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CHAPTER V

Christ the Center

In his doctrine of Christ the medium, or center, Bonaventure's theology of redemption coincides with his theology of creation. Christ the center reconciles man to God and brings creation to its fullness as expression of God. Thus in his notion of Christ the center, Bonaventure's Christology reaches its climax and his system attains its completion. Through this Christocentricity his vast theological edifice is capped with a second tower to balance that of his Trinitarian theology. The construction of this Christocentric tower proceeded gradually - from the sketchy designs found in his early writings, through the erection of the base structure in the Itinerarium, to its mature elaboration in the Collationes in Hexaemeron, delivered the year before his death. In this development of the doctrine of Christ the center, Bonaventure's understanding of the coincidence of opposites reaches its fullest realization. Not only is Christ seen as the greatest coincidence of opposites, as in the Itinerarium; but he is viewed as the center through whom all the opposites in reality are differentiated and held together. Thus all coincidences of opposites in the Trinity, in the world, and in the relation of God and the world are mediated through Christ the universal center.

Because Bonaventure's thought reaches such a point of integration and self-conscious expression in the doctrine of Christ the center, we can study this area both textually and systematically at the same time. Bonaventure has produced a single text, the first of the Collationes in Hexaemeron, which contains in a brilliantly graphic and synthetic form the mature elaboration of his Christocentricity.²⁹⁰ This piece sketches all the major dimensions of his theological-philosophical world view and studies each area analytically and systematically from the point of view of Christ the center. Furthermore, the coincidence of opposites permeates the entire selection, since Bonaventure's notion of medium or "center" involves a coming together of opposites in a midpoint. Our task, then, is clear: we will present an exposition of the first collatio, drawing into self-reflective consciousness the many types of coincidence of opposites therein contained. After completing this project, we will turn back and survey Christological themes from Bonaventure's other writings, seeing them in the light of the final development of his doctrine of Christ the center.

Christ in the Itinerarium

Before beginning our analysis of the first Collatio in Hexaemeron, it would be wise to recall Bonaventure's treatment of Christ as the coincidence of opposites in the Itinerarium.²⁹¹ For this latter work is the pivotal point in the emergence of his Christocentricity and of his consciousness of the coincidence of opposites. I believe that it is precisely the emergence into prominence of the image of Christ in the Itinerarium that makes Bonaventure aware of the coincidence of opposites in the Trinity and in God's relation to the world. In and through Christ, he eventually comes to see the coincidence of opposites everywhere. Struck by the coincidence of opposites in Christ, he becomes aware of the coincidence of opposites as the primordial structure of reality. It is not surprising, then, that when Bonaventure had his seminal insight into Francis' vision at La Verna, Christocentricity and a consciousness of the universal applicability of the coincidence of opposites begin to emerge simultaneously. It is not until fourteen years later, in the Collationes in Hexaemeron that the transition is made from Christ the greatest coincidence of opposites to Christ the center in whom all opposites coincide. But the germ of this full realization was, I believe, present in the Christ-image of the Itinerarium.

In the prologue of the Itinerarium, Bonaventure focuses on the image of Christ crucified, derived from the vision of the six-winged Seraph in the form of the crucified.²⁹² Immediately after sketching in a general way the symbolism of the six wings of the Seraph, he draws attention to Christ, who, he claims, is the road and the doorway into God. For Bonaventure there is no other road to God than through Christ crucified. Although Bonaventure gives primary place to Christ in his introduction, the mystery of Christ is not presented here according to the coincidence of opposites, nor does Christ become the pivotal point in the development of the first half of the Itinerarium. The first three chapters unfold according to the Trinitarian model of vestige and image, without any explicit systematic focus on Christ and without any heightened consciousness of the coincidence of opposites implicit in the Trinitarian model. It is only in Chapter Four that the image of Christ re-appears, this time as the one who lifts man up from his fallen state and restores his spiritual powers. The entire chapter is focused on Christ, the mediator and spouse of the soul. Finally at the climax of the chapter, the consciousness of the coincidence of opposites begins to emerge when Bonaventure speaks of Christ, "who is at one and the same time our Neighbor and our God, our Brother and our Lord, our King and our Friend, Word incarnate and uncreated Word, our Maker and our Re-maker, 'the Alpha and the Omega.' "²⁹³

