“LOCUS, ANALOGY, AND TRANSCENDENCE: Bacon and Bonaventure on the Franciscan View of the World”...

Innovationen durch Deuten und Gestalten

Klöster im Mittelalter zwischen Jenseits und Welt

Herausgegeben von Gert Melville · Bernd Schneidmüller · Stefan Weinfurter

Mit Beiträgen von

Mirko Breitenstein, Stefan Burkhardt, Jacques Dalarun, Thomas Ertl, David Flood, Timothy J. Johnson, Ulrich Köpf, Christina Lutter,

Gert Melville, Klaus Militzer, Tore Nyberg, Thomas Rentsch, Frank Rexroth, Hedwig Röckelein, Jens Röhrkasten, Bernd Schneidmüller, Hans-Joachim Schmidt,

Gabriela Signori, Sita Steckel, Matthias Untermann, Steven Vanderputten, Stefan Weinfurter

SoN DER DRUCK aUS

2898_Innovationen_00.indd 3 03.11.14 17:06

Bibliographische Information der Deutschen NationalbibliothekDie Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet unter http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.

© 2014 Verlag Schnell & Steiner GmbH, RegensburgSatz: typegerecht, BerlinUmschlaggestaltung: Anna Braungart, Tübingen Druck: Erhardi Druck GmbH, Regensburg

ISBN 978-3-7954-2898-3

Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Ohne ausdrückliche Genehmigung des Verlages ist es nicht gestattet, dieses Buch oder Teile daraus auf fototechnischem oder elektronischem Weg zu vervielfältigen.

Weitere Informationen zum Verlagsprogramm erhalten Sie unterwww.schnell-und-steiner.de

Abbildung der vorderen Umschlagseite: Der Dominikaner Vincenz von Beauvais beim Kompilieren. Rom, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Cod. Reg. Lat. 538, fol. 1r.Abbildung mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

Zitiervorschlag: Innovationen durch Deuten und Gestalten. Klöster im Mittelalter zwischen Jenseits und Welt, hg. von Gert Melville/Bernd Schneidmüller/Stefan Weinfurter (Klöster als Innovationslabore. Studien und Texte 1), Regensburg 2014.

Dieser Band entstand aus dem Forschungsschwerpunkt »Klöster im Hochmittelalter: Innovationslabore europäischer Lebensentwürfe und Ordnungsmodelle«, einem Gemeinschaftsprojekt der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig. Er wurde im Rahmen des gemeinsamen Akademienprogramms von Bund und Ländern (Union der deutschen Akade-mien der Wissenschaften) mit Mitteln des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung und des Ministe-riums für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst des Landes Baden-Württemberg gefördert.

2898_Innovationen.indb 4 01.09.14 14:44

Inhalt

Vorwort der Herausgeber 7

Stefan WeinfurterInnovation durch »Sezession« – Zur Einführung 9

I Bändigung der Transzendenz

Jacques DalarunLe corps monastique entre opus Dei et modernité 19

Mirko BreitensteinDie Verfügbarkeit der Transzendenz: Das Gewissen der Mönche als Heilsgarant 37

Thomas RentschTranszendenz erlebenKommentar zur Sektion Bändigung der Transzendenz – Transzendenz erleben 57

Ulrich KöpfAnnäherung an Gott im Kloster 63

Timothy J. JohnsonPlace, Analogy, and TranscendenceBonaventure and Bacon on the Franciscan Relationship to the World 83

Tore NybergKommentar zur Sektion Bändigung der Transzendenz – Transzendenz leben 97

II Individuum und Gemeinschaft

Steven VanderputtenThe Mind as Cell and the Body as CloisterAbbatial Leadership and the Issue of Stability in the Early Eleventh Century 105

Hedwig RöckeleinInklusion – Exklusion: weiblich – männlich 127

Christina LutterGeistliche Gemeinschaften in der WeltKommentar zur Sektion Individuum und Gemeinschaft – Innen und Außen 145

Gabriela SignoriDer »Mönch im Bild«Das Porträt als klösterliches Erinnerungsmedium an der Schwelle vom Mittelalter zur Frühen Neuzeit 161


Jens RöhrkastenOrdensdisziplin und Konformität bei den Dominikanern und Franziskanern 181

Hans-Joachim SchmidtKommentar zur Sektion Individuum und Gemeinschaft – Institutionalität 199

III Weltdeutung durch Wissenskonfigurationen

Sita SteckelDeuten, Ordnen und AneignenMechanismen der Innovation in der Erstellung hochmittelalterlicher Wissenskompendien 209

Thomas ErtlPragmatische Visionäre?Die mendikantische Sicht der Welt im 13. Jahrhundert 253

IV Neuordnung der Gesellschaft

Matthias UntermannZwischen Ästhetik des Verzichts und monastischen Idealen: Die Baukunst der Bettelorden 275

David FloodFranciscans at Work 291

Stefan BurkhardtArmut, Arbeit, Bettel?Kommentar zur Sektion Neuordnung der Gesellschaft – Wirkung in die Welt 301

Klaus MilitzerDer Aufbau von Landesherrschaften durch Ritterorden, besonders durch den Deutschen Orden 307

