Tractatus
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/14/d/5/q/bon-serm-tract
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### Treatise
#### *On the planting of Paradise*

### Summarium

*Introduction. The invisible wisdom of God is not known unless the eye of the mind is led by the hand through visible likenesses, number 1. — Thus the planting of the earthly paradise is a symbol of the heavenly paradise, 2. — Each paradise is, in the tropological sense, in the soul: the heavenly through sublime and transporting contemplation, the earthly through the sweet meditation of humble devotion, 3. — First, on the contemplative mind, inasmuch as it is the heavenly paradise, that is, conformed to the heavenly through the* lumina *of truth and the solaces of charity. It is designated by the woman clothed with the sun, who has the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars, 4. — The twelve stars signify the twelve* lumina *of created things, 5. — They are enumerated one by one, 6. — The caution to be used in these, lest a twofold evil be incurred, 7. — Second, on the earthly paradise, to which the soul is made conformable through the humility of devotion. The influences from the heavenly hierarchy into the subheavenly; Christ incarnate is the tree of life planted in the soul through the Spirit of truth and of grace, 8. — The first little plant of the inner paradise is the Word incarnate and crucified, bearing twelve fruits continually; yet there are planted in it other trees affording matters of meditation and of devotion, 9. — An exhortation, that by meditating the savours of the fruits of these trees be tasted, 10. — The wisdom of God has planted in the soul twelve roots of trees, that is, twelve matters of meditation, 11. — It is fitting to use measure and caution in these, 12. — The consideration of infernal torments and of the battles with enemies is opportune, 13. — Of those twelve considerations the six principal ones are explained, 14. — Likewise, six others set over against them; after the six illuminations the soul can be placed in the rest of paradise, 15. — Those twelve illuminations are not only overshadowing trees, but also armour defending the little bed of the peaceable Solomon, that is, the chamber of the contemplating soul; conclusion, 16.*

1. *And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning, wherein he placed man whom he had formed*. — Just as, for those who look piously upon Christ, the sight of the flesh, which lay open, was the way

to the recognition of the Divinity, which lay hidden; so to the understanding of the truth of divine wisdom the eye of rational intelligence is led by the hand through enigmatic and mystical figures. For otherwise the invisible wisdom of God could not have become known to us, unless it conformed itself, by a likeness, to these forms of visible things which we know, and through them expressed to us by signifying its own invisible things, which we do not know; as the Apostle also attests to the Romans: *The invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.* And blessed Dionysius, in the book *On the Angelic Hierarchy*: "Neither is it possible, he says, that the thearchic ray should shine forth above otherwise than as veiled about anagogically by the variety of sacred veilings, and, by those things which are according to us, prepared connaturally and familiarly by the paternal providence." Now the sacred veilings are the mystical descriptions in the sacred Eloquium, by which the divine ray is veiled about and overshadowed, so that it may be tempered to our sight, so that that very overshadowing may be our illumination, and its veiling about may be our elevation and the revelation of supermundane secrets.

2. Among these sacred veilings and symbols by likeness, at the very beginnings of sacred Scripture the planting of paradise is set before us to be considered. For just as in the fabric of the world there are two parts, namely heaven and earth; so also its dwelling is twofold, twofold likewise its hierarchic adornment, and no less twofold the paradise, the *heavenly* namely and the *earthly*. Of the *heavenly* indeed the Apostle says: *I know a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, whether in the body or out of the body, I know not, God knoweth, such a one caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man, whether in the body or out of the body, I know not, God knoweth, that he was caught up into paradise and heard secret words which it is not granted to man to utter.* But of the *earthly* paradise there must be understood what is said in Ecclesiasticus: *Henoch pleased God and was translated into paradise, that he might give wisdom to the nations.*

3. According to this twofold literal understanding of *paradise* there is also a twofold spiritual and tropological understanding of it according to morality; namely, that the *heavenly* paradise be called in the soul the *transporting satiety of sublime contemplation*, and the *earthly* the *refreshing sweetness of humble devotion*. By reason of which two it is said by the Bridegroom to the devout soul in the Canticle of Canticles: *A garden enclosed, my sister, my spouse, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up. Thy plants are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of the orchard.* — For the Spirit of truth, who puts nothing superfluous in Scripture, by repeating replicates the same thing twice, in order to declare manifestly that the soul which deserves to be called *spouse* is designated by the name of the *earthly* paradise as well as of the *heavenly*: of the *earthly* indeed on account of the exuberance of the sapiential irrigations and the verdure of the fruitful sproutings, sweet alike and beautiful; of the *heavenly* on the other hand by reason of the supershining *illuminations* and of the supermental and hidden *transports*; by reason of which the Apostle first says that he was caught up to the *third heaven* and then caught up into *paradise*; because the mind is first raised to gaze upon the clarity of the heavenly *lumina*, before it is caught up into the transport of a most sweet refreshment.