Although the image of Christ as the coincidence of opposites surfaces here, it is not developed as the central theme. True, it ushers in the extended treatment of the coincidence of opposites in Chapters Five through Seven, which we analyzed above.²⁹⁴ But Bonaventure does not re-introduce Christ as the coincidence of opposites until the middle of Chapter Six, after he has made an extended presentation of the coincidence of opposites in the divine nature and the Trinity. In Chapter Five, Bonaventure turns his gaze to contemplate God in his unity through his name which is Being. He bids the reader gaze in admiration on his divine being, which is the first and the last, eternal and yet the most present, most simple and the greatest, most actual and most changeless, most perfect and without measure, supremely one and yet possessing all aspects of the multiplicity.²⁹⁵ Having been amazed at the coincidence of opposites in the divine essence, the reader turns his gaze to the Trinity and is overcome with wonder. For there he sees a remarkable coincidence of dynamic self-expression and intimate inter penetration: of supreme communicability with individuality of persons, supreme consubstantiality with plurality of hypostases, supreme similarity with distinct personality, supreme equality with ordered procession, supreme coeternity with emanation, supreme mutual intimacy with a sending forth.²⁹⁶

If we wondered at the coincidence of opposites in the divine nature and the Trinity, we will be struck with wonder when we turn our gaze to Christ and see in him the first principle joined with the last, God joined with man, the eternal joined with time-bound man, the most simple with the most composite, the most actual with the one who suffered and died, the most perfect and boundless one with the insignificant. If we wondered at the coincidence of plurality and unity in the Trinity, look at Christ in whom a personal unity exists with a trinity of substances and a duality of natures.²⁹⁷ When we gaze at Christ, in whom are joined "the first and the last, the highest and the lowest, the circumference and the center, 'the Alpha and the Omega,' the caused and the cause, the Creator and the creature,"²⁹⁸ we will be overcome with admiration and pass over to the stage of mystical contemplation which Bonaventure describes in his seventh chapter. Hence, the meditation on Christ as the coincidence of opposites is precisely the way to mystical elevation, because Christ is the way and the door, the ladder and the vehicle.²⁹⁹

Christ the coincidence of opposites plays a climactic role in the structure and dynamics of the Itinerarium. This dominant role is foreshadowed in the prologue, recalled in the middle of the treatise and rises into full prominence at the end. It is to be noted that the crescendo towards the climax mounts by way of our increased wonder at the coincidence of opposites in other spheres: namely, the divine nature and the Trinity. Although Bonaventure presents these other areas first, they are ordered to Christ as the coincidence of opposites. I believe that in the genesis of Bonaventure's thought the awareness of Christ as the coincidence of opposites has priority and is the source of the awareness of the coincidence of opposites in the other spheres. When Bonaventure does present Christ at the climax of the piece, he gazes upon him as the mystery of the greatest coincidence of opposites leading to the ecstasy of the seventh and final stage in the mind's ascent into God. Having arrived at the goal of the journey through Christ, Bonaventure does not retrace his steps and reexamine the early stages of the journey - the sense world and the soul - in the light of the mystery of Christ. The result is that, although in its beginning, middle, and end the Itinerarium is Christocentric, Christ the center is not the focal point around which all the successive stages are systematically ordered.

Christ the Center in Collationes in Hexaemeron

When we turn to the first Collatio in Hexaemeron, we find the very element that was missing from the Itinerarium. Through Christ the center Bonaventure organizes his entire world view, both in its general sweep and in all of its specific areas. Christ, who was depicted as the greatest coincidence of opposites in the Itinerarium, has become the universal center, uniting in himself as in a midpoint all the polarities of the divinity and the universe. This vision of Christ has a climactic position in Bonaventure's life and in the development of his thought; for it reaches expression the year before he died, when in the midst of intense philosophical-theological controversy, he delivered twenty-three lectures at the University of Paris. These lectures, under the title of Collationes in Hexaemeron or Lectures on the Six Days of Creation, contain Bonaventure's final statement of his vision. Covering the entire range of Christian belief, they express the mature synthesis of Bonaventure's thought, thus balancing the two syntheses, produced some twenty years earlier: the Commentary on the Sentences and the Breviloquium. The first of the Collationes in Hexaemeron functions as an overture to the entire series so that the picture of Christ the center developed there is intended to be the organizing principle of the whole. Thus the notion of Christ the center expresses the full flowering of Bonaventure's Christology and reveals the final Christocentric development of his thought. This mystery of Christ the center, which was present in germ in his early writings and which began to emerge in the Itinerarium, now fourteen years after its appearance has reached such a remarkable self-consciousness and integration that he can present it as the single focal point for viewing the entire expanse of reality.

