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BONAVENTURE: THE AESTHETIC SYNTHESIS St. Bonaventure describes the universe as a pulcherrimum carmen : "a beautifully composed poem in which every mind may discover, through the succession of events, the diversity, multiplicity, and justice, the order, rectitude, and beauty, of the countless divine decrees that proceed from God's wisdom ruling the universe."1 This comparison of the universe to a beautiful poem is not accidental, for Bonaventure discovers in the universe not only beauty but also meaning. The universe is God's poem; and as such it not only is, but also means. Nor is it accidental that the source of this comparison is St. Augustine.2 Bonaventure's view of the universe, of metaphysics, of ontology, of epistemology, is a profoundly aesthetic one, drawn from and building upon Augustinian concepts of beauty and significance . It will become clear, in what follows, that Bonaventure's aesthetic orientation is the force that knits together his ontology, his epistemology, and his metaphysics. I Augustinian aesthetic theory is based upon two ontological principles. The first of these is the principle of order: following Pythagorean and Platonic sources, Augustine considered number a constitutive principle of all things, finding canonical evidence for this principle in the Scriptural declaration that God created all things in measure, number, and weight.3 Taken together, these three principles are determinations of any being in the hierarchy of Creation, spe1 Brevil., prol. 2 (V, 204), trans. José de Vinck (Paterson, N. J.: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1963), p. n. References to the writings of St. Bonaventure use the more standard abbreviations. The numbers in parentheses refer to the volume and pagination of the Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1882-1902). 8 Ibid., p. 3i5n7. The reference is to St. Augustine, Epistolae, 138, 1:5. 8 Wis. 1 1-2 1. 234 DAVID E. OST cifying the creature's extent, kind, and matter.4 Even God, though infinite in extent and immaterial, is representable numerically as One and Triune. Numbers bear ordered relationships to one another; similarly, created entities, which have number as their constitutive principle, also bear such ordered relationships. And just as numbers have a relation to Number itself, so the being of created entities has a relation to the being of the Creator. Where these relationships (ratio, proportto) are disrupted, disorder results. In the aesthetic dimension, disorder manifests itself as ugliness; in the moral realm, as sin. The second principle is a principle of signification. The creature is not merely a creature; the creature is a sign that points to something beyond itself. Every creature, having an ordered, internal relationship to its Creator, exhibits this relationship in some way. The universe of things is also a universe of signs, whose ultimate significance is the Sign-Giver. Although Bonaventure sometimes suggests that the proper place to begin is in medias res, for there, in the center of things, Christ is to be found,6 the present project will begin at the proper place for neophytes: at that rung of the ladder of Being that rests upon the ground, at the level of the universe of things.6 There are three ways of considering any created thing: as it is in itself (modus), in relation to other things (species), and in relation to its end (ordo).7 The first way considers that a thing is; the second, what that thing is; and the third, that thing's location in the hierarchy of creation. Modus, species, and ordo are thus the epistemological correlates of Augustine's ontological principles of mensura, numerus, and pondus. The parallelism here between the order of being and the order of knowing is extremely important. Particularly important is the parallel between species and numerus, for this is the point of linkage between the realm of entities and the realm of knowledge. Bonaventure accepts an Aristotelian epistemology at the level of the universe of things: 4 By "extent," we mean that which constitutes a being as one; hence, its limitation. By "kind," we mean that it is one of a certain sort. By "matter," we mean the position in the hierarchy of the universe towards which that being tends. 8 Coll., I, ? (V, 329), trans. José de Vinck (Paterson, N...

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