CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
THE OCCASION AND INSPIRATION OF THE WORK
In his treatise, De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam, a work of remarkable brevity and originality of expression, St. Bonaventure deals with the relation of the finite to the infinite, of the natural to the supernatural in a way which well establishes his pre-eminence as a mystic, a philosopher, and a theologian. There can be no doubt of the authenticity of the De Reductione\ for in it we readily recognize a compact crystallization of Bonaventurian thought.
Though the Seraphic Doctor draws copiously on other authors, pagan and Christian, every line of the treatise breathes the spirit of Bonaventure, more so, perhaps, than any other of his works.
As to the source from which the Seraphic Doctor drew the inspiration for his work there has been much speculation. We shall not go wrong in saying that undoubtedly he had reflected on St. Augustine's thought, per corporalia ad incorporalia1 2, but there is far more likelihood that of all previous and contemporary writings, the two works of Hugh of St. Victor, namely, the Expositio in Hierarchiam Coelestem S. Dionysii Areopagitae3 4 and the Eruditio Didascalica4 were closest to his mind when he wrote the present thesis.
Though the latter treatise of Hugh is especially important for its system of the sciences5, it is quite evident, as the Quaracchi editors surmise6 and as anyone who reads lib. II and lib. Ill will agree, that the fundamental idea was taken from the Expositio in 1 Cf. Dissertationes de Scriptis et Vita S. Bonaventurae, Opera Omnia, t. X, p. n.
2 Cf. St. Augustine, Retract.1. 6, Migne, P.L., t. 32, col. 591.
3 Migne, P.L., t. 175, col. 923-1154.
4 Migne, P. L., t. 176, col. 741-838.
5 According to this work, philosophy, which includes all knowledge, is divided into philosophia theoretica, practica, mechanica, logica (II. 2); theoretical philosophy is divided into theology, mathematics (arithmetic, music, geometry), and physics; practical philosophy treats of the individual, the family, and the State and accordingly is divided into ethics, economics, and politics (II. 20); the mechanical field embraces the seven mechanical arts of the weaver, the smith, the sailor, the farmer, the hunter, the physician, and the actor. Logic, called the disciplina sermocinalis, includes grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic (III. 19) •
6 Opera Omnia, t. V, p. 325.
12 DE REDUCTIONE ARTIUM AD THEOLOGIAM
Hierarchiam, the credit of which is due primarily to PseudoDionysius and secondarily to the intellectual mystic and inspiring precursor of St. Bonaventure who lived far back in the Twelfth
Century. In this Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy of Dio nysius are found the same Aristotelian classification of the sciences and the same underlying thought, namely, that Christian theology is the end of all philosophy. After contrasting the wisdom of the world with the wisdom of God, Hugh shows how the soul advances through the grades of knowledge and finally reaches that fulness of intelligence which is made perfect and inflamed with love in the contemplation of its Maker. Advancing along the three paths of theoretical philosophy, the mind proceeds from the visible forms of visible things to the invisible causes of visible things whence it ascends to invisible substances and a knowledge of their natures.
Thus by a certain progression through the stages of cogitation, meditation, and contemplation of the creature world and finally of the Creator, the mind mounts to a knowledge of the True.
But reason alone cannot fathom the nature of God; only by means of grace, obtained through the Incarnation of the Word, may man attain to the perfect contemplation of the truth of God wherein the mind is satisfied and the heart finds rest. These are the thoughts which more than a hundred years later re-echo in St. Bonaventure's De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam.
From his youthful years, St. Bonaventure was accustomed to look upon all knowledge as the light and gift of God and, as was just, to return it to the Father of lights by way of love and praise.
For him the main sanction of secular learning lay in its ministry to sacred learning; he recognized the Queen's need of the hand maid but he never tarried there. In his writings, then, we find no independent treatment of secular knowledge for its own sake, but the reasonings of philosophy always minister to the sovereign theme, namely, the understanding of Sacred Scripture. This is the thought which the Saint emphasizes in the present thesis wherein he proves that every form of knowledge is in conformity with the supreme illumination afforded by Sacred Scripture and may be reduced to the terms and methods of theology, which is Scripture rightly understood. Beginning with scientific skill in its lowest representative, the seven mechanical arts, and proceeding on through empirical knowledge and the philosophical sciences, he makes clear their relation to theology and shows how they are all absorbed into it as into a natural center.
From this statement it must not be inferred that St. Bona venture refuses to attribute to philosophy an existence of its own.
The passages in his works on which such an opinion might be based only go to prove that he did not regard philosophy as the
THE OCCASION AND INSPIRATION OF THE WORK
end-all of scientific endeavor. Without a knowledge of God, there can be no perfect knowledge of the human soul; without the life of grace, the life of the soul is inconceivable; without faith, there can be no safeguard to reason.
