Fifteen Eighty Four

“No work of St. Bonaventure is more widely known and more justly praised than the brief treatise called the Itinerarium mentis in Deum. For clarity of expression, mastery of organization, and density of thought, the Itinerarium ranks as one of the purest gems of medieval theology.”  So wrote University of Chicago professor Benard McGinn, author of a highly respected history of Christian mysticism.  When Professor McGinn assembled texts for his one-volume work The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, he included large sections of the Itinerarium. 

It was in October of 1259 that the young Minister General of the Franciscan Order, Giovanni di Fidanza, known by his religious name “Bonaventure,” stopped off on his way to an upcoming General Chapter of the Franciscans to make a spiritual retreat.  Elected only two years earlier in the midst of bitter disputes among his Franciscan brethren over the future direction of the Order and sensing these conflicts would likely continue to unsettle their upcoming deliberations, Bonaventure chose as the place of his retreat the Franciscan shrine on Mt. Alverna in central Italy.

It was here that St. Francis had gone, 35 years earlier, to keep a forty day fast to prepare for the Feast of St. Michael. And it was here that, while deep in prayer, Francis received a mystical vision of Christ “under the appearance” of “a Seraph having six wings” from which he received “imprinted in his flesh” the stigmata or wounds of Christ.  And so it was here, because of its deep connection to St. Francis, that Bonaventure went for his own spiritual retreat to commemorate Francis’s feast day on October 4 of 1259. 

While he was in prayer, reflecting on Francis’s vision, Bonaventure conceived the plan for the Itinerarium: a six-stage mental and spiritual ascent arranged in a series of three pairs, moving from the exterior world to the interior mind, and from the interior mind to things above the mind, culminating in a seventh stage of rest in God.  Bonaventure gave visual expression to this ascent by associating the six stages in three groups of two with the three pairs of wings of the Seraph St. Francis had seen in his vision years before. 

Bonaventure himself admits that the work is complex, telling his reader that “it is important that you not run through these reflections in a hurry, but that you take your time and ruminate over them very slowly” (morosissime ruminandus).  And as anyone who has read the Itinerarium knows, it isa notoriously dense text and must be studied and pondered. “Perhaps no other treatise of comparable size in the history of Western mysticism,” observes Prof. McGinn, “packs so much into one seamless whole.”

So how did Bonaventure achieve this mastery of organization and density of thought?  In Bonaventure’s Journey into God: Context and Commentary (Cambridge, 2024), I show how Bonaventure adapted the skills he learned in preaching at the University of Paris to achieve this compact density of thought.

As is still true today, scholars at universities are bound by certain forms: articles must adhere to certain standards of form and style.  There are now large volumes full of rules governing the proper style in which articles are to be done for each of the major disciplines; often, journals have their own “style sheet.”  So too, the thirteenth century university had its own required forms.  Disputations were to be carried out in a particular way.  Lectiones on the Bible were to be delivered in a particular style. So too, introductory lectures and prologues had to be written in a particular form, and that form was the contemporary sermo modernus style of preaching.  Requiring students to write prologues and sermons using this style was one way the University strove to prepare well-trained, doctrinally-sound preachers — and teachers to train other preachers — for service across Europe.

This “modern sermon” (sermo modernus) style of preaching will likely seem odd to most of us in the modern “modern world,” but it seems to have been all the rage in the thirteenth century. In this style of sermon, the preacher would use an opening biblical verse (the thema) as a mnemonic structuring device to provide a framework for the sermon and to facilitate its recollection after the sermon had been delivered.  The preacher would make a divisio of that thema verse and then dilate or “expand upon” or “dilate” (dilatatio was the Latin term) each part of the division.

The Itinerarium is so thoroughly suffused with divisions and sub-divisions that readers will have no trouble discerning evidence of Bonaventure’s training at the University of Paris. It has often been described as thoroughly “scholastic.” This is not wrong, but a potential problem arises with the connotation many people have attached to the term “scholastic,” especially if they associate it solely with the arts of logic and disputation.

My own view is that, as a general principle, we need to reconsider the overly narrow perspective with which many readers understand “scholasticism.”  The “schoolmen” were not only trained in the arts of logic and disputation, although these were undeniably important.The thirteenth century also saw a tremendous renaissance in preaching. And training in the arts of preaching became a fundamental goal at the University of Paris and elsewhere. This was the thesis of my earlier book: Aquinas, Bonaventure and the Scholastic Culture of Medieval Paris Paris (Cambridge, 2020).

Reconsidering the overly narrow perspective with which readers often view “scholasticism” can also help us respond to the complaint, often made, that the Itinerarium is more “scholastic” than “Franciscan,” and that in this work and others — indeed, in the very way he directed the Franciscan Order as its Master General — Bonaventure departed from the spirit of holy simplicity with which St. Francis wished to imbue his Order and embraced instead an ideal of academic learning and intellectual sophistication alien to Francis’s founding spirit of poverty, simplicity, and humility.

The charge that Bonaventure was perverting the spirit of the Order by embracing higher education at places like the University of Paris was one made early on some of the Franciscans themselves — the “Spirituals.” Just as in the early Church, Tertullian posed the question, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” so too the challenge that faced Bonaventure as the Minister General of the Franciscans was “What has Paris to do with Assisi?”  Just as the early fathers of the Church struggled to explain why learning Greek philosophy was valuable for Christians dedicated to the Gospel of the simple carpenter Jesus of Nazareth, so too Bonaventure struggled to explain why scholastic learning would be valuable to “little brothers” dedicated to the life of the poverello, “simple poor man,” Francis of Assisi.

I suggest that Bonaventure’s goal in the Itinerarium was twofold.  It was, first, to convince the simple, uneducated friars — those who might wonder why followers of St. Francis, the patron saint of the simple life, would need to study for years for advanced degrees at places like the University of Paris — that study and learning can, if done properly and in the right spirit, lead to God. And second, he sought to convince the educated friars — those benefitting from a highly sophisticated education in the arts and philosophy at places like the University of Paris — that study and learning should lead to God.  If we think of the Itinerarium as a work written for all Franciscans, whether educated or not, we might then expect sections that are more rhetorical than logical and others that contain serious logical arguments.  And this is in fact what we find.

But another of Bonaventure’s messages was this: Learning must drive the student upward.  The six wings of the seraph provide structure and order for his text, but it also serves as a ladder on which we are to go up and down, and in this way, become like St. Francis and Christ.  Learning and study can and should help us see ourselves and the world more clearly so that we ascend to a true mystic vision, not embracing superstition or false preaching not in accord with the Gospel. Rather, learning should be nourished by the yearning for God and by one’s relationship with God in Christ.  A student who embraces the life of Christ and the poverty of St. Francis should not be a second-rate student, but the one who is most devoted to learning, precisely because in learning about the world, one is examining the handiwork of the Creator. And in examining the work of the Creator, one should be led to embrace Him as the lover embraces her beloved.  This was a deeply Franciscan idea.

The Itinerarium has been one of St. Bonaventure’s most popular works over the centuries since its publication.  And its appeal has been widespread.  As someone who has taught it to students many times, I can report from personal experience that it appeals to many young people — especially Christians, but not only them.  Even though they admit they do not grasp it fully, many students sense there is something important going on in the Itinerarium. In it, they find evidence of a man with a first-rate mind at work who has mastered the philosophy of his day, but who also has a deep love for God and believes that everywhere one looks, everything one knows, should lead us to a deeper relationship with God.  This has been a powerful vision throughout the centuries, and for many, remains so today.