The title of the first collatio is: Christus medium omnium scientiarum, Christ the Center of all the Sciences. In the systematic development of the piece, Bonaventure studies Christ the center of seven sciences: metaphysics, physics, mathematics, logic, ethics, politics, and theology. Thus Christ is a sevenfold medium: medium metaphysicum, physicum, mathematicum, logicum, ethicum, politicum, theologicum. It would be more accurate to say that Christ is the center of those areas of reality studied by these sciences. The sciences study the entire sweep of reality: metaphysics studies God, the act of creation, and exemplarity; physics and mathematics study the material world; logic, the laws of argument; ethics, the sphere of moral conduct; politics, laws in society and juridical judgment made on their observance; theology, the goal of the Christian life, union with God. Bonaventure then correlates the mysteries of God and salvation history to each of these sciences, seeing Christ as the center of each. Christ is the metaphysical center in his eternal generation; the physical center in his incarnation; the mathematical center in his passion; the logical center in his resurrection; the ethical center in his ascension; the political center in the final judgment; and the theological center in the heavenly reward.³⁰⁰

Bonaventure uses the Latin term medium, which reflects a wide spectrum of meaning. It signifies basically the middle, the midst, between extremes, thus the midpoint of a line or the center of a circle, or the middle term of a syllogism. As the root of such terms as "mediation" and "mediator," it implies the action of joining or reconciliating disparate parties. It is clear from the development of the text that Bonaventure intends this entire cluster of meanings.³⁰¹ As is typical of his use of supercharged images and words, he employs a term with a consistent basic meaning, allowing the distinct specifications to reveal themselves according to the changing context. In the light of Bonaventure's thought as a whole and of the first collatio in particular, it seems best in most cases to favor the single English translation of medium as center.

It is significant that Bonaventure uses the term medium in the collatio to express his most mature understanding of Christ as coincidence of opposites. The fact that he is the medium, the center, the midpoint means that opposites are reconciled in him. The notion of medium here emphasizes the fact that the specific type of coincidence of opposites that permeates Bonaventure's thought is that of the third major class we presented in the first chapter of this book, namely, the coincidence of mutually affirming complementarity.³⁰² As we will see graphically illustrated throughout the collatio, Christ stands at the midpoint reconciling in himself polar opposites. As eternal Word, he is the midpoint of the Trinity, the dynamic medium of the divine expressionism and the exemplarism of creation. As incarnate Word, he is the ontological midpoint between God and man - not, of course, a third being midway between God and man in a type of Arian subordinationism, but the point where the divine and the human are united and yet retain their identity. As mediator between God and man, he overcomes sin and reconciles mankind to God; and as the vehicle of our ascent to God, he draws us back to union with the Father. In Christ the medium, opposites are not absorbed into an all-encompassing unity, nor does one dominate and swallow up the other. Rather they remain as opposites precisely because of Christ the medium, sustaining their differentiation at the same time he effects their union. Since I believe this is of paramount importance for understanding Bonaventure's thought, we will return to it again when we make an extended systematic analysis of the types of coincidence of opposites in Bonaventure and when we compare him to others, especially in our comparison with Nicholas of Cusa.³⁰³

Christ the Metaphysical Center

In developing his theme in the first collatio, Bonaventure first considers Christ as the medium metaphysicum and grounds his consideration in the generation of the Son from the Father. As medium metaphysicum the Word embodies three types of the coincidence of opposites: The first is concerned with the Trinity itself; the second with the Trinitarian basis of creation; and the third with knowledge.

