Saint Bonaventure's Journey of the Soul into God is one of the most important works in the Christian mystical tradition. In this volume, Randall Smith provides the first comprehensive commentary in English of Bonaventure's classic text. He situates the work within its historical, intellectual, and cultural contexts.
Saint Bonaventure's Journey of the Soul into God is one of the most important works in the Christian mystical tradition. Highly regarded for it clarity, rational organization, and subtle insights, it is also one of the key theological treatises of the high Middle Ages. In this volume, Randall Smith provides the first comprehensive commentary in English of Bonaventure's classic text. He situates the work within its historical, intellectual, and cultural contexts, showing how a consideration of Bonaventure's sources helps us appreciate his text. Smith also provides an extended analysis not only of the intellectual content of the Journey of the Soul into God, but also its structure and creative use of imagery. Analyzing how Bonaventure employed and adapted the methods of thirteenth century sermo modernus-style of preaching to produce a deftly condensed work, he demonstrates how his text is at once a profound work of mysticism as well as a sophisticated and thoughtful work of medieval theology.
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This book examines the historical, intellectual, and cultural context of the Itinerarium and provides a running commentary on the text.
Introduction: Part I. Background and Context of the Itinerarium:
1. Bonaventure, the Franciscans, and the Homiletic Revolution of the Thirteenth Century; Sermo Modernus-Style Preaching and the Itinerarium:
2. Recognizing the Divisions as the Framework of the Text;
3. Where Did Bonaventure Get His Divisions?;
4. Bonaventure and the Nine Choirs of Angels;
5. Dilatatio: Methods of 'Unfolding' a Sermon;
6. Imagery as a Structuring Device;
7. Leading the Mind Back and Up to God: The Reduction of the Arts to Theology and the Itinerarium; Part II. Commentary:
8. Looking Outside: The Preface and First Pair of Wings;
9. Looking Inside: The Second Pair of Wings;
10. Looking Above: The Third Pair of Wings and the Crucified Christ;
11. Concluding Remarks; Appendix: Analytic Outline of the Itinerarium.
Randall Smith is Full Professor in the Department of Theology at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. He is the author of five books, among them Aquinas, Bonaventure and the Scholastic Culture of Medieval Paris (Cambridge, 2021).
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