In the second book Hugh dwells at length on St. Bonaventure's leading text, Omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum desursum est, descendens a Patre luminum (Jas. 1:17), and expres sions such as Omnis illuminatio ab uno lumine; et multi sunt radii, et unum lumen7 indicate the source from which St. Bonaventure may have borrowed his quadruplex lumen. It is interesting to note
Hugh's fine distinction between the dona naturae and the dona gratiae9, between natural and supernatural knowledge9, and his frequent use of the term reductio10. When the Seraphic Doctor stresses the point that philosophy should be the dutiful handmaid of theology, it would seem that his mind reflected this thought of Hugh: Non potest humanus animus ad invisibilium cognitionem vel imitationem reduci, nisi per visibiles demonstrations eruditus11.
On one occasion, while discussing the donum scientiae in its threefold division of rational, moral, and natural philosophy,
St. Bonaventure made the following rather casual remark: Qui haberet descriptionem istarum scientiarum secundum veritatem, maximum speculum haberet ad cognoscendum, quia nihil est in aliqua istarum scientiarum, quod non importet vestigium Trinitatis12 and rather naively he added: Illud esset facile ostendere, sed longum esset. The Quaracchi editors significantly supplement the last sentence with a reference to the De Reduction Artium ad Theologiam as the work which accomplishes this very purpose. And, indeed, one has but to read the book and follow the smoothly flowing lines charged with the most sublime thoughts couched in elegant diction, and he will readily understand that only the Seraphic Doctor could boast: Illud esset facile ostendere. And what is even more surprising is the fact that his magnum speculum ad cognoscendum covers no more than seven pages in the Opera
Omnia, although, considering the depth of thought set forth in such pregnant brevity, it may be hard to find its equal.
7 Expositio in Hierarchiam Coelestem S. Dionysii Areopagitae, lib. II, Migne, P.L., t. 175, col. 935.
8 "Data optima dona naturae sunt; dona perfecta, dona gratiae."
Ibid., col. 936.
9 "Quoniam aliquando per signa sensibilibus similia invisibilia demonstrata sunt, aliquando per solam anagogen, id est mentis ascensum, in supema pure contemplata." Ibid., col. 941.
10 "Post hoc subjungit, quo omne bonum ad summum bonum conversionem habet, et reductionem, et finem." Ibid., col. 937.
11 Ibid., col. 948.
12 Collationes de Donis Spiritus Sancti, IV. 11, t. V. p. 475-
DE REDUCTIONE ARTIUM AD THEOLOGIAM
Father Bonaventure Trimole points out that in the above-cited, casual remark, the Seraphic Doctor might have given expression to a desire which he hoped some day to fulfill, an interpretation which gives us an advantage over the Saint's hearers at that time, for we are the fortunate possessors of this information in the De
Reductione. Father Bonaventure then takes occasion to remark that we might go so far as to surmise that this treatise was composed not long after the delivery of the Collatio IV which occurred on March 18, 126913. Although we have no way of determining the exact date of its composition, it would seem that the De Reduc tione is an earlier work. From the nature of its content, it is only natural to suppose that it was written between the years 1248 and 1257, while Bonaventure was teaching and writing at Paris14.
From the oft-repeated plural forms, dicamus, consider emus, and such, we may gather that it was a lecture delivered to the entire student-body. Wishing to have a subject of interest to all, the Seraphic Doctor mapped out a survey of the entire field of knowl edge, representatives of the various branches of which were assembled before him. Hear, then, the words of his text: "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." "The Father of lights" — behold the Source of all knowledge back to Whom it must be referred with sentiments of love and praise. All knowledge comes from God and should lead to God. This is the thought which the Saint delights in emphasizing in the De Reductione wherein he conforms all modes of perception and knowledge to the uses and modes of theology or revelation, the final end of which is salvation — union of the soul with God. The little treatise is a systematic attempt to lead the sciences back to theology and to enlist them entirely in its service15. It is, in fact, a literal fulfillment of the mission entrusted by the Popes to the University of Paris: theologia imperat aliis ut domina et illae sibi ut famulae obsequuntur™.
13 Cf. P. Bonaventura Trimol6, O. F. M., "Deutung und Bedeutung der Schrift des hi. Bonaventura 'De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam'", Fiinfte Lektorenkonferenz der deutschen Franziskaner, Werl,
1930, p. 114.
14 Ibid., pp. 98-119; cf. also E. Longpre, op. cit., col. 748.
15 Cf. Philotheus Bohner, O. F. M., ''Lebendige Wissenschaft im Geiste des Heiligen Bonaventura," Katholische Gedanke, 1932, p. 257.
16 Cf. Gilson, La Philosophie de Saint Bonaventure, p. 461.