First, within the Trinity itself, Bonaventure considers the Son as the persona media Trinitatis:

This must necessarily be the center of the persons: for if there is a person who produces and is not produced and a person who is produced and does not produce, there must necessarily be a central person who is produced and produces.³⁰⁴

This analysis views the Son as performing a mediating function within the Trinitarian life, linking the productive and receptive aspects of the deity. For the Father is the generating source, the fontalis plenitudo, the principium originans. At the opposite pole, the Holy Spirit is the person who is produced and does not produce, and hence can be called spiratio passiva. As Bonaventure observes, between these poles, there must be a persona media, who contains the opposites within himself and thus holds the poles in union. This medium is the Word, who is produced and produces. This type of coincidence is that of complementary opposites; the productive and receptive are complementary aspects of the divinity. Of course, the receptive does not imply limit or potency, but here refers to a pure perfection which is had in its absolute form in the divinity. In God are reconciled the opposites of absolute productivity and absolute receptivity. They are reconciled, but not merged. This is accomplished by the persona media, who acts as the unifying force of the opposites and the intensification of their differences. Hence one opposite does not resist the other, or absorb the other, or subordinate the other. They are held in absolute and eternal tension - eternally secure in their autonomy, yet nourished by their very differences. Thus by the union of opposites in the persona media, absolute unity and difference are achieved in the totality.

The view of the Word as persona media, uniting the polar aspects of the Father and the Spirit, may seem static. The coincidence of complementary opposites, like the coincidence of the maximum and the minimum, seems to have a static aspect. Yet Bonaventure's thought is alive with dynamism. As we saw above, his most profound view of the Trinity is that of the dynamic good which is infinitely self-diffusive. This diffusion takes place by the divine expressionism, in which the Father expresses himself in his perfect image the Son, who becomes the medium for the emanation of the Spirit, who completes the Trinity.³⁰⁵ Thus the Word is the medium, not only the midpoint, but the dynamic means through which the Father objectifies himself and through which he returns to himself in the union of the Spirit. Thus there is with the Trinity a dynamism of emanation and return, which is mediated in the Son, who is the ground of both. This emanation and return in the Trinity becomes the archetypal ground for all emanation and return in the case of the created world. Thus within the Trinitarian life, the opposites of emanation and return are reconciled dynamically in the Word.

God and the World

The Trinitarian life is viewed by Bonaventure as the ground for the second level of the coincidence of opposites. This level is concerned with the coincidence of God and creation: the infinite and the finite, the absolute and the relative, the unchanging and the changing, the eternal and the temporal, the one and the many. How are these opposites joined? Once again it is the Word as the medium metaphysicum. Just as he is the medium uniting the opposites in the Trinity, so he is the medium uniting the opposites of the Creator and the creature. It is precisely in his eternal generation from the Father, that the Son reconciles the opposites of the infinite and the finite. For in generating the Son, the Father produces in the Son all that he can create:

For the Father from eternity generated the Son, similar to himself; and he expressed himself and his own likeness, similar to himself; and in so doing he expressed all his power. He expressed what he could do and especially what he willed to do; and he expressed all things in him, that is, in the Son or in that very center of his art.³⁰⁶

Bonaventure sums up his position in the compact statement: "Therefore the Word expresses the Father and the things that were made through him [the Word]."³⁰⁷ As the eternal generation is the basis of expressionism in the Trinity, so it is the basis of exemplarism in creation. The eternal generation provides the theological foundation and philosophical articulation for Bonaventure's vision of the theophanic universe. His most basic religious experience is that of theophany. He is aware of the presence of God in all things, and he contemplates the reflection of God throughout the universe. This religious experience of theophany, or hierophany, is, as Eliade has indicated, precisely an awareness of the coincidence of opposites: the sacred and the profane, the eternal and the temporal.³⁰⁸ Bonaventure's analysis of the metaphysical roots of hierophany leads him to the Word, in whom the opposites coincide. For all temporal things have an eternal existence in the eternal Word. In him the temporal and eternal are united; in him the opposites coincide. Hence both the religious experience of hierophany and its philosophical articulation reveal the logic of the coincidence of opposites.

