Part I on the Trinity of God

Part I On the Trinity of God

1.Chapter 1 A Summary of the Seven Topics of Theology

1.In the beginning,1 we should understand that sacred doctrine, namely theology, which deals principally with the First Principle - God, three and one - comprises seven topics in all: first, the Trinity of God; second, the creation of the world; third, the corruption of sin; fourth, the Incarnation of the Word; fifth, the grace of the Holy Spirit; sixth, the healing of the sacraments; and seventh, the repose of the final judgment.

2.The reason for this is as follows. Sacred Scripture or theology is a science that imparts to us wayfarers as much knowledge of the First Principle as we need to be saved.2

1The Latin word-play in this opening paragraph is virtuallyimpossible to capture in English. Bonaventure begins his summary oftheology with the opening words of the book of Genesis and the Gospelof John: 'in the beginning,' in principio. However, the Latin wordprincipium does not simply mean 'beginning’ but also 'principle.' Theorigin of all things - God - is also their principle, thus the only basisfrom which to come to understand reality.

2Bonaventure has already specified the characteristics of this science.It is founded not on "human inquiry, but on divine revelation" (Prol., 2),and has as its purpose "that we might become good and be saved" (Prol.,5.2). Its method is "neither restricted according to the laws of reasoning,defining, or making distinctions, nor is it limited to only one aspect ofthe universe" (Prol. 3).

St. Bonaventure's Breviloquium

Now God is not only the principle and effective exemplar of all things in creation, but also their restorative principle in redemption and their perfecting principle in remuneration. Therefore, theology does not deal simply with God the Creator, but also with the process of creation and creatures themselves. Furthermore, the rational creature, which is in a certain sense the end of all the others, did not stand firm, but fell and hence needed to be restored. It therefore follows that theology must also deal with the corruption of sin, with the physician, with [spiritual] health and its medicine, and finally with that perfect recovery which will be in [the repose of] glory, when the wicked have been cast into their punishment. Thus theology is the only perfect science, for it begins at the very beginning, which is the First Principle, and continues to the very end, which is the everlasting reward; it proceeds from the summit, which is God Most High, the Creator of all things, and reaches even to the abyss, which is the torment of hell.

3. Theology is also the only perfect wisdom, for it begins with the supreme cause as the principle of all things that are caused - the very point at which philosophical knowledge ends. But theology goes beyond this, considering that cause as the remedy for sins; and it leads back to it, considering that cause as the reward of meritorious deeds and the goal of [human] desires. In this knowledge one finds perfect taste,3 life, and the salvation of souls; that is why all Christians should be aflame with longing to acquire it.

3For Bonaventure, theology cannot be a mere intellectual or speculative knowledge, but an experiential knowledge or wisdom, by which one tastes or savors the truth. He develops the idea of saving study in Hexaem. 19, observing further (Ibid., 22.21): "Blessed Francis said he wanted his brothers to study, but first to practice what they preached. For what is the use of knowing much but savoring nothing?" (V, 419-24, 440). Cf. In 3 Sent., 35.un.l (III, 77).

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4. From this, it is evident that theology, though admittedly broad and varied in content, is nevertheless a single science. Its subject, as that from which all things come, is God; as that through which all things exist, Christ; as that for which all things are done, the work of restoration; as that by which all things are united, the one bond of love joining heaven and earth; as that with which the whole content of the canonical books are concerned, the body of faith as such; as that with which all the books of commentators are concerned, the body of faith as intelligible. For as Augustine puts it in his treatise, On the Profit of Believing, "what we believe we owe to authority, what we understand, to reason."4

2.Chapter 2 What WeMust Hold Concerning

the Trinity of Persons and theUnity of Essence

1.First of all, we must consider three questions regarding the Divine Trinity: namely, how the unity of the divine substance and nature can coexist with a plurality of persons; second, how it can coexist with a plurality of manifestations; and third, how it can coexist with a plurality of appropriations.

2.With regard to a plurality of persons in a unity of nature, the true faith prescribes that we maintain that within the one [divine] nature there are three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Of these, the first proceeds from no other; the second, from the first alone through generation; the third, from the first and second through spiration or procession.5 Such a Trinity of persons does

4Augustine, De util. cred. 11. 25 (PL 42: 83).

5For Bonaventure, "the true faith" in this regard was enunciated bythe Fourth Lateran Council (1215), canon 1: "We firmly believe andsimply confess that there is only one true God, eternal andimmeasurable, almighty, unchangeable, incomprehensible and ineffable,

St. Bonaventure's Bheviloquwm

not deprive the divine essence of its supreme unity, simplicity, infinity, eternity, immutability, necessity, and sovereign primacy; and yet it includes the highest fecundity, love, generosity, equality, relationship, likeness, and inseparability All of these things true faith understands to exist in the most blessed Trinity6

3. The reason for this truth is as follows. Since faith is the source of our worship of God and the foundation of that doctrine which is according to piety,1it dictates that we should conceive of God in the most elevated and most loving manner. Now our thought would not be the most elevated if we did not believe that God could communicate himself in the most complete way, and it would not be the most loving if, believing him so able, we thought him unwilling to do so. Hence, if we are to think of God most loftily and most lovingly, faith tells us that God to-

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; three persons indeed but one absolutely simple essence, substance, or nature. The Father is from none, the Son from the Father alone, and the Holy Spirit from both equally, eternally without beginning or end; the Father generating, the Son begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeding." DEC, 1: 230.

