Works of Bonaventure: Journey of the Mind To God - The Triple Way, or, Love Enkindled - The Tree of Life - The Mystical Vine - On the Perfection of Life, Addressed to Sisters

by Bonaventure

This Doctor of the Church, in a lifetime crowded with absorbing activities—as ruler of his Order for almost twenty years, as Cardinal-Bishop, as director of the deliberations of an ecumenical council—yet became one of the Church’s supreme expositors of the theology of love. From the first he was known to be a giant, and succeeding centuries saw almost innumerable editions of his works. Archbishop Paschal Robinson has pointed out that no writer from the Middle Ages onward has been more widely read and copied. Yet comparatively little of this interest is reflected in publications in the English tongue.

Of course, the Prince of Mystics (as Leo XIII called him) is not wholly unknown among us. So great is the power of his genius, so insistent his message to the heart and spirit, that these qualities have in some degree forced their way through whatever barriers exist. Translators of merit, both Franciscans and others, have brought over into English separate chosen opera; and these have conveyed enough of his greatness to establish it as a fact. But though he is an acknowledged master, he remains, by and large, to us a master still unread.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Christianity, Spirituality

210 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 3, 2020

About the author

Bonaventure (b. 1221 as John of Fidanza) was an Italian medieval scholastic theologian and philosopher, the eighth Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor. He was a Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He was canonized on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the Church in the year 1588 by Pope Sixtus V. He is known as the "Seraphic Doctor" (Latin: "Doctor Seraphicus"). Many writings believed in the Middle Ages to be his are now collected under the name Pseudo-Bonaventura.

Reviews

[Daylon Tilitzky · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.
Bonaventure is everything modern people find uncomfortable about the medievals: vast leaps in scriptural interpretation, emphasis on shame and guilt, brutal descriptions of Christ's death, the violent and abusive Father, and blood, so much blood. Also, his treatment of women is exactly what you would expect: they're weak, overly emotional, over-sensitive, and intellectually inferior.

While I did not find much that could be described as divine child abuse in Anselm, there was plenty in Bonaventure. We should "look forward to the scourges of the Father" as if everything that goes wrong in our lives is God beating us up so that we will listen to Him. Further, Bonaventure assumes that we should remember to bring up every single sin of our lives every time we pray, or else God won't want to listen to us. God is described simultaneously as deeply loving and also deeply violent, deeply merciful and also deeply cruel and judgemental. This depiction of God is so far off the mark that I barely know how he managed to write this and still think it was logical.

Further, while obviously metaphorical and symbolic, Bonaventure's use of blood, specifically Christ's blood, is nearly pornographic. The amount of graphic descriptions of blood and torture, and the way in which we should feast on Christ's blood is quite absurd and deeply unhelpful to the vast majority of people today, and I'm not convinced it was even useful in his day.

There were a few helpful moments, and I did enjoy some of his insights. Specifically his understanding of humility and pride. The idea is that if one practices virtue without humility, pride is the inevitable result. Unfortunately, Bonaventure takes it too far and makes humility about self-hatred instead of true humility.

I really wanted to enjoy this, but I found myself arguing with him a lot while reading. I can't even call it a good "spiritual work" because it did not endear me to God nor did it make me want to contemplate God. I might need to take a break from the medievals after this one.

[Michael Pecha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down the best spiritual work I have ever read.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a study of Saint Bonaventure’s works translated from the original French by Father J. Guy Bougerol.