A Structural Analysis of Bonaventure's Omnium artifex docuit me sapientia

Introduction

In the field of medieval studies, principia or inaugural sermons, sermons delivered at the ceremony which inaugurated a new master of theology, have recently received focused attention.¹ The new masters at the University of Paris preached these sermons in two parts. The first part typically offered a praise of Scripture and is known as a commendatio or commendation. When the master later resumed his preaching in a second part known as a resumptio or resumption, he often divided the canon of Scripture. Together these two parts form a sermon united at least by the occasion, if not also by topic, and known as a principium.

One newly discovered and edited inaugural sermon is Omnium artifex docuit me sapientia, delivered by Bonaventure at the University of Paris in 1254.² The commendation studies Scripture according to Aristotle's four causes, and the resumption divides the canon of the arts and returns it to God through Scripture. This sermon has a unique textual history in that, at some point, its resumption was separated from its commendation and became known under its own title, De reductione artium ad theologiam. The commendation was lost, but the Quaracchi editors document dozens of manuscripts of De reductione, a text which became regarded as Bonaventure's most important statement on the relationship of the arts and sciences to theology. Thus in reading Omnium artifex, scholars encounter not only Bonaventure's 1254 principium, but also the original context of De reductione, a context which has been missing for years.

As a result, a study of Omnium artifex may contribute to the final resolution of the controversy surrounding Bonaventure's authorship of De reductione. Dieter Hattrup has proposed Roger Bacon (d. 1292) as the author.³ In four articles published in 2009, Joshua C. Benson, Timothy J. Johnson, Jay M. Hammond, and Kevin L. Hughes convincingly responded to Hattrup's proposal,⁴ but two of Hattrup's theological challenges still remain. First, Hattrup argues that De reductione lacks the robust Christological mediation (i.e., that the metaphysical emanation of the lights or sciences from God flows through Christ) characteristic of Bonaventure's other texts. Second, Hattrup suggests that De reductione treats the secular sciences more extensively than theology, a seeming incongruity with Bonaventure's other works. Hattrup's theological concerns may be answered by considering the original context of De reductione.

At first glance, the two halves of the sermon appear to be totally unconnected. The first is a focused investigation of the four causes of Scripture, and the second half describes the secular sciences and then exegetes them allegorically, tropologically, and anagogically. The first half uses patterns of four, but the second half relies primarily on patterns of six (six sciences) and three (three spiritual senses). The first half does not seem to anticipate the second, and the second seems to be only loosely connected to the first as an expansion of the material cause of Scripture.

Are these two halves, so different in content and pattern, related? The answer to this question is essential to a proper interpretation of Omnium artifex and thus to evaluating the history of interpretation of De reductione. If the resumption is not intrinsically related to the commendation, then the commendation is unnecessary for a proper reading of the resumption, and interpretations like Hattrup's could stand. Further, the text as a whole can be called a sermon – and indeed, a text – only in an analogous fashion and would perhaps be better identified as two sermons or two texts.

To demonstrate the unity of the text and thereby respond to Hattrup's critique, I will examine the sermon's structure. Specifically, I propose that a pattern of ortus-modus-fructus unites and governs the sermon as a whole and its halves. Bonaventure's attention to and use of structure in his texts has been well documented.⁵ These patterns often illuminate Bonaventure's meaning. Although he does not explicitly identify the ortus-modus-fructus form in this sermon, there are textual clues that suggest that this pattern guides the text...