Aelred of Rievaulx and the "Lignum vitae" of Bonaventure: A Reappraisal

AELRED OF RIEVAULX AND THE «LIGNUM VITAE" OF BONAVENTURE: A REAPPRAISAL In a recent article,1 Marsha L. Dutton presents generally overlooked evidence of the importance of Aelred of Rievaulx's De institutione inclusarum? as a source for the Lignum vitae3 of St. Bonaventure . She concludes that the originality of Bonaventure's series of meditations on the life of Christ has been greatly overestimated, and, at least by implication, that the work itself has been overvalued, because the extent of the author's dependence on Aelred has not been recognized. She accuses Bonaventure of being "disingenuous, intentionally misleading"4 in failing to acknowledge his reliance on Aelred, and claims that "in Bonaventure the passages borrowed from Aelred sometimes fit awkwardly"5 and that Bonaventure "failed to understand Aelred's concern for the contemplative's life and purpose, the yearning effort to come into union with God."* She concludes 1 "The Cistercian Source: Aelred, Bonaventure, Ignatius," in E. Rozanne Elder, ed., Goad and Nail, Studies in Medieval Cistercian History, 10 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1985), 151-78. The article is actually devoted almost completely to the relationship between Aelred and Bonaventure; the section on Ignatius mainly points out that Aelred's meditation was incorporated by Ludolph of Saxony into his Vita Christi, an important influence on Ignatius. 2 All quotations from this work will be taken from the critical text edited by C. H. Talbot and published in Aelredi Rievallensis Opera omnia, vol. 1: opera ascética, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaeualis, 1 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1971), 635-82. Quotations will be identified in the text by section and page numbers of this edition. 8 All quotations from this work will be taken from S. Bonaventura, Decern opuscula ad theologiam spectantia, ed. PP. Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 5th ed. (Quaracchi : Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1965), 137-80. Quotations will be identified in the text by section and page numbers of this edition. 4 Dutton 158. 8 Ibid. 171. 8 Ibid. 170. 54Patrick f. o connell by applying to Aelred and Bonaventure a passage from Aelred about gratitude to God: In men's opinion the graciousness of the giver and the good fortune of the recipient are so connected that they praise not only him to whom praise alone is due [sic], the giver, but also him who has received the gift. What does a man possess that he has not received? And if he has received freely, why is he praised as if he had deserved the gift?7 To this Dutton remarks tartly, "Well might he ask." Since my own research into the sources of the Lignum vitae* has led me to quite different conclusions, I would like to present here an alternative evaluation of the relationship between Aelred's work and that of Bonaventure. The first issue, that of plagiarism, is easily dismissed. Dutton maintains that by presenting "the forest of the holy gospel" as his source, Bonaventure is deliberately obscuring his debt to Aelred: "While the ubiquity of medieval plagiarism is a byword of medieval scholarship, this work is unusual in disguising its heavy reliance on an important source through apparent forthrightness of acknowledgement ."9 But such criticism is tendentious. In spiritual opuscula of a more discursive type, such as the De perfectione vitae and the Soliloquium, Bonaventure scrupulously records his sources. The reason he does not do so here is a matter of genre, not of "intentionally misleading" concealment. In the meditative approach of the Lignum vitae, which seeks to draw the reader into an imaginative participation in the events of the Gospel, repeated references to sources would be distracting and inappropriate. As for the reference to "sacri Evangelii silva" (Prol. 2; p. 137) as his source, it is certainly not an attempt to trick the unwary reader into thinking the author has relied exclusively on the scriptures, but simply an image (borrowed , incidentally, from another "hidden" source, St. Bernard's Sermones super cántica10), like that of the bundle of myrrh with 7 Ibid. 171. 8 "The Lignum Vitae and its Sources," Part II of "The Lignum Vitae of Saint Bonaventure and the Medieval Devotional Tradition," (Ph.D. dissertation, Fordham University, 1985) 101-85. 9 Dutton 158. 10St. Bernard, Sermones...