within us) « *analogous being*, which has least of act, in that it least

is »; finally *being above us*. But having briefly recalled the two former, he is wholly occupied in the contemplation of that *being* which is « *above us* » and is not attained except by the contemplative eye. Lest therefore the reader stray from the genuine sense of this chapter, the things which were said in chapter 3 and the connection of the fifth degree with the third must be kept in mind.

*Thirdly*, the contemplation of this fifth degree is founded on the axiom of Avicenna commonly received by the Scholastics, that « *a being* (*being*) is what first falls into the intellect ». This opinion is properly understood of that *common being*, conceived by the first act of the intellect, which can in no way be manifested to us through anything better known than it. This being, however, inasmuch as it is conceived by the *apprehending* intellect, « is not anything determinate, neither in act nor in potency, neither present nor future, neither man nor horse and the like, but a being which is superior to all these; and I say that that quiddity is a being in the *intellect*… although it is not a being *in act*, since neither is this part of its understanding » (Matthew of Aquasparta, in the cited Opusc. de Hum. Cognitionis ratione, p. 120; or in the disputed question: Whether for the cognition of a thing the existence of the thing itself is required etc., ad 4; cf. ad 5. 6. 7. and corp., where there are also other things pertaining to the matter). St. Thomas (S. I. II. q. 94. a. 2. corp.) says: « That which first falls into *apprehension* is *a being*, the understanding of which is included in all things whatsoever anyone apprehends; and therefore the first indemonstrable principle is that *it is not possible at once to affirm and to deny*, which is founded upon the account of being and non-being, and upon this principle all others are founded » (cf. the same, de Potentia q. 9. a. 7. ad 15. and at the end; S. I. q. 11. a. 2. ad 4.).

This analogous *being*, first known by the apprehending intellect, is nothing but the slenderest shadow of the *divine being*, from which by reason of *reality* it stands as far as heaven is wide and is as it were opposed to it; nevertheless by reason of its *greatest universality*, *priority*, and *simplicity* it is fitted to become for the *contemplative eye* a mirror for contemplating divine things. Richard of Middleton also observes (I. Sent. d. III. p. I. a. 3. q. 3.): « When we understand *being in common*, not descending to created or uncreated being, we understand God by a *most general* understanding, inasmuch as we understand something common to him and to any creature whatever, not by a *univocal* community, but by an *analogous* one. And this *natural* cognition of God is prior to the [proper] cognition of God through a *vestige*; because the latter presupposes in the intellect the cognition of some other thing, but the former does not. Whence according to Avicenna… being common to all things can in no way be manifested to us through anything better known than it. In another way God is known by us *in general*, inasmuch as we know that there is some uncreated being, the efficient and final cause of any created being whatever; and this cognition of God we have by nature *first* through a vestige ». — All these things can be confirmed by the testimonies of our author, one notable one of which it is well to transcribe, in which he speaks of the most general genus and the most special species and concludes thus: « And hence it is that *genus* in something is likened to God more than *species*, and in something conversely. For God, since he is most noble at the term of all nobility, has at once in himself every perfection, so that he is *most simple* and altogether *incorruptible*, and is also *perfect* and *constituted in every mode of actuality*. But a creature, according as it can, is half-fully likened to God; and as regards the account of *simplicity* and *incorruptibility* the more universal is the more likened, while as regards the account of *actuality* the less universal is the more likened » (II. Sent. d. 18. a. 1. q. 3. in corp. near the end). So much the more strongly does this hold of the *transcendental* universals, of which the first and most general is *being*.

*Fourthly*, the very words of the author in chapter 5 sufficiently make manifest that he well distinguishes from the *divine being*, which is pure act, those two others. For he says: « But this is not *particular being* [existing really *outside us*], which is *being* constricted, because it is mingled with potency; nor *analogous being* [in the intellect *within us*], because it has least of act, in that it least is ». Of *analogous* or most common *being*, which is as it were the lowest among all the things to which *being* belongs, the author does not here speak, except inasmuch as it gives occasion for contemplating *being itself* (above us). Whence he admonishes: « Let him who wishes to contemplate the invisible things of God as regards the unity of the essence *fix his gaze upon being itself and see* » etc. (n. 3.). Likewise: « See therefore the purest *being* itself, if *you can*, and it occurs to you » etc. (n. 5.). These words about « *being itself* » are manifestly not understood of that first act of the *apprehending* intellect, which is exercised naturally and necessarily, and whose object is that slenderest *being* which is not the *first* and *pure being*, but rather the far-off *shadow* of the same. But the intellect reflecting and resolving, and especially the contemplative eye, can easily advert that *being per se* itself, which is the first principle on the part of the thing both of being and of knowing, is something *above us* and *before us*, in which every created *being* and also that most common *being* of the first universal is rooted, and into which all things lead the resolving intellect. In this sense also St. Thomas (S. I. q. 3. a. 5, sed contra) proclaims: « Nothing is prior to God, neither according to the *thing* nor according to the *intellect* ». Which is manifestly said not on the part of the human intellect, which in its blindness apprehends the *shadow* of truth before *truth itself in itself*, but on the part of the *thing* or of the *superior* intellect, which sees well that *being itself* precedes the *shadow* of it. — In this sense are to be taken those words which to many have been a stone of stumbling: « *Being* therefore is what first falls into the intellect; and that *being* is what is pure act » (n. 3.). The genuine sense therefore is this: *being* itself is not in particular things except *by participation* and *in a constricted* and *imperfect mode*, nor is it *apprehended* by the human intellect in its first act in its purity and distinctness, but only most imperfectly in that shadow of most common *being*; yet the same is known distinctly by the *contemplative* eye as that *being* than which in truth « nothing is prior, neither according to the thing nor according to the intellect ». But because the *apprehending* intellect on account of its blindness « *does not see* », « *nor advert to* » that purest *being*, nay « seems to itself to see nothing » (as is inculcated, ibid. n. 4.); the holy Doctor with marvellous acumen, according to the *reflecting* and *resolving* intellect, unfolds from the very concept of τοῦ *esse per se* the chief divine attributes.

In his whole Itinerarium, moreover, the Seraphic Doctor leans upon the teaching of St. Augustine; and to understanding the profundity of that teaching he at the same time furnishes as it were the best key. Whoever therefore wishes rightly to understand this sublime little work, let him read, or rather meditate upon, St. Augustine's books de Vera Religione, VI. de Musica, and II. and III. de Libero Arbitrio, or at least let him compare the passages adduced by us in the notes.

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