4. And since the splendid *lumina of truth* are the forerunners of the transporting *solaces of charity*, therefore the contemplative mind, adorned with the brightnesses of the heavenly *lumina*, is designated by that resplendent woman of whom, in the Apocalypse, that great contemplative John speaks most significantly. *A great sign*, he says, *appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.* This *woman*, I say, that is, the mind filled with divine charisms and made fruitful with sacred virtues, is said to be *clothed* with the *sun* on account of the contemplation

of the most blessed Trinity, which is *vigorous, splendid* and *warm*, and which snatches into itself and transforms the very soul that contemplates it — by giving vigour to its memory, illumining its intelligence, enkindling its will — and through this clothes and adorns it; so that thus, made wholly like the eternal sun, it may truly be described under the appearance of the sun, Ecclesiasticus attesting, who says: *As the sun rising in the world in the highest places of God, so is the beauty of a good wife in the ornament of her house.* This *woman*, I say, is described as *having the moon under her feet*, for this reason, that she despises and treads underfoot worldly and animal wisdom as vain and foolish. Which is rightly designated by the *moon* on account of its mutability and the darkness mixed in it, according to that of Ecclesiasticus: *A holy man continueth in wisdom as the sun, but a fool is changed as the moon.*

5. And rightly is such a mind signified as adorned with a *crown of twelve stars*, because, although it be to it supremely delightful and desirable to gaze incessantly with intellectual eyes upon that eternal sun; yet as long as it is joined to corruptible flesh, by reason namely of the alternating affections and of the phantasms, it cannot be wholly free of temporal changes. Therefore, just as this visible sun is not always in the same sign of the stars, but in the circle of the year traverses in a circle the twelve starry signs; so it is necessary for such a contemplating soul, lest it withdraw far from the splendours of the eternal light, to be illumined round about by the brightnesses of the whole company of created *lumina*. These, after the likeness of the twelve stars, are reduced to a duodenary and as it were make up a crown, so that thus, *beholding the glory of the Lord with open face* and looking upon it as in a glass, *it may be transformed from clarity to clarity as by the Spirit of the Lord.*

6. And let the first star, as it were, be the clear consideration *of bodily natures;* the second, of *spiritual substances;* the third, of *intellectual sciences;* the fourth, of *affectual virtues;* the fifth, of *laws divinely instituted;* the sixth, of *graces infused from heaven;* the seventh, of *irreprehensible judgments;* the eighth, of *incomprehensible mercies;* the ninth, of *remunerable* *merits;* the tenth, of *remunerating rewards;* the eleventh, of *militant orders;* the twelfth, of *triumphant armies*, of Angels as well as of beatified men. And thus made up of so varied a multiformity of *lumina*, it is wondrously and not undeservedly commended by the daughters of Jerusalem; in whose person the Holy Spirit says in the Canticle of Canticles: *Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?*

7. But such a resplendent soul must beware most of all, lest in these circlings of the *lumina* the darkening opacity of worldly wisdom — through curiosity wandering after the manner of the moon in the zodiac and circling itself in the *head* or the *tail* of the dragon, that is, degenerating into the *elation of presumption*, which is the *head* of the spiritual dragon, or into the *deceit of error*, which is its *tail* — be interposed between the most brilliant rays of the eternal sun and the piercing gaze of the mind's edge. For thus rational intelligence suffers a spiritual eclipse and, after the manner of the prevaricating light-bearer, falls from the heavenly light into infernal darkness, while it falls from eternity into time, from truth into falsehood, from charity into private love, and through this from wisdom into folly; just as happened to those lofty wise men of whom the Apostle writes to the Romans: *Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened; for professing themselves to be wise, they became fools; who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever,* God. *Amen.*