%CtIn 1 Sent. ,2 (1,49-62), fully developed in the Disputed Questions on the Trinity.

71 Tim 6:3, according to the Vulgate (doctrinam secundum pietatem). The word pietas ('piety') had a number of connotations, as Bonaventure explains elsewhere, quoting Augustine (De civ. Dei., 10.1.3): "The word pietas is usually understood in the strict sense to mean the worship of God; yet this word is also used to denote the duties which we owe to parents. Also, in common speech, the word frequently refers to works of mercy . . . because God especially commands the performance of such works. . . .From this manner of speaking, it has also come about that God himself is called pius" (trans. R. W. Dyson, The City of God against the Pagans [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998J, 392) \ln 3 Sent., 35.un.6 (III, 785]). Thus, for a Christiansens (worship) of God springs from the awareness that God first has had pietas (compassion) toward us; that God is love itself (1 John 4:7-21). And so at the end of this sentence, when Bonaventure says we must conceive of God piissime, I have translated it "in a most loving manner." This nuance is evident from his argument in paragraph 4 that follows.

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tally communicates himself by eternally having a beloved and another who is loved by both. In this way God is both one and three.8

4.In fact, the whole of Sacred Scripture, which is called a doctrine according to piety, testifies to this belief, dictating that we conceive of God in the most loving way. For it declares that God [the Father] has an offspring whom he supremely loves: a Word coequal with himself, whom "he has begotten from all eternity and in whom he has disposed all things;"9 by whom he produces and governs all things. Furthermore, it declares that through the precious blood of this Word made flesh, God in his all-surpassing goodness redeemed humankind and nourishes it once redeemed. It also declares that at the end of the world, through that same Word, God will liberally pour out his supreme mercy, delivering humankind from every misery, so that through Christ, all the elect might become children of the eternal Father. In him all love will be consummated: God's for us, and ours for God.

5.And that our faith requires that we think of God in the most elevated manner is attested to not only by Scrip-

8Bonaventure's argument here concisely summarizes Book III ofRichard of St. Victor's Be trinitate (PL 196:915-930), in which he deducesthe trinity of persons from the fact that God is supreme goodness. "Sothat fullness of charity might have a place in that true Divinity, it isnecessary that a divine person not lack a relationship with an equallyworthy person, who is, for this reason, divine" (Be trinitate, 3.2), trans.Grover Zinn, The Twelve Patriarchs, The Mystical Ark, Book Three ofthe Trinity (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 375. The term condilectus'one who is loved by both' is introduced by Richard in 3.19: "Sharedlove is properly said to exist when a third person is loved by two personsharmoniously and in community, and the affection of the two personsis fused into one affection by the flame of love for the third" lp. 392 J. Cf.the more expansive argument by Bonaventure in Itin. 6.2 (V, 310-311).9 Peter Lombard, Gloss on Psalm 61.12 (PL 191: 568B), in turnalluding to Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. 61, 12: "'Once has God spoken': Hehas but one Word, the only-begotten God. In that Word are all things,because by the Word all things were made" (PL 36: 743).

St. Bonaventure's Breviloquium

ture, but by all creation as well. As Augustine writes in the fourth chapter of his fifteenth book On the Trinity: "It is not, after all, only the authority of the divine books that asserts that God is. The universal nature of things which surround us, to which we too belong, proclaims that it has a most excellent founder, who has given us a mind and natural reason by which to see that living beings are to be preferred to non-living, ones endowed with sense to non-sentient ones, intelligent ones to non-intelligent, immortal ones to mortal, powerful to powerless ones, just to unjust, beautiful to ugly, good to bad, things that cannot decay to things than can, changeless to changeable things, invisible to visible, non-bodily to bodily, happy to unhappy. And so, since we rank the Creator without a shadow of doubt above created things, we have to admit that this being supremely lives, and senses and understands all things, and cannot die, decay, or change; and that it is not a body but the most powerful, just and beautiful, the best and happiest spirit of all."10

Now the twelve predications in this passage contain the highest qualities of the divine being. But as Augustine shows further on,11 these twelve can be reduced to three: eternity, wisdom, and happiness; and these three to one, namely, wisdom. In this wisdom are included the generating Mind, the begotten Word, and Love, their mutual bond. And these, our faith tells us, comprise the Blessed Trinity. Since the highest wisdom posits the Trinity, it posits also all of the noble attributes listed earlier: oneness, simplicity, and so forth. It follows of necessity, then, that

10De Trin. 15.4.6 (PL 42: 1061), translated by Edmund Hill, in The Trinity, WSA, 1/5 (Brooklyn: New City Press, 1990), 399, alt. Cf. Hexaem., ll,2ff(V,380ff.)

