Saint Bonaventure
Saint Bonaventure
The Devout Doctor
Born	1221, Bagnoregio, Italy
Died	July 15, 1274, Lyon, France
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Canonized	April 14, 1482
Feast	July 15
Attributes	cardinal's hat; ciborium; Holy Communion; cardinal in Franciscan robes, usually reading or writing
Saints Portal

Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (Italian: San Bonaventura) (1221 – 15 July 1274), born John of Fidanza (Italian: Giovanni di Fidanza), was the eighth Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, commonly called the Franciscans. He was a scholastic theologian and medieval philosopher, a contemporary of Thomas Aquinas, and a Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He was canonised by the Roman Catholic Church and made a doctor of the church in 1588: the Seraphic Doctor (Doctor Seraphicus). Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1256x1365, 159 KB) Description: Title: de: Hl. ... // Events May 13 - End of the reign of Emperor Juntoku, emperor of Japan Emperor ChÅ«kyō briefly reigns over Japan Former Emperor Go-Toba leads an unsuccessful rebellion against the Kamakura Shogunate Emperor Go-Horikawa ascends to the throne of Japan January - Mongol Army under Jochi captures the city of... Country Italy Region Latium Province Province of Viterbo (VT) Mayor Elevation 484 m Area 72. ... July 15 is the 196th day of the year (197th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events May 7 - In France the Second Council of Lyons opens to consider the condition of the Holy Land and to agree to a union with the Byzantine church. ... City flag City coat of arms Motto: (Franco-Provençal: Forward, forward, Lyon the best) Location Coordinates Time Zone CET (GMT +1) Administration Country Region Rhône-Alpes Department Rhône (69) Subdivisions 9 arrondissements Intercommunality Urban Community of Lyon Mayor Gérard Collomb  (PS) (since 2001) City Statistics Land... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      The Roman Catholic Church... Icon of St. ... April 14 is the 104th day of the year (105th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 261 days remaining. ... Events Portuguese fortify Fort Elmina on the Gold Coast Tizoc rules the Aztecs Diogo Cão, a Portuguese navigator, becomes the first European to sail up the Congo. ... The calendar of saints is a traditional Christian method of organising a liturgical year on the level of days by associating each day with one or more saints, and referring to the day as that saints day. ... July 15 is the 196th day of the year (197th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Saint symbology was important to people who couldnt read because they can figure out what symbols mean. ... Image File history File links Gloriole. ... // Events May 13 - End of the reign of Emperor Juntoku, emperor of Japan Emperor ChÅ«kyō briefly reigns over Japan Former Emperor Go-Toba leads an unsuccessful rebellion against the Kamakura Shogunate Emperor Go-Horikawa ascends to the throne of Japan January - Mongol Army under Jochi captures the city of... July 15 is the 196th day of the year (197th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events May 7 - In France the Second Council of Lyons opens to consider the condition of the Holy Land and to agree to a union with the Byzantine church. ... This is a list of the ministers general of the Order of Friars Minor; // Francis of Assisi (1210-1226) Johannes Parenti (1227-1232) 1st Minister general Elias of Cortona (1232-1239) 2nd Minister general Albert of Pisa (1239-1240) 3rd Minister general Haymo of Faversham (1240-1243) 4th Minister general... Franciscans is the common name used to designate a variety of mendicant religious orders of men or women tracing their origin to Francis of Assisi and following the Rule of St. ... Scholastic redirects here. ... Theology is literally rational discourse concerning God (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογος, logos, rational discourse). By extension, it also refers to the study of other religious topics. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... Saint Thomas Aquinas (also Thomas of Aquin, or Aquino; c. ... Albano is a suburbicarian see of the Roman Catholic Church, comprising seven towns in the Province of Rome. ... ... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      The Roman Catholic Church... In Catholicism, a Doctor of the Church (Lat. ...

