Clare's Influence on Bonaventure?

101 Franciscan Studies 62 (2004) CLARE’S INFLUENCE ON BONAVENTURE? Thirty-three years after St. Francis’s death, six years after Clare’s death,1 and two years after becoming the seventh General Minister, Bonaventure visited Mt. LaVerna in October 1259, seeking a place of peace and quiet in order to reflect more closely upon his Franciscan roots. The fruit of this experience is his celebrated The Journey of the Mind into God.2 The prologue introduces two images that combine to form the text’s organizing symbol: the seraph and the mirror.3 While the seraph clearly refers to Francis’s reception of the stigmata at LaVerna, the mirror imagery, so integral to the Itinerarium, suggests the influence of St. Clare, the Mirror Mystic, upon St. Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor.4 The close temporal and thematic proximity between their utilization of mirror imagery should avert suspicions that they are simply sharing a common inherited tradition. Although the Cistercian usage of the mirror as a metaphor for contemplation undoubtedly 1 Clare survived Francis by 27 years and along with Bernard (d. 1242), Angelo (d. 1258), Giles (d. 1261), Rufino (d. 1278) and Leo (d. 1278) would have been an invaluable source for later generations learning about Francis and the early form of the Franciscan life. 2 S. Bonaventurae opera omnia, vol. V, edited by PP. Collegii a S. Bonaventura (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1889), 293-316; hereafter Itinerarium, abbreviated Itin. English translation, Itinerarium mentis in Deum, translated by Zachary Hayes with introduction and commentary by Philotheus Boehner (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2002). 3 Along with the seraph/mirror imagery, Bonaventure also incorporates the imagery of the temple with its Mercy Seat accompanied by two Cherubim. Together these two images of the seraph/mirror and temple function as the two dominant symbols depicting the soul’s journey; see Bernard McGinn, “Ascension and Introversion in the Itinerarium mentis in Deum,” in S. Bonaventura 1274-1974, vol. 3, edited by Jacques Guy Bougerol (Grottaferrata: Collegio S. Bonaventura, 1974), 535-52. 4 I take the identification of Clare as the “Mirror Mystic” from Regis Armstrong, “Clare of Assisi: The Mirror Mystic,” The Cord (1985): 195-202; also see Karen Karper, “The Mirror Image in Clare of Assisi,” Review for Religious 51.3 (1992): 424-31; Timothy J. Johnson, “Visual Imagery and Contemplation in Clare of Assisi’s Letters to Agnes of Prague,” Mystics Quarterly 19.4 (1993): 161-72, reprint Greyfriars Review 8.2 (1994): 201217 ; Ingrid Peterson, “Clare of Assisi’s Mysticism of the Poor Crucified,” Studies in Spirituality 4 (1994): 51-78, especially 72-75; and Brian Purfield, Reflets dans le miroir: images du Christ dans la vie spirituelle de sainte Claire d'Assise (Paris: Editions Franciscaines, 1993). 102 JAY HAMMOND influenced both authors, Bonaventure also looks within his own Franciscan tradition and mines the rich imagery of Clare’s spirituality of the Christ-mirror.5 Thus, I propose that Clare’s unique understanding of the poor crucified Christ, as the perfect mirror of contemplation, influences Bonaventure’s fusion of the seraph with the mirror in the Itinerarium. Moreover, I postulate that it is Leo, Clare’s close friend6 and likely scribe7 who conveys her teaching directly to Bonaventure. To illustrate this connection, I will first examine the characteristics of Clare’s Christmirror imagery. Second, I will demonstrate that Leo informs Bonaventure about Clare’s Christ-mirror imagery during the time he was writing the Itinerarium. Third, I will propose that Bonaventure fuses Clare’s Christ-mirror imagery with the seraph symbol as he delineates the mind’s speculations found in the Itinerarium. Leo, a companion and scribe to both Francis and Clare, would be a ready and authoritative source for both images. Thus, at LaVerna Bonaventure converses with Leo about their shared spiritual roots, and so when he turns to contemplate the soul’s ascent into God, he turns to the images of his spiritual progenitors – Francis’s stigmata and Clare’s mirror – to describe a spiritual journey according to the seraph’s six wings that embody six mirrors that reflect six levels of illumination, which, according to Bonaventure, “no one rightly enters except through the Crucified.”8 This is...