Frank RexrothMonastischer und scholastischer HabitusBeobachtungen zum Verhältnis zwischen zwei Lebensformen des 12. Jahrhunderts 317

V Deuten und Gestalten

Gert MelvilleInnovation aus VerantwortungKloster und Welt im Mittelalter 337

Bernd SchneidmüllerDeuten und Gestalten in mittelalterlichen Klöstern als InnovationEin Schlusswort 355

Verena Schenk zu SchweinsbergNamenregister 365


Place, Analogy, and Transcendence

Bonaventure and Bacon on the Franciscan Relationship to the World

Timothy J. Johnson

“Since everything that is in motion is moved in some place, it is obvious that one has to grant priority to place, in which that which causes motion or is acted upon will be. Perhaps thus it is the first of all things, since all existing things are either in place or not without place.”1

This text from the Neo-Platonic philosopher Simplicius’ (6th century CE) commen-tary on Aristotle’s “Categories” reflects the view of Archytas (5th century BCE), a contemporary of Plato, on place. Referred to as the “Archytian Axiom” in contem-porary literature,2 this dictum maintains the inseparability of being from place, and the subordinate significance of space. To be out of place or to be without a place is to be non-existent, and therefore without identity. This abstract philosophical lan-guage may seem to be “out of place” when analyzing transcendence and innovation in medieval religious communities, especially with regard to the “Minorites” or “Poor Men from Assisi.” Nevertheless, this essay contends that place, or locus in Latin, is essential to understanding Franciscan identity in the world and the efforts of Bonaventure and Bacon to elucidate their innovative perspectives vis-à-vis tran-scendence through differing positions regarding analogical reasoning.

1 Quoted in Edward S. Casey, Getting Back into Place. Toward a Renewed Understanding of Place-World (Studies in Continental thought), Bloomington 2009, p. 14. For the translation, see Simplicius, In Aristo-telis Categorias Commentarium, as translated (in part) in: The Concept of Place in Late Neoplatonism, ed. Shmuel Sambursky, Jerusalem 1982, p. 37. On the various interpretations of topos and chôra in early Greek thought, see Keimpe Algra, Concepts of Space in Greek Thought (Philosophia antiqua 65), Leiden 1995. For late antiquity and the early medieval period see L. Michael Harrington, Sacred Place in Early Medieval Neoplatonism (The New Middle Ages), New York 2004. Casey’s intellectual project aims to re-trieve the ancient-medieval primacy of place, in contradistinction to the modern-contemporary privileging of space and time in contemporary phenomenology. For a concise summary of the hermeneutic, see Edward S. Casey, Getting from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time in: Getting Back into Place. Toward a Renewed Understanding of Place-World (Studies in Continental thought), Bloomington 2009, pp. 317–348.

2 Casey, Getting Back into Place (note 1 above), p. 313.


84 | Timothy J. Johnson

Francis of Assisi rejected the prevailing monastic practice of stabilitas loci as a defining characteristic of religious life, but he clearly evinced a deep appreciation for locus. Variations of the word appear fifty-two times in his writings but the term for space, spatium, is absent.3 Many of his references to locus are linked to hermit-ages and other dwellings of the brothers, but it is striking that numerous texts also concern the location and veneration of the Eucharist and Sacred Scripture. When speaking of these touchstones of transcendence he notes, “For we have and see nothing bodily of the Most High in this world except His Body and Blood, His names and words through which we have been made and redeemed from death to life.”4 Francis encountered and embraced the in-breaking of the divine in the ma-teriality of bread, wine, and written words, which are grounded by the immanency of specific places. In the presence of this divine condescension, Francis urged his brothers to follow the footsteps of the poor Christ, who is revealed among them as poor, and enflesh a humble stance of obedient service toward the entire material world, animate and inanimate creatures alike.5 Matter mattered for Francis, not abstract, reified matter in space and time, but each, particular, material creature that reflects the divine creator in a specific locus. His magnificent Canticum fratris solis for example, boldly proclaims “Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, Who is the day and through whom You give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor; and bears a likeness of You, Most High One.”6

This essay will briefly explore how two thirteenth-century confreres of Francis, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and Roger Bacon, approach the question of transcend-ence that is foregrounded in differing interpretations of locus and the nuanced ap-plication of what may be considered the “analogical imagination.”7 Although Paris is indeed far afield from Assisi, it is still possible to hear echoes of the Poverello’s passion for God’s creation in these two Parisian masters, as well as perceive the trajectory of his longing for the Most High in the writings of the Doctor Seraphicus and the Doctor Mirabilis.

3 Opuscula sancti Francisci, Scripta sanctae Clarae, ed. Jean-François Godet/George Mailleux, in: Cor-pus des Sources Franciscaines, vol. 5 (Informatique et étude de textes 6,5), Louvain 1975, pp. 147 f.

4 First Letter to the Clergy, in: Francis of Assisi, Early Documents, ed. Regis J. Armstrong/John A. Wayne Hellmann/William J. Short, vol. 1: The Saint, New York/London/Manila 1999, p. 52.

