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PREFACE
It is difficult to express adequately my gratitude to the many people who have contributed to my work on Bonaventure. This work has been in progress for over fifteen years and has taken shape within several different communities of scholars in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. It has grown in the context of publishing projects, research in the United States and abroad, and national and international conferences. I hope that the following will at least acknowledge the majority of friends and colleagues without whose encouragement, inspiration, intellectual enrichment and critique this book would not have come to completion.
An initial debt of gratitude is due Robert Pollock, the great teacher of medieval philosophy at Fordham University, who opened for me the dynamic nature of Bonaventure's thought. In the early sixties Bill and Mary Louise Birmingham, then editors of Mentor-Omega Books, brought me in touch with the texts of Bonaventure by involving me in translation. Through them I came to work with the distinguished theologian Father Georges Tavard, A.A., and to profit from his extensive research in Bonaventure. At this time I met Jose de Vinck, the translator of some five volumes of Bonaventure's works. He not only shared with me his deep knowledge of Bonaventure, but also brought me in touch with Father Jacques Guy Bougerol O.F.M., who was then organizing several projects related to Bonaventure.
In 1968 I was invited by Father Bougerol to the Colloque Saint Bonaventure at Orsay, France, and began to work with him in his capacity as chairman of the International Bonaventure Commission for the celebration of the seventh centenary of the death of Bonaventure in 1974. This launched the long friendship and collaboration which he describes so graciously in his introduction to the present book. My debt to him is enormous, both personal and professional. Work on the commission brought me in touch with Father Ignatius Brady O.F.M., the eminent authority on Franciscan sources, of the Quaracchi research center (Florence-Grottaferrata). Through the years I have consulted him on many points; he has always responded with a graciousness matched only by the high level of his professional accomplishment. Early in my work I came in contact with Father John Quinn, C.S.B., the specialist in Bonaventure at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. Through the years I have been enriched both by his personal friendship and by his extraordinary technical knowledge of Bonaventure's thought. I am especially indebted to Father Jean Chatillon, of the Institut Catholique of Paris, the distinguished scholar of the twelfth century Victorines, for his encouragement at an early stage of my work and for his guidance in appreciating the Victorine influence on Bonaventure. In the case of these specialists and the others I mention in this preface, although indebted to them, I do not wish to imply that they would support wholeheartedly my interpretation of Bonaventure. For this I take full personal responsibility.
A major context for the development of this book has been the series of Conferences on Medieval Studies sponsored by the Medieval Institute of Western Michigan University. It was at one of these conferences, in 1968, that I presented my first paper on Bonaventure and the coincidence of opposites. In the succeeding years the central ideas of several of the chapters of this book were explored in papers I delivered at these conferences. I wish to express my gratitude to John Sommerfeldt and his staff for providing this excellent forum for scholars to share their research with others in the field for their critical evaluation. Recently these conferences have been rendered even more beneficial for my work by the special sessions organized by Paul Kuntz, of Emory University, and Marion Leathers Kuntz, of Georgia State University. Among the many fruitful associations that have emerged out of these medieval conferences, I would like to single out that with Grover Zinn, of Oberlin College, with whom now for many years I have shared a continued exploration of Bonaventure and the Victorines.
In the mid-sixties Father Michael Meilach O.F.M., editor of The Cord, showed interest in my work and published in his journal my first article on Bonaventure, and subsequently a number of other articles whose contents have been integrated into this book. I am grateful to him and to the editors of the following publications for their permission to use here material which I had previously published with them: Franciscan Studies, Etudes franciscaines, University of Toronto Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, S. Bonaventura 1274-1974, Atti del Congresso Internationale per il VII Centenario di San Bonaventura and Studies Honoring Ignatius Brady, Friar Minor.
