§ 109. BONA VENTURA. 679
between the two parties which were contending in the Fran ciscan body and has been called the second founder of the order. By the instruction of the first Franciscan general council at Narbonne, 1260, he wrote the Legenda 8. Francisci, the authoritative Franciscan Life of the saint.1 It abounds in miracles, great and small. In his Qucestiones circa regulam and in letters he presents a picture of the decay of the Franciscans from the ideal of their founders. He narrowly escaped being closely identified with English Church history, by declining the see of York, 1265. In 1273 he was made cardinal-bishop of Albano. To him was com mitted a share in the preparations for the council of Lyons, but he died soon after the opening of the council, July 14, 1274. The sacrament of extreme unction was administered by the pope and the funeral took place in the presence of the solemn assembly of dignitaries gathered from all parts of Christendom. He was buried at Lyons.2 He was canon ized in 1482 and declared a " doctor of the church," 1587.
Gerson wrote a special panegyric of Bonaventura and said that he was the most profitable of the doctors, safe and reli able in teaching, pious and devout. He did not minister to curi osity nor mix up secular dialectics and physics with theological discussion.3 Dante places him at the side of Thomas Aquinas,
" who with pure interest Preferred each heavenly to each earthly aim."4
These two distinguished men will always be brought into companionship.5 Stockl, the historian of mediaeval theology,
^abatier, Vie de S. Francois, Ixxi.-lxxxviii., compares Bonaventura's life to the figures of saints exposed for sale on a dealer's shelves, all having a downcast, pious, but unreal look. The biography is given by Peltier, XIV. 293-363.
2 His body, it seems, was burnt by the Calvinists in 1562. Only the head was saved. The right arm had before been removed to Bonaventura's birth place. See Hergenrother. Kirchengesch., II. 529 ; Wetzer-Welte, 11.1022.
8 Qua veritatis sunt credenda de necessitate salutis. Du Pin's ed. of Gerson's Works, 1728, I. 21. See also Gerson's Epistola in laudem S. Bonaventurce. Du Pin's ed., I. 117.
4 Paradiso, XII. 127.
6 Sixtus V. in his encyclical admitting Bonaventura into the company of the Doctors of the Church places them side by side and brings out their dis-
680 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
calls them the illuminating stars on the horizon of the thirteenth century.1 Neither of them rose so high above his contemporaries as did Bernard a hundred years before. But both cast lustre upon their age and are the most illustrious names of their respective orders, after Francis and Dominic themselves. Thomas had the keener mind, excelling in power of analysis. Bonaventura indulged the habit of elaboration. The ethical element was conspicuous in Thomas, the mystical in Bonaventura. Thomas was the more authoritative teacher, Bonaventura the more ver satile writer. Both were equally champions of the theology and organization of the mediaeval Church.
Bonaventura enjoyed a wide fame as a preacher.2 He was also a poet, and has left the most glowing panegyrics of Mary in the form of psalms as well as in prose.
Of his theological writings the most notable is his Com mentary on the /Sentences of the Lombard.^ His Breviloquium and Centiloquium are next in importance. The Breviloquiumf which Funk calls the best mediaeval compend of theology, takes up the seven chief questions : the Trinity, creation, sin, the incarnation, the grace of the Holy Spirit, the sacramental medium, and the final state. The Preface gives a panegyric of the Scriptures and states the author's views of Scriptural interpretation. Like all the Schoolmen, Bona ventura had a wide acquaintance with Scripture and shows
tinguishing characteristics. He calls them potissimum gloriosi doctores — " those most illustrious teachers."
lSiesinddie beiden leuchtoiden Sterne am Horizont des ISten Jahrhunderts. Stockl, II. 882.
2 Peltier gives his sermons in vol. XIII. For his works on Mary, see section 130.
8 A number of the works once ascribed to Bonaventura are regarded as ungenuine, e.g. de six alis cherubim, de septem itineribus ceternitatis, etc. The Venetian ed. of 1751 and Bonelli discuss the authorship of the many writings associated with Bonaventura's name.
* Peltier's ed., VII. 240-343. Funk, Kirchengcsch., p. 354. An ed. was published by Hefele, 3d ed., Tubingen, 1861, and also Vicenza, 2d ed. Frei burg, 1881. Sixtus V. said of Bonaventura's theology that "nothing more fruitful for the Church of God " had appeared, Encyclical in Peltier's ed., L p. viii.