5 Timothy J. Johnson, Francis and creation, in: The Cambridge Companion to Francis of Assisi, ed. Mi-chael J. P. Robson, Cambridge 2012, pp. 144 –146.

6 The Canticle of the Creatures, in: Francis of Assisi, Early Documents, ed. Regis J. Armstrong/John A. Wayne Hellmann/William J. Short, vol. 1: The Saint, New York/London/Manila 1999, p. 113.

7 David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination. Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism, New York 1989, p. 429.


Place, Analogy, and Transcendence | 85

Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (c. 1217–1274)

In medieval Christianity, place, analogy, and transcendence are inseparable from the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. While Genesis presents a story that echoes other ancient accounts of the divine fashioning existing chaos into ordered homogeneity,8 theologians in the early and medieval church such as Bonaventure insisted on a cre-ation narrative that affirmed the cosmos emerging from nothing through the power of a transcendent God.9 No sustained, practical credence was given to Aristotelian teaching regarding the eternity of the world, and the first cannon of the Fourth La-teran Council confirmed the ex nihilo principle as doctrine. Consequently creatures are utterly dependent on the Creator at the level of being and continually face the fear of reverting back into non-being; furthermore, any attempt to speak of crea-tures in relationship to the Creator must acknowledge that the two are more dis-similar than similar.10 This ontological divide between creature and Creator, which is further aggravated throughout creation by human iniquity, is bridged alone in the kenotic love of Christ, through whom all that exists came to being and in whom all of creation is afforded reconciliation with God on the journey to the heavenly Jerusalem.

According to Bonaventure, the creation of the primus orbis or highest heavens heralds the appearance of locus.11 Emplacement thus uniquely distinguishes each creature, and following Aristotle’s Physica, a particular place contains, preserves, measures, and defines the boundaries of the individual. There is, however, another element of locus that Bonaventure notes in the Commentaria in sententiarium that is crucial when considering the question of transcendence. At issue is Augustine’s assertion in De trinitate that the mind leaves the world when considering eter-nity and the Dionysian teaching in the De divinis nominibus where the soul is described as being drawn by God out of the world into eternity. Faced with the claim that these revered masters of theology are proposing a route to transcendence that dismisses the centrality of material emplacement in the contemplative process,

8 Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11: A Continental Commentary, trans. John J. Scullion, Minneapolis 1994, pp. 110 –122. This question continues to generate scholarly debate, see Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Cosmic Singularities. On the Nothing and the Sovereign, in: Journal of the American Academy of Reli-gion, 80/2, 2012, pp. 485 –517.

9 The problematic nature of Aristotle’s proposal had a dramatic impact on Bonaventure as a young student in Paris; see Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Collationes de decem praeceptis, in: S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, vol. 5: Opuscula varia theologica, Quaracchi 1891, pp. 505 –532, here collatio 2, n. 28, p. 515a–b.

10 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Commentarius in Evangelium Iohannis, in: S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, vol. 6: Commentarii in sacram scripturam, Quaracchi 1893, pp. 327–532, here cap. 1, n. 8, p. 248.

11 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Commentarius in I. Librum Sententiarum, in: S. Bonaventurae Opera Om-nia, vol. 1: Commentaria in quatuor libros sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi. In primum librum sententiarum, Quaracchi 1882, distinctio 44, articulus 1, quaestio 4, p. 788b.



Bonaventure maintains that this reading is true neither of the corpus or the anima given the nature of locus:

“It must be said, that place has the nature of containing and resting. There-fore to be in this world is twofold: either as to truth and containment or rest. Augustine does not speak in the first way such that the soul and body leave this world when the mind grasps God, but he understands this in respect to rest because the affection of the soul does not rest in temporal realities, which it passes over, but in the eternal realities. Dionysius understands this. And the second reason is understood, that the one loved draws, not by changing location, but by conforming oneself, since the lover is transformed into the beloved, and the one who knows is conformed to the thing known.”12

Simply stated, locus grounds transcendence; the encounter with the divine is re-vealed and sustained in a particular place which defines the individual person. The contemplative journey unfolds as a person’s affective power undertakes the transitus from temporal to eternal concerns, and in the process, the individual is conformed to God in love and knowledge. This is precisely the outline of Bonaventure’s classic, the Itinerarium mentis in Deum. What distinguishes this text as innovative from numerous other mystical treaties is the decision to introduce Francis of Assisi as the archetype for pilgrims on the road to the Jerusalem on high and Bonaventure’s appeal to his personal experience as a locus theologicus. While traveling through central Italy in the fall of 1259, Bonaventure altered his route north and sought out the locum quietem of Mount La Verna where Francis had gone to pray and fast in the fall of 1224.13 Ruminating on the transformative, albeit mystery-shrouded encounter of the Poverello with the Crucified Seraph, Bonaventure discerns in the Seraph’s six wings the six stages or steps of illumination leading in and through crea-tures upward into God. These steps are taken only by those who are consumed by a searing love of the Crucified Christ, and Francis, who bore the marks of Christ’s

12 Dicendum, quod locus habet naturam continentis et quietantis. Esse ergo in hoc mundo est dupliciter: aut quantum ad veritatem et continentiam, aut quantum ad quietem. Augustinus autem loquitur non primo modo, quod anima et corpus vere egrediantur hunc mundum, dum mente capit Deum, sed intel-ligit quantum ad quietem, quia affectus animae non requiescit in temporalibus, quibus superfertur, sed in aeternis, et quantum ad hoc intelligit Dionysius. Et secunda ratio intelligitur, quod amatum trahit, non localiter mutando, sed sibi conformando, quia amans transformatur in amatum, et cognoscens con-formatur cognito. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Commentarius in I. Librum Sententiarum (note 11 above), distinctio 15, pars 2, dubium 5, p. 275a–b. All translations are by the author unless otherwise noted.