As was the case in the Trinity, the coincidence of opposites does not produce a static balancing of the scales of being. Rather it inaugurates a dynamic process. In the eternal generation, in which the rationes aeternae are produced in the Word, the absolute and the relative coincide from the side of the absolute. However, in temporal creation, where the rationes aeternae are embodied in space and time, the relative and absolute coincide from the side of the relative. But the form created in time is so embedded in its ratio aeterna that it is swept up in a dynamic return to its source. Hence the entire universe is en route; the cosmos is pursuing an itinerarium in Deum. Since the Word is the medium uniting the eternal and the temporal, he embodies within himself another coincidence of opposites: namely the Alpha and the Omega. All things emanate from him; and since he is the eternal exemplar of the temporal, all things return through him to the unity of the Father; for, as Bonaventure says, "The Word . . . leads us to the unity of the Father, who draws all things together."³⁰⁹

Bonaventure quotes Christ's statement: "I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world. Again I leave the world and go to the Father."³¹⁰ Similarly, observes Bonaventure, each one should say:

Lord, I have gone forth from you, who are supreme; I come to you, who are supreme, and through you, who are supreme. This is the metaphysical center that leads us back, and this is our whole metaphysics: emanation, exemplarity and consummation; that is, to be illumined by spiritual rays and to be led back to the supreme height. Thus you will be a true metaphysician.³¹¹

In the dynamic movement of creation, the opposites of emanation and return coincide in the Word, who is the Alpha and the Omega. Thus in the Word is had the reconciliation of motion and rest, of eternity and time, of the static and the dynamic, of the flux of history and the solidity of the eternal forms, of process and the eternal ground, of the way out and the way back, of the way down and the way up. Emanatio and reditus are united in the Word; for he is the persona media Trinitatis, who is the means of the Father's outgoing self-expression and the return in the unity of the Spirit. Thus through its reflection of the Word as its exemplar, the entire cosmos shares the dynamic interpenetration of opposites of its Trinitarian archetype.

Christ and the Mind

Although all the world shares in the coincidence of opposites, this is true of the human mind in a special way. First, the mind of man is turned as a mirror towards the external world, and in its knowing processes is related to the external world as subject to object, as microcosm to macrocosm. But man's mind is also a mirror turned upward to God. As image of God, man reflects God and is related to him with the polarity of subject to subject. In the realm of subjectivity there is a coincidence of interpenetration. God is more intimate to me than I am to myself. When I discover his presence in me, or my presence in the divine mind, I realize what is most real about me. The medium of both of these types of coincidence of opposites is the Word himself. For he is the ground of the conformity between the objective structures of the eternal world and my own mind. As archetype of creation, he is the single source from which flow both the objective world and subjective mind. Hence, when I know with certitude, I grasp the objective structures of the external world in their unifying ground in the eternal Word. Thus the Word becomes the medium uniting the microcosm of my mind and the macrocosm of the external world. The Word is the 'interior teacher', illumining all minds. He is the changeless light that flashes in my mind when I grasp truth. Hence Bonaventure calls the Word truth itself:

Therefore that center is truth; and it is established according to Augustine and other saints that 'Christ, having his chair in heaven, teaches imvardly'; nor can any truth be known in any way except through that truth.³¹²

In human knowledge the absolute and the relative, the changeable and the unchangeable, light and darkness coincide in a remarkable way. Only alluding to this in the first Collatio in Hexaemeron, Bonaventure had developed it at greater length in the disputed questions De scientia Christi and in the sermon Christus unus omnium magister.³¹³ The human mind is changeable and fallible; truth is unchangeable and infallible. In the act of certain knowledge, we grasp the eternal, unchangeable, infallible truth, although we ourselves remain finite. While we do grasp the eternal light we see now only in a glass darkly. What mediates this coincidence of opposites in knowledge? It is the uncreated Wisdom which is Christ: "Such a light is not the light of created intelligence but of uncreated Wisdom, which is Christ."³¹⁴ Thus Bonaventure's doctrine of illumination is seen to contain the logic of the coincidence of opposites. Perhaps more than any other position of Bonaventure, his epistemology of illumination has suffered from being approached through discordant models. Frequently it is viewed from the difference model, in which opposites do not coincide; and hence it is judged to lack an adequate foundation or logical coherence. We believe that by approaching Bonaventurian illumination through the model of the coincidence of opposites of complementarity, one can see how it is grounded in the metaphysics of exemplarism and how it contains within itself an impressive logical consistency.

