Klöster im Hochmittelalter

86 | Timothy J. Johnson
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. Therefore
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 revealed
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 creatures
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 intelligit
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 conformatur
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.