13 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Itinerarium mentis in Deum, in: S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, vol. 5: Opuscula varia theologica, Quaracchi 1891, pp. 293 –316, prologus, n. 2, p. 295a–b.



passion in his own broken body, exemplifies this affection and the resulting trans-formation into the image of the beloved.

“There is no other way but through the most ardent love of the Crucified, which so lifted Paul up into the third heaven and transformed him into Christ that he said: With Christ I am nailed to the cross; it is not I who live now, but truly Christ in me; which indeed so absorbed the soul of Francis that spirit appeared in flesh when, two years prior to his death, he carried the most sacred stigmata of the passion in his body.”14

With this opening reference to the stigmatized flesh of Francis, Bonaventure shifts the historical horizon of mystical ascent in Christianity. Earlier writers in the Christian East and West appealed to biblical figures like Moses (Origen/Gregory of Nyssa) or Rachel (Richard of St. Victor) as contemplative archetypes. With his striking epistemological claim regarding a contemporary figure from a small town in Umbria – an individual many in Europe and the Middle East had known and some still vividly remembered – Bonaventure introduces Francis to readers as a tangible touchstone of transcendence for his followers now and, as time will tell, as a stumbling block to his would-be detractors.15

In the Itinerarium Bonaventure identifies the departure point for the reader’s ascent as in loco, quem posuit.16 From this place, identified here as the desert of the world, the would-be contemplative sets out on a six stage transcendent journey through the wilderness upward into God. The destination is the Tabernacle of the Most High in the heavenly Jerusalem. Poor by nature since personal existence rests entirely on the divine choice to create ex nihilo, the sojourner, in the company of fellow travelers, first considers the vestiges or footprints of the Creator in and through the material universe.17 This visible world of material creatures is a macro-cosm, and it initially enters the microcosm of the soul through the five senses in the act of apprehension. As Bonaventure notes, these material creatures are shadows,

14 Via autem non est nisi per ardentissimum amorem Crucifixi, qui adeo Paulum ad tertium caelum raptum transformavit in Christum, ut diceret: Christo confixus sum cruci, vivo autem, iam non ego; vivit vero in me Christus; qui etiam adeo mentem Francisci absorbuit, quod mens in carne patuit, dum sacratissima passionis stigmata in corpore suo ante mortem per biennium deportavit. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Itinerarium (note 13 above), prologus, n. 3, p. 295b.

15 On Bonaventure’s view of Francis, transcendence, and the world, see Timothy J. Johnson, Dream Bodies and Peripatetic Prayer. Reading Bonaventure’s Itinerarium with Certeau, in: Modern Theology, 21/3, 2005, pp. 413 – 427; Id., Prologue as Pilgrimage. Bonaventure as Spiritual Cartographer, in: Miscellanea Francescana, 106 –107, 2006 –2007, pp. 445 – 464.

16 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Itinerarium (note 13 above), cap. 1, n. 1, p. 296a–b.17 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Itinerarium (note 13 above), cap. 2, n. 11–13, pp. 302b–303a.



echoes, and pictures; they are sensible signs signifying the invisible realities of God since the Creator is the origin, exemplar, and terminus for all that exists.

Leaving the physical world behind, the pilgrim ascends into the Holy of Holies of the soul where the divine signs are located in the natural powers of memory, intelligences, and will.18 These are more than vestiges; they are either images or similitudes. As images, memory, intelligence and will signify the Triune God or as similitudes the soul transformed by the three theological graces of faith, hope, and love. Having arrived where a creature is most exalted and introduced to Christ, the sojourner becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit. Only two ascending steps remain. In the presence of the two Cherubim before the Ark, God as Being and then God as Love are contemplated.19 This two-fold reflection suggests the journey of tran-scendence is seemingly over, yet, there is still the possibility of a transitus. This is not a stage identifiable with the six wings of an angel; instead, it is the dies requiei. Steps are not taken; rather the contemplative is taken up with Francis of Assisi into an intimate encounter with the Crucified Seraph. Quoting Dionysius, Bonaventure urges the reader, “[…] leaving everything and separated from all things, you will ascend to the super-essential ray of divine darkness […]”.20 To do so is to enter into the unitive conflagration of Christ’s fiery passion, where death leads to life, here the contemplative at long last may enjoy the peace of Jerusalem and leave this world in the reductio to the Father.