Early life

He was born at Bagnoregio in Latium, not far from Viterbo. He is said to have received his cognomen of Bonaventura when he was cured from a serious childhood illness through the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi. He entered the Franciscan order in 1243 and studied at the University of Paris, possibly under Alexander of Hales, and certainly under Alexander's successor, John of Rochelle, to whose chair he succeeded in 1253. Country Italy Region Latium Province Province of Viterbo (VT) Mayor Elevation 484 m Area 72. ... Latium (Lazio in Italian) is a region of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Marche, Molise, Campania and the Tyrrhenian Sea. ... Country Italy Region Lazio Province Viterbo (VT) Mayor Giampiero Gabbianelli Elevation 326 m Area 406,28 km² Population  - Total 60,537  - Density 148. ... The cognomen (name known by in English) was originally the third name of a Roman in the Roman naming convention. ... Saint Francis of Assisi (1182—October 3, 1226) was a Roman Catholic friar and the founder of the Order of Friars Minor, more commonly known as the Franciscans. ... // Events Innocent IV was elected pope. ... The Sorbonne, Paris, in a 17th century engraving The historic University of Paris (French: ) first appeared in the second half of the 12th century, but was in 1970 reorganised as 13 autonomous universities (University of Paris I–XIII). ... Alexander Hales (also Halensis, Alensis, Halesius, Alesius; called Doctor Irrefragabilis and Theologorum Monarcha) was a scholastic theologian. ... John of la Rochelle (Jean de La Rochelle, John of Rupella, Johannes de Rupella) was a French Franciscan theologian. ... For broader historical context, see 1250s and 13th century. ...

Three years earlier his fame had gained for him to Lector on the Sentences, and in 1255 he received the degree of master, the medieval equivalent of doctor. In the year after having successfully defended his order against the reproaches of the anti-mendicant party, he was elected general of his order. It was by his order that Roger Bacon, a Franciscan Friar himself, was interdicted from lecturing at Oxford, and compelled to put himself under the surveillance of the order at Paris. He was instrumental in procuring the election of Gregory X, who rewarded him with the titles of cardinal and bishop of Albano, and insisted on his presence at the great Council of Lyon in the year 1274. There, after his significant contributions led to a union of the Greek and Latin Churches, he died. The only extant relic of the Saint is the arm and hand with which he wrote his great Commentary on the Four Books of Peter Lombard, which is now conserved at Bagnoregio, in the parish Church of St. Nicholas. Peter Lombards seminal work, on which his reputation rests. ... For the Nova Scotia premier see Roger Bacon (politician). ... The University of Oxford (usually abbreviated as Oxon. ... Gregory X, né Theobald Visconti (Piacenza, ca. ... Albano is a suburbicarian see of the Roman Catholic Church, comprising seven towns in the Province of Rome. ... The Council of Lyons refers to either the 13th or 14th ecumenical councils of the Roman Catholic Church, both held in Lyon, France during the 13th century: First Council of Lyons (1245; Pope Innocent IV; regarding the Crusades) Second Council of Lyons (1274; Pope Gregory X; regarding papal election procedures... Events May 7 - In France the Second Council of Lyons opens to consider the condition of the Holy Land and to agree to a union with the Byzantine church. ...

Philosophy and works

Bonaventure's character seems not unworthy of the eulogistic title, "Doctor Seraphicus," bestowed on him by his contemporaries, and of the place assigned to him by Dante in his Paradiso. He was formally canonized in 1482 by the Franciscan Sixtus IV, and ranked along with St. Thomas Aquinas as the greatest doctors of the church by the Franciscan, Sixtus V, in 1587. His works, as arranged in the most recent Critical Edition of his works, by the Quaracchi Fathers (Collegio S. Bonaventura) consist of a Commentary on the Sentences of Lombard, in 4 volumes, and 8 other volumes, among which are a Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke and a number of smaller works; the most famous of which are Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum, Breviloquium, De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam, Soliloquium, and De septem itineribus aeternitatis, in which most of what is individual in his teaching is contained. Dante in a fresco series of famous men by Andrea del Castagno, ca. ... Sixtus IV (July 21, 1414 – August 12, 1484), born Francesco della Rovere, was Pope from 1471 to 1484. ... In Roman Catholicism, a Doctor of the Church is a theologian from whose teachings the whole Christian church is held to have derived great advantage and to whom eminent learning and great sanctity have been attributed by a proclamation of the Pope or of an ecumenical council. ... Pope Sixtus V (December 13, 1521 – August 27, 1590), born Felice Peretti, was Pope from 1585 to 1590. ...

