Preface

PREFACE Great works of erudition are conceived in moments of ecstasy, but often endure a difficult pregnancy and are delivered into a sceptical and unappreciative world. Only when they stand erect in the strength of full maturity is the achievement recognized and applauded. Such is the history of the Ockham edition. It is in institutes that great works of erudition are born. They too suffer sorrows and pain, but the works to which they give birth live after them. On July 15, 1990, the Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. Somewhat belatedly, in March of 1991, the Institute faculty voted to publish a commemorative volume of Franciscan Studies. We apologize that this volume has been so long in preparation. The task we had set ourselves was more difficult than we anticipated, for the records of the founders, who now view the scene of their endeavors from above and are inaccessible to all electronic communication, were scant and sometimes contradictory. The editor began his investigations with the convictions that the Institute was founded in 1940 and that only one man, Philotheus Boehner, O.F.M., really deserved the title of founder. In fact, he discovered that the Institute had anticipated the anniversary of its birth by two years, and that its origin was so complex that not one founder but three justly required recognition. The members of the Franciscan Institute today dedicate this volume to the memory of their illustrious predecessors. They do so with a great sense of awe for the magnificent vision of Thomas Plassmann and Mathias Faust, Franciscan friars who, representing St. Bonaventure College and the larger Franciscan world, dreamed of a center where the vast wealth of Franciscan theology, philosophy, spirituality, and history, a common heritage of all Franciscans, could be recovered, studied, taught, published, appreciated and shared: a center that would bring together Friars Minor, Conventuals, Capuchins, the Third Order, Regular and Secular, and the laity, on one faculty; a center where the Franciscan tradition could be shared with the world. They dedicate this volume to the memory of Philotheus Boehner, whose vast learning and humble Franciscan character brought to the Institute the divine and animating "spirit and life." They dedicate this volume to the memory of all the scholars and teachers who suffered so much to realize the dream—to Eligius Buytaert, Ignatius Brady, Innocent Darn, Francis Kelley, Juvenal Lalor, Duane Lapsanski, Kilian Lynch, George Marcil, Gaudens Mohan, and to all the research and teaching professors, external collaborators, administrators, librarians, and secretaries, living and dead, who have been the Institute. They dedicate this volume to the administrators of St. Bonaventure University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the English-speaking Conference of the Friars Minor, and to all their benefactors, without whom they could not have functioned. They dedicate this volume to the students, who shared the vision, and enriched by the Franciscan tradition, enriched that tradition throughout the world. Finally, they dedicate this volume with reverence and gratitude to their patrons, St. Francis and St. Bonaventure, and above all, to Our Lord Jesus Christ, the "one teacher of all." THE EDITOR November 1, 1995 ...