The transcendent path to the heavenly Jerusalem marked out by Bonaventure in the Itinerarium requires viewing the world as pictura and appreciation of God as artifex.21 First of all, pictura can be understood simply as a picture or as an image. The former fosters a deviation on the journey because the beauty of each crea-ture can become the beginning and end of contemplation, while the later allows this beauty to be ascribed ultimately to God, the artisan of creation. Indeed, all noble qualities found in creatures are attributed to the Creator in contemplation. This manner of transcendence is grounded in analogy, not univocity. Correlating distinctions between the creature and the Creator necessitate analogy.22 Absolute or complete knowledge is impossible for equality of being is nonexistent between

18 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Itinerarium (note 13 above), cap. 3, n. 1, p. 303a–b; cap. 4, n. 1–2, p. 306a–b.19 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Itinerarium (note 13 above), cap. 5, n. 2, p. 308b; cap. 6, n. 1, p. 310b.20 […] ad superessentialem divinarum tenebrarum radium, omnia deserens et ab omnibus absolutus, as-

cendes. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Itinerarium (note 13 above), cap. 7, n. 1, p. 313a.21 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Commentarius in I. Librum Sententiarum (note 11 above), distinctio 3, pars

1, articulus unicus, quaestio 2, conclusio, pp. 72a–73b.22 For a discussion of analogy as analogia fidei and analogia entis in Bonaventure, see Ulrich Gottfried

Leinsle, Res et signum. Das Verständnis zeichenhafter Wirklichkeit in der Theologie Bonaventuras (Veröffentlichungen des Grabmann-Institutes zur Erforschung der Mittelalterlichen Theologie und Phi-losophie. Neue Folge 26), München 1976, pp. 96 –101.



creatures and Creator.23 The only certain knowledge of God possible is acquired by apprehension, not comprehension.24 The contemplative is capax Dei – capable of knowing God – inasmuch as humanity is made in the divine image and can appre-hend in loco, quem posuit, the divine exemplar by means of analogy. Comprehen-sion, however, is the knowledge proper to the embrace of the object which occurs only when the subject and object are in a relationship of equality.

Roger Bacon (c. 1214–1294)

The journey to the heavenly Jerusalem in the Opus majus of Roger Bacon takes a remarkably different, albeit equally fascinating path than that offered by Bonaven-ture in the Itinerarium. Locus is of paramount import in Bacon’s writings because it offers the possibility of developing a true perspective on the world accompanied by reasoned understanding of where a person is situated in relationship to the physical world, and thus to the heavenly spheres and God. For Bacon, talk of transcend-ence is impaired since humanity does not understand where it presently stands in the world, much less where it eventually wants to travel when ascending from this world. When speaking of Mathematics and Geography the Doctor Mirabilis appeals to Porphyry, a student of Plotinus to articulate the crucial role of place and knowledge:

“Since then the knowledge of places in the world is of maximum utility, therefore there must be a different description of them, for the things of this world cannot be known except through the knowledge of the places in which they are contained. Place is the principle of the generation of things, as Porphyry says, because the diversity of things is according to the diversity of places, and that not only natural, but of the moral and scientific, as we have seen in men that according to the diversity of the regions they have diverse customs and occupy themselves in diverse arts and sciences. Since philosophy concerns itself with the things of the world, much is still missing among the Latins since they have no assurance of places in the world. However, this assurance resides in the knowledge of the length and the breadth of each place; and then we should know under which stars each place is, how far from

23 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Commentarius in I. Librum Sententiarum (note 11 above), distinctio 7, ar-ticulus unicus, quaestio 4, conclusio, p. 143a–b.

24 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Commentarius in I. Librum Sententiarum (note 11 above), distinctio 3, pars 1, articulus unicus, quaestio 1, responsio ad 1, p. 69a.



the path of the sun and the planets, and which planets and signified places they control. All these make for the diverse characteristics of places, which if know, a man would be able know the characteristics of all the things of the world and the nature and properties they acquire by virtue of the place.”25

According to Bacon, the ability to understand the world is directly tied to the knowledge of particular places, and the lack of evidence in this matter impedes anyone who travels. Study of places also includes celestial entities as Scripture main-tains that the faithful will ultimately pass from this world corporeally into heaven for all eternity.26 Unfortunately there is paucity of reliable data regarding matters terrestrial and celestial. This epistemological lacuna is detrimental to those who look to the Sacred Scriptures as the authoritative guide on the path to the heavenly Jerusalem.27 Not only is the biblical text suspect given recent corrupted manuscripts circulating in Paris, there is little recognition of the literal significance of biblical places. However, those who know the locations, distances, heights, and depths of individual terrestrial places, and experience their diversity in heat, dryness, cold, humidity, fertility, sterility and numerous other characteristics, will have a firm grasp of history, and ascend easily from the literal and grasp the spiritual meaning of Sacred Scripture.