In philosophy Bonaventure presents a marked contrast to his contemporaries, Roger Bacon and Thomas Aquinas. While these may be taken as representing respectively physical science yet in its infancy, and Aristotelian scholasticism in its most perfect form, he brings before us the mystical and Platonizing mode of speculation which had already to some extent found expression in Hugo and Richard of St. Victor, and in Bernard of Clairvaux. To him the purely intellectual element, though never absent, is of inferior interest when compared with the living power of the affections or the heart. He used the authority of Aristotle in harmony with Scriptural and Patristic texts, and attributed much of the heretical tendency of the age to the attempt to divorce Aristotelian philosophy from Catholic Theology. Like St. Thomas Aquinas, with whom he shared numerous profound agreements in matters theological and philosophical, he combated the Aristotelian notion of the eternity of the world vigorously. But the Platonism he received was Plato as understood by St Augustine, and as he had been handed down by the Alexandrian school and the author of the mystical works passing under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. For the Nova Scotia premier see Roger Bacon (politician). ... Saint Thomas Aquinas (also Thomas of Aquin, or Aquino; c. ... Aristotle (Greek: Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... PLATO was one of the first generalized Computer assisted instruction systems, originally built by the University of Illinois (U of I) and later taken over by Control Data Corporation (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on. ... Hugh of St Victor (c. ... Richard of St. ... Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (Fontaines, near Dijon, 1090 – August 21, 1153 in Clairvaux) was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian monastic order. ... “Augustinus” redirects here. ... Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, also known as pseudo-Denys, refers to the anonymous theologian and philosopher of the 5th century whose Corpus Areopagiticum was falsely ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite of Acts 17:34. ...

Bonaventure accepts as Platonic the theory that ideas do not exist in rerum natura, but as ideals exemplified by the Divine Being, according to which actual things were formed; and this conception has no slight influence upon his philosophy. Like all the great scholastic doctors he starts with the discussion of the relations between reason and faith. All the sciences are but the handmaids of theology; reason can discover some of the moral truths which form the groundwork of the Christian system, but others it can only receive and apprehend through divine illumination. In order to obtain this illumination, the soul must employ the proper means, which are prayer, the exercise of the virtues, whereby it is rendered fit to accept the divine light, and meditation which may rise even to ecstatic union with God. The supreme end of life is such union, union in contemplation or intellect and in intense absorbing love; but it cannot be entirely reached in this life, and remains as a hope for futurity. The mind in contemplating God has three distinct aspects, stages or grades—the senses, giving empirical knowledge of what is without and discerning the traces (vestigia) of the divine in the world; the reason, which examines the soul itself, the image of the divine Being; and lastly, pure intellect (intelligentia), which, in a transcendent act, grasps the Being of the divine cause. For other uses, see Reason (disambiguation). ... Faith has two general implications which can be implied either exclusively or mutually; To Trust: Believing a certain variable will act a specific way despite the potential influence of known or unknown change. ... Christianity percentage by country, purple is highest, orange is lowest Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch... Mary Magdalene in prayer. ... Personification of virtue (Greek ἀρετή) in Celsus Library in Ephesos, Turkey Virtue (Latin virtus; Greek ) is moral excellence of a person. ... A large statue in Bangalore depicting Shiva meditating Meditation describes a state of concentrated attention on some object of thought or awareness. ... This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ... Contemplation comes from the latin root for temple, and means to enter an open or consecrated place. ... Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness. ... [[Image:Spes or Hope. ... Senses are the physiological methods of perception. ... The soul, according to many religious and philosophical traditions, is the self-aware essence unique to a particular living being. ...

To these three correspond the three kinds of theology-theologia symbolica, theologia propria and theologia mystica. Each stage is subdivided, for in contemplating the outer world we may use the senses or the imagination; we may rise to a knowledge of God per vestigia or in vestigiis. In the first case the three great properties of physical bodies—weight, number, measure,--in the second the division of created things into the classes of those that have merely physical existence, those that have life, and those that have thought, irresistibly lead us to conclude the power, wisdom and goodness of the Triune God. So in the second stage we may ascend to the knowledge of God, per imaginem, by reason, or in imagine, by the pure understanding (intellectus); in the one case the triple division—memory, understanding and will,--in the other the Christian virtues--faith, hope and charity,--leading again to the conception of a Trinity of divine qualities--eternity, truth and goodness. An epithet applied to God, most often by Christians, to express the unity of the Christian Godhead in a trinity of persons, literally meaning three-in-one God. ...

