R.E. Houser - Bonaventure’s Commentary on the Sentences: Philosophy of God

W ORKS OF
S T . B ONAVENTURE

C OMMENTARY ON THE S ENTENCES:
P HILOSOPHY OF G OD

B ONAVENTURE
T EXTS IN T RANSLATION
S ERIES

General Editor
Robert J. Karris, O.F.M.

Volume XVI

C OMMENTARY ON THE S ENTENCES :
P HILOSOPHY OF G OD

Franciscan Institute Publications
Saint Bonaventure University
2013

W ORKS OF
S T . B ONAVENTURE

C OMMENTARY ON THE S ENTENCES :
P HILOSOPHY OF G OD

T RANSLATION , I NTRODUCTION, AND N OTES
BY
R.E. H OUSER AND T IMOTHY B. N OONE

Franciscan Institute Publications
The Franciscan Institute
Saint Bonaventure University
Saint Bonaventure, NY 14778
2013

Copyright 2013
The Franciscan Institute
Saint Bonaventure University

Saint Bonaventure, NY 14778

All rights reserved.
No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from
the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-57659-375-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bonaventure, Saint, Cardinal, approximately 1217-1274.

[Commentaria in quatuor libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi. Selections. English]

Commentary on the sentences : the philosophy of God / translation, introduction, and notes by R.E. Houser and Timothy B. Noone.

pages cm. -- (Works of St. Bonaventure ; 16)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-57659-375-2 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-57659-376-9 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-57659-522-0 (epdf) 1. Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris, approximately 1100-1160. Sententiarum libri IV. Book 1 Selections. 2. God (Christianity)--History of doctrines--Middle Ages, 600-1500. 3. God (Christianity)--Early works to 1800. I. Houser, R. E. II. Noone, Timothy B.

B765.B73C6613 2014

230.2--dc23

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Control Number:

2013041056

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Franciscan Institute Publications makes every effort
to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials in the publishing
of its books. This book is printed on acid free, recycled paper that
is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified. It is printed with soy-
based ink.

The volume is dedicated
in memory of

G EDEON G L , O.F.M.

In the same series

WSB I: On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology

WSB II: Itinerarium Mentis in Deum

WSB III: Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity

WSB IV: Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ

WSB V: Writings Concerning the Franciscan Order

WSB VI: Collations on the Ten Commandments

WSB VII: Commentary on Ecclesiastes

WSB VIII: Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (3 volumes)

WSB IX: Breviloquium

WSB X: Writings on the Spiritual Life

WSB XI: Commentary on the Gospel of John

WSB XII: The Sunday Sermons of St. Bonaventure

WSB XIII: Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection

WSB XIV: Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit

WSB XV: Defense of the Mendicants

T ABLE OF C ONTENTS

Note: All references to the Latin works of Bonaventure are cited by volume number and page number of the Quaracchi edition: S. Bonaventurae doctoris seraphici Opera Omnia . Studio et Cura PP. Collegii a S. Bonaventura (Ad Claras Aquas). Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1882-1902.

On February 2, 1257, Bonaventure was elected General Minister in charge of the Franciscan Order. This act of ecclesiastical preferment effectively split his life into two halves; the burdens of the ecclesiastical administrator replaced the leisure of the scholar. He is thought to have been forty years old at the timethe minimum age for a General Ministergiving him a birth date of 1217.

Bonaventure was born Giovanni di Fidanza in Bagnoregio in Tuscany. He himself attests that he was healed miraculously as a child by the intervention of Francis of Assisi, shortly after the saints death on October 3, 1226: when I was a boy, as I still vividly remember, I was snatched from the jaws of death by his invocation and merits. two years before Bonaventure left the University. His writing reflects this education. A master of logic and rhetoric, he was less widely read in the Aristotelian and Islamic philosophical texts than the Dominicans Albert and Thomas.

About the time young Giovanni began to study Arts, Alexander of Hales, Master of Theology and initiator of the practice of commenting on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, took the Franciscan habit. His conversion gave the Franciscans a Chair in Theology, the Dominicans having acquired two Chairs during the university strike of 1229-30. Hales held him in the highest regard and said that in him Adam seemed not to have sinned. Giovanni took the Franciscan habit in 1243/44, using the name Bonaventure to celebrate his good-fortune under Francis and Hales.