Bacon utilizes a nuanced utilization of locus to clarify the relationship between place and transcendence and distinguishes himself from Bonaventure by under-scoring continentis rather than quietantis, “[…] for place has the property of ter-minating local motion and the rational of containing; and therefore the knowledge of these places renders a literal meaning, and as stated, prepares ways for spiritual meanings to be understood […]”.28 Place has agency, and produces multiple stages

25 Quoniam igitur locorum mundi cognitionis maxima utilitas est, ideo aliam descriptionem oportet afferri. Nam res mundi sciri non possunt nisi per notitiam locorum in quibus continentur. Locus est principium generationis rerum, ut dicit Porphyrius; quia secundum diversitatem locorum est diver-sitatis rerum; et non solum naturalium, sed moralium et scientialium, ut videmus in hominibus quod secundum diversitatem regionum habent mores diversos et occupant se in artibus et scientiis diversis. Quia igitur philosophia intromittit se in rebus mundi, multum ei deest adhuc apud Latinos, postquam non habet certificationem locorum mundi. Sed haec certificatio stat in cognotione longitudinis et lati-tudinis cujuslibet loci; tunc enim sciremus sub quibus stellis est quilibet locus, et quantum a via solis et planetarum, et quorum planetarum et signorum loca recipiant dominium, quae omnia faciunt diversas complexiones locorum; quae si sciente, possit homo scire complexiones omnium rerum mundi et natura et proprietates quas a virtue loci contrhahunt. Roger Bacon, Opus majus, ed. John Henry Bridges, vol. 1, London 1900, pp. 300 f. Republished in three volumes by Elibron Classics. All translations are by the author unless otherwise noted.

26 Roger Bacon, Opus majus (note 25 above), vol. 1, pp. 180 f.27 Roger Bacon, Opus majus (note 25 above), vol. 1, pp. 183 f.28 […] quoniam locus habet proprietatem termindandi motum localem et rationem continentiae; et ideo

istorum locorum cognitio et literam facit, ut dictum est, intelligi, et vias parat ad intelligentias spirit-uales […]. Roger Bacon, Opus majus (note 25 above), vol. 1, p. 184.



of comparative meaning, which encompass this world and the next. What can be stated with regard to the material can be said in relationship to the spiritual, but to do so in the service of the faith demands that the physical be clarified and laid out with precision with the assistance of the sciences. Here Bacon’s unique view emer-ges as the swift movement upward of transformation through and above creatures into God, which Bonaventure highlights in the Itinerarium, is now bracketed or rendered temporarily “immobile” so to speak so a clearer perception of the material world may be acquired. In particular, a firm grasp of the physical geography of the regions around Jerusalem is crucial if the literal sense of the Sacred Scriptures is to open up to a moral, allegorical, and anagogical reading. Bacon states, “And in these provinces all the sacred places are found where the holy patriarchs and the prophets first walked, followed by the Lord himself, his Mother, and his holy apostles […] [sacred places in which] greater mysteries are contained than the ear is capable of hearing or the human mind to understand […]”.29 At the center stands the holy city of Jerusalem, which signifies the desire for peace; it is interpreted according to the moral sense as the soul, allegorically as the Church militant, and anagogically as the Church triumphant.30 Regardless of when the pilgrimage begins – from birth, at the dawn of reason, or in old age of life’s evening – the first step of the spiritual journey for pilgrims is to leave the world behind, that is, Jordan where Jericho is found. The next steps are to ascend the Mount of Olives through prayer and contemplation and cross over the Valley of Jehoshaphat in humility. Once within Jerusalem, the soul rests in the peace of the Church Militant and by the grace of God, receives a vision of the heavenly Jerusalem at death.

When studying this relationship between physical and spiritual realities, the Doctor Mirabilis at times favors analogical language, but rejects the analogia entis and offers a theory unlike any other scholastic position of the mid-thirteenth cen-tury.31 He maintains there is univocity at the level of ens and unum, but analogical reasoning is equivocal. As a result, references to dissimilarity give way to equivoca-tion that allows for the comparison of existing beings. While Bacon acknowledges the Greek idea of analogy as proportio, he appeals to Cicero, to assert that analogy

29 Et in his provinciis reperiuntur omnia loca sacra, quae calcaverunt primo sancti patriarchae et prophe-tae, deinde Dominus ipse et Mater ejus et apostoli sacrati […] in quibus majora mysteria continentur quam auris mortalis possit audire aut mens humana intelligere […]. Roger Bacon, Opus majus (note 25 above), vol. 1, p. 335.

30 Roger Bacon, Opus majus (note 25 above), vol. 1, pp. 185 f.31 Alain de Libera, Roger Bacon et la logique, in: Roger Bacon and the Sciences. Commemorative Essays,

ed. Jeremiah Hackett (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 57), Leiden/New York/Köln 1997, pp. 118 –121 and Jeremiah Hackett, Maimonides and Roger Bacon. Did Roger Bacon Read Maimonides?, in: Medieval Philosophy and the Classical Tradition in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, ed. John Inglis, London 2002, pp. 297–299.



also means comparatio.32 When describing roadways, for example, he notes that physical roads are obviously similar to spiritual roads, and physical places signify where spiritual roads terminate.33 Nowhere is this analogical language more visible than when he examines the physical properties of the human eye via the science of perspective or optics.34 Everything said about the corporeal eye has spiritual signi-ficance by way of similitude. What Bacon intends by similitude is not the propor-tional understanding of the term Bonaventure employs in the Itinerarium and else-where, but rather, comparative, since spiritual truths are revealed when the physical qualities and activities of the eye are examined.35 Psalm 16, 8 cries out, “Lord, guard us as the pupil of your eye.” This prayer is unintelligible without a firm grasp of how the eye might be protected on the literal-physical level. According to the sci-ence of optics, there are seven physical entities safeguarding the pupil, or even eight if eye lashes are included. These can be compared, for example, to the seven virtues, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and the eight beatitudes of Matthew’s Gospel.

