Proemium, Q. 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/1/d/0/q/bon-sent-I-proem-q4
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### QUESTION IV.
#### *What the efficient cause, or the author, of this book is.*

Lastly, for greater clarity, it can be asked about the *efficient* cause. And it is said to have been Master Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris. But that he ought not to be called the *author* of this book, is shown thus.

1. He alone is to be called the author of a book who is the teacher or the author of the teaching; but, as Augustine says in the book *On the Teacher*: «Christ alone is teacher»: therefore he alone ought to be called the author of this book.

2. Likewise, as the Philosopher says in the old *Ethics*: «Not everyone who makes grammatical or musical things ought to be called a grammarian or a musician — as, for instance, if he should do it by chance, or by luck, or with another prompting or dictating»; but the Master composed this work out of another's teaching, as he himself says in the text, that «in this work you will find the examples and the teaching of our forebears»: therefore he ought not to be called the author.

*If you say*, that here there is not only the teaching of the Saints but also his own, by reason of which he ought to be called the author; *on the contrary:* «Denomination ought to be made from the greater and the worthier»; but the Master says that «for a little while his own voice sounded, and even then it did not depart from the bounds set by the fathers»: therefore this book ought not to be said to be the Master's.

**On the contrary:** It is certain that God did not write this work with his own finger, therefore it had another, created author; but there is no other to assign except the Master.

Likewise, if the Master's authority is received in this cause, he himself says in the text: «With much labour and sweat, God granting it, we have put this volume together»: therefore it seems that he was the author of the present book.

### Conclusion

> *Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris, is the author of this book.*

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said it must be noted that there is a fourfold manner of making a book. For someone writes another's matter, adding or changing nothing; and he is called merely a *scribe.* Someone writes another's matter, adding, but nothing of his own; and he is called a *compiler.* Someone writes both another's and his own, but another's as the principal matter and his own as annexed for clarification; and he is called a *commentator,* not an author. Someone writes both his own and another's, but his own as the principal matter and another's as annexed for confirmation; and such a one ought to be called an *author.* Such was the Master, who sets down his own sentences and confirms them by the sentences of the Fathers. Hence he ought truly to be called the author of this book.

1. As to what is objected, then, that Christ alone is teacher and author; it must be said that, as Augustine says in the book *On Christian Doctrine*, to teach is twofold, just as someone is said in two ways to make another see. For one makes another see in one way who restores his sight, in another way who points out the visible thing with his finger; and the first God does, the second man. Similarly, one teaches in one way who offers or shows, by word or by writing, the knowledge which he has in his soul, in another way he who imprints the habit of knowledge; yet each is called teacher and author, but God more principally; so in the case before us.

2. As to what is objected, that he made the book with another prompting him; it must be said that someone is not said to make something with another prompting merely because he learned it from another — for then there would be few teachers or grammarians — but if his knowledge depends altogether on another, so that he does not have the habit within, like those who make good Latin because others have told it to them, while they themselves do not know the art; in this way the Master was not. For out of the knowledge which he had acquired over long time and labour he composed this work, and by the teachings of the Fathers he confirmed his own sentences. And that there are in it many sayings of others, this does not take away the Master's authority, but rather confirms his authority and commends his humility.

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