8. But since it is of the present work not to instruct the wise and the prudent, but only to afford them an *occasion* of thinking; and since its intention is especially borne to this, *that understanding may be given to little ones*, or rather, that affection may be stirred up in them: therefore from the illuminations of heaven one must descend to the little plants of paradise. For just as the *sublimity of contemplation*, sweetly delighting, renders the soul conformable to the *heavenly* paradise; so too the *humility of devotion*, healthfully refreshing, renders it conformable to the *earthly*. And just as the influences of the heavenly luminaries are the multiform causes of earthly sproutings; so too spiritually there descend in a wondrous manner from the heavenly hierarchy into the subheavenly both the splendours of knowledge and the sweetnesses of delight, not only through the ministry of the Angels, but also through the Word in-

carnate and affixed to the wood of the cross. Which, although as uncreated and consubstantial with the Father it is the *fountain of wisdom on high*, is nevertheless, as united to flesh and born of the Virgin, the *tree of life* for those who truly believe in it, hope in it and love it. And it is the Spirit of truth and of grace who plants it in us and plants us together with it, according to that of Ecclesiasticus: *I as* the river Dorix *and as an aqueduct came out of paradise; I said: I will water* my *garden of plants and I will water abundantly the fruit of my meadow.* For the Holy Spirit first waters us through grace, and afterwards will water us abundantly through glory. And just as now through the gift of grace he plants us together with it, so through the gift of glory he will transplant us, according to that of the Apostle: *If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.*

9. The first therefore and chief plant in the paradise of the human mind is the Word *incarnate* and *crucified*, namely Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who to the thief planted together with himself — inasmuch as he believed in him, confessed him, and was dying together with him on the cross — liberally said: *This day thou shalt be with me in paradise*. In mystical designation of which, after the word first proposed, there is significantly added: *And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise, and the tree* likewise *of knowledge of good and evil.* For although the life-giving fruit of this tree of life was set before man principally to be eaten as the restorative of the radical humour; nevertheless for his solace other trees also were brought forth round about the tree of life, so that by the variety of the fruits, of the multiform beauties and savours, man might avoid weariness, which is wont to happen through being turned to one thing only, and might have that delight which arises from variety and renewal in the knowledge of spiritual senses through the experience of multiform objects. In this way too, although Christ Jesus, and him crucified, can suffice for the devout soul according to the twelve fruits which that most blessed tree of life continually bears, as is clear from what precedes; yet to avoid weariness and to give solace to such a soul, God has set forth other matters of meditation as well, like fruitful trees, by which the devotion of the human mind may be refreshed and by these many things be exercised in manifold ways; so that at last it may rest finally in that one fruit of that tree and happily enjoy it to the full.

10. Therefore, whoever thou art that art a devout mind, if thou art not able, like an angelic and hierarchic man, after the manner of one contemplating, to gaze with unblinking eyes upon the brightnesses of the aforesaid heavenly irradiations; at least, as still animal and a little one, meditate step by step by thinking them over again, chew them by meditating, and by chewing taste the various savours of the fruits proceeding from these trees, which the multiform wisdom of God has planted in thy heart as in a little garden of paradise, so that deservedly that word of the spouse may be applied to thee: *A garden enclosed, my sister, my spouse, thy plants are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of the orchard.*

11. Attend, I say, since the multiform wisdom of God itself, irradiating on every side as it were by twelve distinctions of spiritual illuminations, plants in thee twelve roots of trees, that is, twelve matters of salutary considerations: illumining thee *from within* by interior spectacles, illumining thee *from without* by external vestiges, illumining thee *from above* by heavenly promises, illumining thee *from below* by eternal torments, illumining thee *forwards* by direct precepts, illumining thee *backwards* by strict judgments, illumining thee *on the right* by kindly solaces, illumining *on the left* by severe scourges, illumining thee *from near at hand* by the protections of the citizens, illumining thee *from afar* by the contests with enemies, illumining *in the open* by the gifts of graces, illumining *in secret* by the signs of figures.

12. If thou think all these over again with faith and treat and ruminate them with devotion, thou wilt truly become a *garden of pleasure*, continually greening with the germinations of multiform sproutings, planted and watered alike by the very wisdom of God; if with all these the fruit of the *tree of life* be preferred, and the eating of *the knowledge of good and evil* be guarded against; that is, the curiosity of knowing together with the ambition of excelling and the appetite of enjoying, which by the suggestion of the ancient serpent is brought in among the aforesaid speculations through the lower portion

of reason into the higher, as by the woman into the man — let it be more studiously avoided. For if anyone incautious assents to the serpent promising divine knowledge, so that in these things he desire rather to know than to be wise, rather to be reputed than to be refreshed, and rather to glory in pride than to rejoice in fruit; at once there is born a shameful lust, disordering and stripping bare, through which the sentence of death is incurred; and, the beauty of the divine likeness being lost, the prevaricating soul, made bestial, as unworthy to be refreshed by the saving fruit of the tree of life, is driven out from the delights of paradise.