Bacon’s innovative interest in optics far exceeds analogical comparison of the literal and spiritual levels of meaning; it is centered on the overriding significance of vision and physical representation in the quest for transcendence. In addition to a study of languages, the literal understanding of the Scripture requires that the sacred text be pictured with precision through the expert utilization of geometric perspective.36 In the Opus majus, Bacon pleads for accurate depictions of the sacred mysteries found in the biblical text so that:

“[...] with Ezekiel in the spirit of exultation, we could behold in the senses what he only perceived spiritually, so that with Ezra and Nehemiah after the restoration of the new Jerusalem we might enter in a greater house dec-orated with fuller glory. Certainly this sensible vision would be beautiful, but more beautiful when we would see the figure of our truth face to face, and most beautiful to be sure when, contemplating the spiritual and literal

32 Roger Bacon, Compendium of the Study of Theology, ed. Thomas S. Maloney (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 20), Leiden 1988, p. 118. This perspective also plays out in linguistics and semiotics, where equivocation is linked to Bacon’s understanding of signs, see: Stephan Meier-Oeser, Die Spur des Zeichens. Das Zeichen und seine Funktion in der Philosophie des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit (Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie 44), Berlin 1997, pp. 64 f. Bonaventure and Bacon part company when dealing with the meaning and interpretation of signs, see Costantino Marmo, La semiotica del xiii secolo. Tra arti liberali e teologia (Studi Bompiani), Milano 2010, pp. 16, 82.

33 Roger Bacon, Opus majus (note 25 above), vol. 1, p. 184.34 Roger Bacon, Opus majus (note 25 above), vol. 1, p. 159 –166. Klaus Bergdolt, Der Sehvorgang als

theologisches Analogon. Augenanatomie und Physiologie bei Roger Bacon, in: Sudhoffs Archiv 75, 1991, pp. 1–20.

35 Roger Bacon, Opus majus (note 25 above), vol. 1, pp. 162 f.36 Roger Bacon, Opus majus (note 25 above), vol. 1, pp. 210 f.



understanding of Scripture, we would rejoice, excited by the visible means, because we know that everything now in the church of God, which sensible bodies would display for our eyes, was complete.”37

This artistic representation of Scriptural wisdom, which requires geometric exact-ness, includes an understanding of locus as the place from which any particular scene is viewed.38 Place itself generates linear perspective and the possibility of the accurate knowledge that grounds the spiritual ascent into God.39 As a consequence of this innovative proposal, visual expressions such as frescoes become touchstones of transcendence not because they point to the divine beyond like an icon, but be-cause they embody a physical vision of the heavenly Jerusalem.40 While Bacon no doubt would agree with Bonaventure that God is the divine artifex of the world considered as pictura, the Doctor Mirabilis shifts the emphasis towards human art-istry and the undeniable importance of corporeal verisimilitude. These difficult yet necessary depictions of Scripture by masters of the visual arts, when combined with a humble receptivity to divine grace, could literally move Christians to a renewal of the sequela Christi to Jerusalem. As Bacon says, to see correctly is to secure salvation on high.41

Conclusion

As confreres of Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure and Bacon shared his profound ap-preciation for Creation, but offered decidedly different and innovative approaches to the question of transcendence from within the Franciscan community. Each Mi-norite initially embraced the prevailing thirteenth-century Aristotelian definition of locus and the accompanying epistemological contention that the physical body

37 […] cum Ezechiele in spiritu exaltationis ad sensum intueremur, quod ipse tantum spiritualiter intellex-it, ut tandem reparata nova Jerusalem cum Esdra et Nehemia intraremus majorem domum pleniori gloria decorandam. Certe ipsa visio sensibilis esset pulchra, sed pulchrior quando figuram nostrae veri-tatis videremus presentialiter, pulcherrima vero quando scripturae intellectum spiritualem et literalem contemplantes gauderemus visibilibus instrumentis excitati, quod scimus omnia nunc in ecclesia Dei esse completa, quae ipsa corpora sensibilia nostris oculis exhiberent. Roger Bacon, Opus majus (note 25 above), vol. 1, pp. 211 f.

38 On place, perspective, and line of sight, see Roger Bacon, Opus majus, ed. John Henry Bridges, vol. 2, London 1900, pp. 94 –97.

39 On Bacon and art, with reference to the Giotto cycles in the Arena Chapel and Basilica of Saint Francis, see Samuel Y. Edgerton, The Mirror, the Window, and the Telescope. How Renaissance Linear Perspec-tive Changed Our Vision of the Universe, Ithaca 2009, pp. 14 –20.

