The Hidden Center. Spirituality and Speculative Christology in St. Bonaventure by Zachary Hayes, O.F.M. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 625 to anthropology in such wise that it loses the sense of the transcendent¥ (Doubtful). Is he writing to oppose the way in which Vatican II and its resultant reforms have affected the life of the ChurcM (More likely). I suspect that the actual hidden agendum of this work is the defense of metaphysical philosophy (the author is a philosopher, after all), and that ' God ' and ' Christ ' are code words, respectively, for the classical philosophical approach to truth through natural reason based on order and the dialectical approach to truth through history. If this is so, it is a legitimate purpose. But the cause which the author espouses is ill-served by the unfortunate choice of the metaphors ' God ' or ' Christ' to embody or carry his argument. Given his admission that the " observations" of excesses on which his work is based are drawn mainly from the Church in Western Europe and explicitly not from North America, one wonders why the publishers chose to bring out this work in translation. Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. ELIZABETH A. JOHNSON, C.S.J. The Hidden Center. Spirituality and Speculative Christology in St. Bonaventure . By ZACHARY HAYES, O.F.M. New York: Paulist Press, 1981. Pp. x and 225. $7.95. This study in the christology of St. Bonaventure and in the spirituality of the Seraphic Doctor is characterized not so much by any novelty which the author contributes to either field as by the clarity with which he presents the speculative and spiritual dimensions of Bonaventure's christology and .their harmonious blend. Hayes does not claim to resurrect and present a medieval synthesis as applicable to today's situation; rather he believes that a dialogue with an integral theological synthesis of the past can be instructive for the eontemporary search for a christology which need respond to the exegetical, doctrinal, spiritual, and cosmic demands of today 's theology. It is precisely the author's purpose, therefore, to disclose the major outlines of Bonaventure's reflections on the personal and spiritual experience of Christ and to examine these in relation to his doctrinal and speculative christological reflections and finally, and perhaps most important, to be attentive to the coherence of the two (page 4). Moreover, since Bonaventure's spirituality is essentially one of the imitation of Christ, Hayes considers Bonaventure's success at integrating the speculative and spiritual as particularly exemplary (page 5). The imitatioE.model of spirituality has often fallen prey to a simplistic process of moral- 626 BOOK REVIEWS izing, v-0id of any meaningful basis, but because Bonaventure's christology blends the metaphysical and ethical import of the Christian experience it offers values fundamental to an imitation of Christ. This is the value of Hayes's study, namely, his demonstration that what is imitable in Christ is such because of its perennial meaning in every person's relationship to self, world, and God. And the strength of Hayes's work lies primarily in chapters six and seven where he considers first (chapter six) the synthesis of Bonaventure's understanding -0f the imitation of Christ while it was being assaulted in the mendicant-secular conflict and secondly (chapter seven) the grounds for such an imitation, the reality of mankind's fulfillment and redemption in the person of Jesus Christ. The opening chapter of Hayes's work presents the groundwork of the author's purpose. After giving a general presentation of the basic elements of Bonaventurian metaphysics (emanation, exemplarism, and reduction ) and a description of his anthropology with a particular accent on the effects of sin, the author posits the need for Christ as the center of reality and history in which the metaphysical order can be deciphered and through whom the moral or historical order is rectified in grace. To use images characteristic of the Seraphic Doctor's thought, the center is in reality the guide (exemplar) along the journey, for Christ is the central point in the movement of the descent (emanation) of reality from God and in its ascent (reduction) to its origin. The second chapter begins with the simple affirmation that spirituality is the realization -0f an individual's ascent to God which amounts to...