In the later phase of my work I came in contact with Father Alfonso Pompei, O.F.M. Conv., of the Seraphicum in Rome and organizer of the International Congress on Bonaventure in Rome, 1974. I have been enriched by his deep understanding of Bonaventure as well as by his personal friendship and hospitality. I wish to single out in a special way Father Zachary Hayes O.F.M., of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and specialist in Bonaventure's theology. Although we worked independently for years, when we met in 1974, we found a great compatibility in our interpretation of Bonaventure. As I state in my first chapter, I am especially indebted to him for my understanding of Bonaventure's theological method. Also I am grateful for his reading the manuscript of the present book and offering detailed suggestions.
As a teacher I am indebted to my students, especially to those who have written doctoral dissertations at Fordham University under my guidance on subjects related to Bonaventure: Sister Lillian Turney, C.D.P., Father John Dourley, O.M.I., Leonard Bowman, Father Regis Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap., and Kevin Keane. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Susan Potters, of Columbia University, whose dissertation research on the coincidence of opposites in Dante's Paradiso clarified for me many points in Bonaventure. I am also grateful for her reading the manuscript of this book and making suggestions.
It would be too complicated to express here my gratitude to those who have influenced me in the areas of contemporary thought treated in this book. Concerning Teilhard and process thought, I have done that elsewhere in the book I edited entitled Process Theology. However, I would like to single out the area of world religions because of its importance in shaping my interpretation of the coincidence of opposites. In this area I am especially indebted to three friends of many years: Raimundo Panikkar, of the University of California at Santa Barbara; Robley Whitson, of the United Institute; and Thomas Berry, of Fordham University. They have opened for me the vast horizon of hermeneutics that emerges when one considers the religious experience of mankind. I am grateful to another colleague of mine at Fordham University, Jose Pereira, for many stimulating discussions from which I derived specific categories of interpretation related to world religions. Further clarification came from John Borelli, whose dissertation at Fordham made correlations between Bonaventure and a Hindu theologian.
My Bonaventure work has involved much travel and periods of time devoted exclusively to research. I am grateful to Fordham University for granting me a Faculty Research Fellowship for the fall of 1968 and for the academic year 1972-73. On this latter occasion I also received a Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies which made possible my spending the year as a resident scholar, along with my family, at the Ecumenical Institute for Advanced Theological Studies in Jerusalem. The Institute provided a most congenial community atmosphere and stimulating setting for theological research. In a very special way I am grateful to the international community of scholars there that year for the enrichment that came from sharing the results of their research and from their critical response to my work.
Further aid for travel to international meetings and conferences was provided by the American Council for Learned Societies and Fordham University. Research in Italy and France in 1970 was aided by a Faculty Research Grant from Fordham University and in France in 1971 by the American Philosophical Society.
In my travels in the United States and abroad, I have always been warmly welcomed at Franciscan houses. I would like to make special mention of Quaracchi, Grottaferrata and the Seraphicum, whose hospitality I have enjoyed on many occasions. I am also grateful for the assistance of Franciscan librarians, especially Father Romano Almagno O.F.M., former librarian of Quaracchi and Grottaferrata.
I am grateful to Father Mark Hegener O.F.M., managing director of Franciscan Herald Press, for publishing my book, and for his patience and that of his assistant Mark Mayer during the long period when it was reaching completion. The editorial task was made easier by the excellent work of Carolyn Gonzales in typing the manuscript.
Through the years of work on Bonaventure, I have felt a growing relation to the Franciscan tradition through study of its medieval spirituality and contact with many contemporary Franciscans. This relation was given a formal expression in 1970 in a ceremony of affiliation to the Holy Name Province of the Order of Friars Minor. For this affiliation and for my continued enrichment through the Franciscan tradition, I wish to express my deepest gratitude.
Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to my wife Kathryn and our children Hilary, Sara and Emily, to whom this book is dedicated and who shared my exploration into the Franciscan world on several camping trips across Europe and in travel in the Holy Land. In addition, I am grateful for the professional editorial assistance of my wife in bringing this book to completion and in preparing the index.
(One final note: because the manuscript for this book was prepared before my recent translation of Bonaventure's Itinerarium, Lignum vitae and Legenda maior was completed, I was unable to use this translation in the present text.)
Ewert H. Cousins Fordham University February 1, 1978