40 On this dynamic, see Suzannah Biernhoff, Carnal Relations. Embodied Sight in Merleau-Ponty, Roger Bacon and St Francis, in: Journal of Visual Culture 4, 2005, pp. 41– 43.

41 Roger Bacon, Opus majus (note 25 above), vol. 1, p. 161.



is the ground of knowledge; however, they soon parted ways on the path to the heavenly Jerusalem. In the ensuing centuries, philosophers and theologians would push further until transcendence itself would be eclipsed, only to be replaced by transcendental categories.42

Bonaventure maintains that the Poverello’s stigmatized body provides a histor-ically situated locus for transformation in the desert of this world. This dynamic promotes the analogical ascent from the exterior world through the interior world of the soul, upward into the darkness of the divine mysteries in the Holy of Holies. Often critiqued as making Francis inaccessible to his confreres by raising him up as an exemplar beyond reach, the Seraphic doctor does the opposite with poetic creativity and theological acumen. Circumscribed by the physical setting of Mount La Verna and burdened by the pressing weight of pastoral concerns, he offers his brothers a familiar and familial figure whom some had even encountered in the flesh. Distant figures from the past, which were the common guides on the ascent, were replaced by a poor man from the Umbrian town of Assisi. An analogical as-cent is accessible to all since the proportional stages are the same for everyone and God’s grace is universal. The locus of transcendence draws nearer when depicted against the horizon of a known, commonly shared history. If a well-known brother – no matter how gifted – can ascend on high, why not another brother, neighbor, friend, or spouse? Is this a step toward the democratization, domestication, or per-haps even disappearance of transcendence on the cusp of modernity?

For his part, Roger Bacon maintained that the accurate depiction of history, es-pecially with the assistance of the visual arts, called for an appreciation of the phys-ical world as locus. Place contains and generates comparison and perspective. The path to the heavenly Jerusalem is opaque at best if not displayed for human eyes in the material corporality of the world. To see correctly requires a proper viewing position and, and to ascend on high, a place below must be confirmed. Those who refuse to take up the sciences such as languages, geometry, astronomy, and geog-raphy risk never finding the locus of transcendence, and will remain “out of place” forever. Now the analogical ascent is accessible to all since the sciences allow the comparison of physical realities with their spiritual counterparts. This emphasis on securing a place eventually yields to the conception of place as the means by which distance is measured between points on a grid. Is this intense consideration by Bacon of the divine footsteps in the physical world a precursor of modernity’s movement away from a reflection on who (God) left the imprint and where they lead (heaven), to the precise physical representation of the footsteps (art and geome-

42 Oliver Boulnois, Être et représentation. Une généalogie de la métaphysique moderne à l’époque de Duns Scot (XIIIe–XIVe siècle), Paris 1999.



try) and the accurate measurement of the space, at times seemingly infinite, between them (mathematics and astronomy)?

Are we nevertheless now out of place and lost in space …? Perhaps Pascal feared just such a reality, when he claimed, “The eternal silences of these infinite spaces terrifies me.”43

Epilogue

Steeped in the Franciscan traditions of Bonaventure and Bacon, Christopher Co-lumbus is one of many figures who mark the transitus to modernity.44 Selected echoes of his claim ring with a certainly familiarity:

“I have had commerce and conversation with knowledgeable people of the clergy and the laity, Latins and Greeks, Jews, and Moors, and with many others of different religions. Our Lord has favored my occupation and has given me an intelligent mind, He has endowed me with a great talent for seamanship; sufficient ability in astrology, geometry and arithmetic; and the mental and physical dexterity required to draw spherical maps of cities, rivers and mountains, islands and ports, with everything in its proper place. During this time I have studied all kinds of texts: cosmography, histories, chronicles, philosophy, and other disciplines.”45

While other echoes are no longer seem intelligible:

“Through these writings, the hand of Our Lord opened my mind to the pos-sibility of sailing to the Indies and gave me the will to attempt this voyage. With this burning ambition I came to your Highnesses. Everyone who heard about my enterprise rejected it with laughter and ridicule. Neither all the sciences that I mentioned previously nor citations I have drawn from them were of any help to me. Only Your Highnesses had faith and perseverance. Who could doubt that this flash of understanding was the work of the Holy Spirit as well as my own?”46

43 From the Penseés and quoted in Casey, Getting Back (note 1 above), p. x. 44 On Columbus, the Franciscans, and the New World, see Timothy J. Johnson, The Apocalypse in St.

Augustine. Christopher Columbus, Religion, and the New World, in: The Cord, 63/3, 2013, pp. 209 –233.45 The “Book of Prophecies” edited by Christopher Columbus, ed. Ruberto Rusconi/trans. Blair Sulli-

van (Repertorium Columbianum 3), Berkeley 1997, p. 67.46 The “Book of Prophecies” (note 45 above), p. 67.


“LOCUS, ANALOGY, AND TRANSCENDENCE: Bacon and Bonaventure on the Franciscan View of the World”...

Documents

Transcript of “LOCUS, ANALOGY, AND TRANSCENDENCE: Bacon and Bonaventure on the Franciscan View of the World”...