"Ibid., 15. 5-6 (PL 42,1061-63). The twelve are: eternity, immortality, incorruptibilty, unchangeablity, life, wisdom, power, beauty, righteousness, goodness, happiness, and spirit.

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all the noble attributes of the divine essence mentioned above are simultaneously attributed of the Blessed Trinity.

3.Chapter 3 TheRight Understandinc of This Belief

1. So that we might come to a right understanding of this belief, sacred doctrine teaches that in the Godhead there are;

a)two emanations,12

b)three hypostases,13

c)four relations,14

d)five characteristics,15

e)and yet in all only three personal properties.16

12The two emanations are the generation ["begetting"] of the Son bythe Father and the spiration ["breathing forth"] of the Holy Spirit bythe Father and the Son.

13Hypostasis means a subsistent reality. The three hypostases arethe Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. On the two emanations andthree hypostases, see In 1 Sent., 2.4, 9.1, 10.1.1 (I, 56-58, 180-81, 194-96).

14The four relations are, respectively, fatherhood [the Father to theSon], sonship [the Son to the Father], spiration [the Father and Sonjointly to the Holy Spirit], and procession [the Holy Spirit to the Fatherand the Son].

15The five characteristics (notiones) are unbegottenness, fatherhood,sonship, spiration, and procession. Some studies of medieval theologytranslate this term literally as 'notion', which is misleading incontemporary English as 'notion' implies an inclusive general concept.By contrast, notio in Trinitarian theology means a proper conceptpeculiar to only one thing. The more suitable 'characteristic' wassuggested by the Dominican translators of the Summa theologiae ofThomas Aquinas (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1965), 6:151-153.

16The three personal properties are fatherhood, sonship, andprocession. On the relations, characteristics, and properties, see In ISent., 26.4(1,460-61).

St. Bonaventure's Breviloquwm

2.The explanation for this is as follows. The first and supreme Principle, by the very fact of being its first, is utterly simple; by the very fact that it is supreme, utterly perfect. Being utterly perfect, it communicates itself with total perfection; being utterly simple, it remains completely undivided. Consequently, any modes of emanation within the divine nature are of such perfection that they do not violate its unity. Now there are only two such modes of perfect emanation, namely through nature and through will.17 The first of these is generation,18 the second spiration or procession. Hence these are the two modes [of emanation] found in the Trinity.

3.Now, while two hypostases [subsistent realities] necessarily result from two substance-producing modes of emanation, we must also posit that the original producing hypostasis does not itself emanate from anything else, for we would then have an infinite series. Hence, there are three hypostases in the Trinity.

4.Again, because each emanation implies a double relationship, there are in the Trinity four relations: fatherhood, sonship, spiration, and procession.19

5.It is through these relations that the divine hypostases are made known to us. But in addition, we dis-

17Aristotle distinguished three types of emanation: fortuitous, natural, and voluntary (Metaph. 6.22 [1032 a 12-13]}. Since nothing fortuitous is worthy of God, only the two latter types of emanation can exist within the Godhead. Cf. In 1 Sent., 2.un.4 (I, 56); M. Trin., 4.2, 8 concl. (V, 85-86,114).

1BCf.Hexaem. 11.13 (V, 382).

19Bona venture is saying that each of the two emanations in God (the generation of the Son by the Father and the spiration of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son) has, as it were, two termini, so that there are four relationships present in God. The Father begets the Son [fatherhood]; the Son is begotten by the Father [sonship]; the Father and the Son jointly spirate ["breathe forth"] the Holy Spirit; and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

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cover that the original producing hypostasis has no originator, which is the very reason for its excellence. Hence, in the Trinity there are five distinguishing characteristics: the four relations indicated above, and unbe-gottenness.

6.But each person has one property that is the principal means by which we identify it. There are consequently only three personal properties that are characteristically and principally denoted by the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.20

7.For it is proper to the Father to be the one without an originator, the Unbegotten One; the Principle who proceeds from no other; the Father as such. 'Unbegottenness' designates him by means of a negation, but this term also implies an affirmation, since unbegottenness posits in the Father a fountain-fullness.21 The 'Principle that proceeds from no other' designates him by an affirmation followed

20Cf. Fourth Lateran Council, canon 2: "the Father begets, the Son isbegotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeds" [DEC 1:231].

21Cf. In 1 Sent., 2.un.l: "The more prior a being is, the more it isfecund and the principle of others. Therefore, just as the divine essence,because it is first, is the principle of other essences, so the person of theFather, since he is the first, because from no one, is the principle andhas fecundity in regard to [the other] persons" (I, 53-54). For a moreextended discussion, see In 1 Sent., 27.1.un.2 (I, 468-474); thereBonaventure cites the Book of Causes as source of the axiom, "the moreprior a being is, the more it is fecund." This treatise, translated intoLatin c. 1180, was commonly attributed to Aristotle, but was actually aninth century Arab reworking of the Elements of the neo-Platonicphilosopher, Proclus (d. 485).