Klöster im Hochmittelalter

Place, Analogy, and Transcendence | 89
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 apprehend
in loco, quem posuit, the divine exemplar by means of analogy. Comprehension,
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 Bonaventure
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 transcendence
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, articulus
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.