''If you learn everything except Christ, you learn nothing.
If you learn nothing except Christ, you learn everything..."
-St. Bonaventure
- Italian theologian and philosopher St. Bonaventure (1217-1274) was very influential in the development of scholasticism in medieval thought.
Bonaventure born John of Fidanza, was the son of a fairly prosperous doctor. He received his early education in his birthplace, Bagnoregio, near Lake Bolsena in central Italy. In 1234 he went to Paris to study and became a master of arts. Influenced by the Franciscans throughout his education and having a great reverence for the life of St. Francis of Assisi, he entered the Franciscan order about 1243.
Bonaventure continued his studies in theology at the University of Paris and wrote commentaries on the Scriptures (1248) and on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (1250-1252). He received a license to teach in 1253, and probably from that time until his election as minister general of the Franciscan order in 1257 Bonaventure taught theology at the University of Paris.
Minister General of the Franciscans Order
As minister general of the Franciscans, Bonaventure led a very active life. Although he tried to make Paris the center of his administration, he visited Italy almost every year. In 1260 the order adopted as its new constitution a collection of Franciscan legislation compiled by Bonaventure. A biography of St. Francis written by Bonaventure was accepted as the official biography, and earlier biographies were required to be destroyed. Thus Bonaventure's views had a great and lasting influence on the activity and spirit of the Franciscans.
By the middle of the 13th century the Franciscan order was becoming divided between those who wished to alter the rule and program of St. Francis in favor of the corporate possession of private property and activity in university education and political life, and those who wished to remain as faithful as possible to St. Francis's original ideal of poverty and missionary activity among the common people. By training and probably by inclination, Bonaventure was committed to the aims of the former group; that is, he advocated Franciscan participation in education and ecclesiastical affairs for which it was necessary to have the financial support provided by the corporate possession of property. But he made sincere attempts to heal the division in the Franciscan order.
Bonaventure is numbered with Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus as one of the greatest thinkers of the 13th century. The content of Bonaventure's thought as well as the style of much of his writing may be described as scholastic. Like many theologians before him, Bonaventure made an attempt to explore, within the limits of human reason, the doctrines of Christianity that are initially accepted on faith. In his commentary on the Sentences, one of the most extensive and highly structured commentaries ever produced, this theological inquiry was presented according to the pro and con of school debate, which was one of the most characteristic features of scholasticism.
onaventure was familiar with the thought of Aristotle and the Arabian philosophers. In some areas, such as his understanding of how men come to know external reality, Bonaventure was influenced by the Aristotelian epistemology. Such knowledge, for Bonaventure, is received through the senses and implanted upon the mind. In general, however, Bonaventure questioned many of the philosophical conclusions of Aristotle and Averroës. In contrast to other thinkers, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure was a strongly traditional theologian, closely tied to the thought and approach of St. Augustine. Bonaventure's theology was Christ-centered and non-apologetic; that is, he was not preoccupied with the problem of presenting the Christian faith to nonbelievers.