13. Nor let it seem absurd to anyone that we said above that the consideration of infernal torments and of the battles with enemies was to be placed among the trees of paradise; as though someone were bringing hell or the infernal citizens within the bounds of paradise. For although the state of paradise in no way admits the evil of fault or of punishment, neither in heaven nor on earth; nevertheless the considerations of them confer not a little, on wayfarers as well as on the Blessed, towards tasting the sweetness of ineffable mercies and the pleasantness of inscrutable judgments. For *the judgments of the Lord* are *true, justified in themselves, more to be desired than gold and many precious stones, and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.* And what is there that makes devout souls savour Christ Jesus, and him crucified, more than that through him they believe themselves freed, and perceive themselves freed, from the tyranny of monstrous enemies and from the eternity of infernal punishments? According to which the Prophet sings: *I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify thy name for ever; for thy mercy is great towards me, and thou hast delivered my soul out of the lower hell.*

14. Of these twelve considerations, therefore, disposed by certain antitheses or contrapositions, six are principal, by which namely the soul is turned to the *interior, the higher, the forward, the right, the near* and likewise the *open*, so that it may first know *itself;* then the *glory* for which it was made; third the *way* by which it may come to that glory; fourth the *solaces* by which it is cherished; fifth the *protections* by which it is defended; sixth the *charisms* by which it is adorned. — Among which we set first of all the *consideration of one's own self;* for the intellectual eye is by nature first fitted to look upon *itself*. Which the Bridegroom intimates in the Canticle, when he rebukes the soul that wishes to contemplate sublime things and turns back its consideration upon itself. For when to the soul asking with desire: *Shew me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou liest in the midday,* he answers with a rebuke: *If thou know not thyself, O fairest among women, go forth and follow after the steps of the flocks and feed thy kids beside the tents of the shepherds;* as though he should say: if thou wouldst know me, begin first from thyself, who wast made to the image and likeness of the Trinity. And thus from the consideration of itself it is raised to *divine* things, and through the promised *rewards* it is led to the *precepts*, from which, lest it turn aside, there are shown to it the *solaces, protections* and *gifts* to be inspired into it from heaven.

15. But because the mind, frequently hindered by phantasms, is not able to fix its mental eyes upon these things continually at will; therefore six other considerations are set forth over against them, so that he who cannot dwell *within* may betake himself to things *without;* and he who is not able to climb to things *above* may descend to things *below;* and he who does not prevail to be stretched out to things *before* may dread the things *behind;* and he to whom divine *solaces* have no savour may at least fear the *scourges;* and he who does not attend to the *protections* of the citizens may weigh the *assaults* of the enemies; and he who, as animal, cannot gaze upon spiritual *charisms* may at least look upon their *sensible signs* as sacraments set outwardly before him. And thus let there be made the alternations of morning and evening luminaries in the hemisphere of our mind, so that, just as God in six days founded and adorned this sensible world, so he may illumine and adorn the rational spirit by six alternations of illuminations; that after the sixth day it may be placed in paradise, in which, resting and sleeping through contemplation, it may be led through to the secret of the spiritual marriage, where there are truly hidden, as treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the multiform and spiritual abundances and the inestimable delights of paradise.

16. Further, that it may rest more securely in the inmost parts of Christ Jesus crucified, the aforesaid twelve illuminations are set forth not only as *overshadowing trees*, but also as *armour defending* and fortifying the *little bed of the peaceable Solomon*. For if

the aforesaid twelve illuminations be led through the five spiritual senses, they come to the number of sixty. With which number indeed the chamber of the contemplating soul must be girt about with strong men — the soul which, after finding the bridegroom, now rests with him in her inmost parts, according to that of the Canticle: *I have found him whom my soul loveth; I held him and I will not let him go, till I bring him into my mother's house and into the chamber of her that bore me. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and the harts of the fields, that you stir not up nor awake my beloved till she please.* And since sweetness accompanies tranquillity, therefore there is added: *Who is she that goeth up by the desert as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh and frankincense and of all the powders of the perfumer?* Moreover, because a firm security of keeping ought to accompany this tranquillity of mind and sweetness of joy, therefore there follows: *Behold, threescore valiant ones of the most valiant of Israel surround the bed of Solomon, all holding swords and most expert in war.*

Casting off therefore the works of *darkness, let us put on the armour of light*, that *we may walk honestly as in the day* and may in the nights of inward quietudes rest sweetly and securely. Amen.

### EXPLICIUNT SERMONES SELECTI.