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not neglect zeal for prayer;aand, as long as they study, not to know what they should say, but to practice what they have heard and, once they have put it into practice, propose it to others. I want my brothers," he said, "to be Gospel disciples and so progress in knowledge of the truth that they increase in pure simplicity without separating the simplicity of the dove from the wisdom of the serpent which our eminent Teacher joined together in a statement from his own blessed lips."b Mt 10:16
2At Siena, a religious, who was a Doctor of Sacred Theology, once asked him about certain questions that were difficult to understand. He brought to light the secrets of divine wisdom with such clarity in teaching, that the learned man was absolutely dumbfounded. With admiration he responded: "Truly the theology of this holy father, borne aloft, as it were, on the wings of purity and contemplation, is a soaring eagle; while our learning crawls on its belly on the ground."
For although he was unskilled in word,
nevertheless, full of knowledge,
he often untangled the ambiguities of questions
and brought the hidden into light.
Nor is it inconsistent!
If the holy man had received from God
an understanding of the Scriptures,
it is because,
through his imitation of Christ
he carried in his activity the perfect truth described in them and,
through a full anointing of the Holy Spirit,
held their Teacher in his heart.
- A thorough presentation of Bonaventure’s theology of a prayer based on Scripture can be found in Timothy Johnson, Iste Pauper Clamavit: Saint Bonaventure’s Theology of Prayer (Frankfurt am Main, Bern, New York, Paris: Peter Lang, 1990). See also Charles Carpenture, Theology as the Road to Holiness in St. Bonaventure, Theological Inquiries (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1999), 13-38.
- An appropriate commentary on this passage can be found in Bonaventure’s Letter in Response to an Unknown Master, 10: ". . . [T]hat you might appreciate how much the study of Holy Scripture delighted him, let me tell you what I myself heard from a brother who is still living. Once a New Testament came into Francis’s hands, and since so many brothers could not all use it at once, he pulled the leaves apart and distributed the pages among them. Thus each one could study and not be a hindrance to the others. Moreover, the clerics he received into the Order he held in greatest reverence, and at his death he ordered the brothers to venerate the teachers of Sacred Scripture as those from whom they receive the words of life." Writings Concerning The Franciscan Order, Works of Saint Bonaventure V, introduction and translation by Dominic Monti, (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1994), 51
Legenda Maior, Fontes Franciscani, p. 870
orationis studium non omittant, nec tantum studeant, ut sciant qualiter debeant loqui, sed ut audita faciant, et cum fecerint, aliis facienda proponant. 6Volo », inquit, « fratres meos discipulos evangelicos esse sicque in notitia veritatis proficere, quod in simplicitatis puritate concrescant, ut simplicitatem columbinam a prudentia serpentina non separent, quas Magister eximius ore suo benedicto coniunxit ».
2 1Interrogatus Senis a quodam religioso viro, theologiae sacrae doctore, de quibusdam quaestionibus difficilibus intellectu, tanta claritate doctrinae divinae sapientiae patefaciebat arcana, ut vehementer stuperet vir file peritus et cum admiratione referret: 2« Vere theologia sancti patris istius, puritate ac contemplatione tamquam alis in altum subvecta, est aquila volans; nostra vero scientia ventre graditur super terram ».
– 3Licet enim esset imperitus sermone,
scientia tamen plenus
enodabat dubia questionum
et abscondita producebat in lucem.
4Nec absonum,
si vir sanctus Scripturarum
a Deo intellectum acceperat,
cum
per imitationem Christi
perfectam veritatem ipsarum descriptam gestaret in opere et
per sancti Spiritus unctionem plenariam,
doctorem earum apud se haberet in corde.