In the last stage we have first intelligentia, pure intellect, contemplating the essential being of God, and finding itself compelled by necessity of thought to hold absolute being as the first notion, for non-being cannot be conceived apart from being, of which it is but the privation. To this notion of absolute being, which is perfect and the greatest of all, objective existence must be ascribed. In its last and highest form of activity the mind rests in the contemplation of the infinite goodness of God, which is apprehended by means of the highest faculty, the apex mentis or synderesis. This spark of the divine illumination is common to all forms of mysticism, but Bonaventura adds to it peculiarly Christian elements. The complete yielding up of mind and heart to God is unattainable without divine grace, and nothing renders us so fit to receive this gift as the meditative and ascetic life of the cloister. The monastic life is the best means of grace.

Bonaventure, however, is not merely a meditative thinker, whose works may form good manuals of devotion; he is a dogmatic theologian of high rank, and on all the disputed questions of scholastic thought, such as universals, matter, the principle of individualism, or the intellectus agens, he gives weighty and well-reasoned decisions. He agrees with Albertus Magnus in regarding theology as a practical science; its truths, according to his view, are peculiarly adapted to influence the affections. He discusses very carefully the nature and meaning of the divine attributes; considers universals to be the ideal forms pre-existing in the divine mind according to which things were shaped; holds matter to be pure potentiality which receives individual being and determinateness from the formative power of God, acting according to the ideas; and finally maintains that the intellectus agens has no separate existence. On these and on many other points of scholastic philosophy the Seraphic Doctor exhibits a combination of subtlety and moderation, which makes his works particularly valuable. For the film Dogma, see Dogma (film) Dogma (the plural is either dogmata or dogmas, Greek , plural ) is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization, thought to be authoritative and not to be disputed or doubted. ... Albertus Magnus (b. ... Divine Nous or Divine Mind, according to the Pythagorean Theology, is similar to the noetic (intellect, understanding, reason) part of ones own soul (awareness of being), when the reasoning part of the mind has been quieted. ...

Namesakes

Ventura, California and Ventura County, California are named for Saint Bonaventure, as is Bonaventure, Quebec. Coordinates: Country United States State California County Ventura Mayor Carl Morehouse Area    - City 84. ... Ventura County . ... Bonaventure is a town on the Gaspé Peninsula in the Bonaventure Regional County Municipality of Quebec. ...

St. Bonaventure University, the largest Franciscan university in the English-speaking world is located in Olean, New York. St. Bonaventure's College is a private Roman Catholic school located in Newfoundland. And St. Bonaventure College and High School is located in Hong Kong. St. Bonaventure's Catholic Comprehensive School is located in Forest Gate, London. There is a church in Toronto, Ontario named for St. Bonaventure with a Catholic school next door of the same name. There is also a residence hall named for Saint Bonaventure at Bellarmine University. In Bristol, England there is a primary school and church named after him in Bishopston. In Calgary, Alberta there is a church named St. Bonaventure with a Catholic school next door of the same name. St. ... St. ... This article or section cites very few or no references or sources. ... Template:Hide = Motto: Template:Unhide = Diversity Our Strength Image:Toronto, Ontario Location. ... Catholic schools are education ministries of the Roman Catholic Church. ... This article is about the English city of Bristol. ... Calgary is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. ...

In Star Trek: The Animated Series there is a starship named the USS Bonaventure. Star Trek: The Animated Series is an animated science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. ... One of the fictional ships called the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, one of the most famous fictional starships. ...

References

Encyclopædia Britannica, the 11th edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...

External links

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Internet Guide to St. Bonaventure

Saints Portal

The Blessed John of Parma was Minister General (i. ... This is a list of the ministers general of the Order of Friars Minor; // Francis of Assisi (1210-1226) Johannes Parenti (1227-1232) 1st Minister general Elias of Cortona (1232-1239) 2nd Minister general Albert of Pisa (1239-1240) 3rd Minister general Haymo of Faversham (1240-1243) 4th Minister general... For broader historical context, see 1250s and 13th century. ... Events May 7 - In France the Second Council of Lyons opens to consider the condition of the Holy Land and to agree to a union with the Byzantine church. ... Pope Nicholas IV (Lisciano, near Ascoli Piceno, September 30, 1227 – April 4, 1292), born Girolamo Masci, was Pope from February 22, 1288 to April 4, 1292. ... Image File history File links Gloriole. ...