The Word Incarnate

Having seen the types of coincidence of opposites in creation, we turn now to the coincidence of opposites in the Incarnation and Redemption. In his Incarnation, Christ is the medium physicum, uniting the polar opposites of being: the highest and the lowest, the divine and matter - united through the microcosm of human nature in the hypostatic union.³¹⁵ By uniting the lowest to the highest, he brings the cosmos to the heights.³¹⁶ He becomes a center of radiating energy. Like the sun in the macrocosm and the human heart in the microcosm, he is an energizing center - the head of the mystical body, diffusing the energies of the Spirit throughout his members who are united to him. Thus as medium physicum, Christ is seen in his positive cosmic role: he brings the cosmos to its fullness by uniting the maximum and the minimum through the hypostatic union and he brings about the coincidence of the one and the many through his dynamic activity, sending out spiritual energy and uniting his members to himself.³¹⁷

Bonaventure considers Christ the medium mathematicum in his crucifixion. As the mathematician measures the earth, which for the medievalist stood at the lowest level of the universe, so Christ plumbed the depths of earthly existence. Bonaventure is here expressing the kenotic aspect of the Redemption, in which the divinity empties itself assuming the form of a slave.³¹⁸ The Son of God became lowly, poor, insignificant. He took up our clay and went not merely to the surface of the earth, but to the depths of its center; for after his crucifixion he descended into hell and restored the heavenly dwellings.³¹⁹ Thus Christ becomes the coincidence of opposites uniting the heights and the depths. From a dynamic point of view, the opposites coincide; for the way down becomes the way up. By going to the depths of the earth, Christ unites the depths to the heights. Man had lost his center. Although as a mathematician he could measure other things, he could not measure himself. He had lost his center of balance; he had no fulcrum. Clouded with pride, he worked his own destruction. But Christ plunged into suffering on the cross; he cut through human pride and worked out man's salvation in the ashes of humility. Through the cross, Christ locates man's lost center. As Bonaventure says: "For when the center of a circle has been lost, it can be found only by two lines intersecting at right angles."³²⁰

Christ and Satan

By going through the suffering of the cross, Christ reveals himself as the medium logicum in his resurrection. In the mystery of the cross, Christ confronts evil on its own grounds and comes away victorious. Bonaventure sees Christ confronting Satan in a type of cosmic quaestio disputata.³²¹ The opposites are joined, not in union but in combat. The two logics are opposed. Innocence confronts sin; good argues with evil. In the clash of good and evil, we see the most subtle and deceptive of the coincidence of opposites. For good and evil are related not as maximum and minimum, nor as microcosm-macrocosm, nor as complementaries - but rather as contraries: that is, evil is the negation of the good, but always retains an aspect of the good, although distorted, as its ontological foundation. Hence evil is the dark side of the good, or the shadow of the good. This is the basis for another coincidence of opposites: that of illusion and reality. Evil is deceptive; it appears to be good. It tempts one because it promises pleasure and benefits; but in reality, it brings the opposite - unhappiness and destruction. Hence Satan could use his deceptive logic on man. As his major premise he presupposed a true proposition: All men should desire to be like God because they are his image. But Satan's minor premise was false: If you eat, you will be like God. He promised life and gave death; he promised happiness and gave destruction. Man was overcome in his confrontation with Satan, for he was deceived by Satan's logic. Now Christ enters the debate; as ultimate reality and ultimate truth, Christ can deceive the deceiver and overcome the illusion of evil.

Christ becomes the middle term of a cosmic syllogism. Previously the extremes were not united; man and God were separated by sin. The Word unites the extremes in his person through the hypostatic union, but this means that he must take up suffering and death. He must be similar to man if he is to make man similar to God. As Son of the Father, he possessed the divine nature, equal power and immortality. Yet as man he took up their opposites: suffering, weakness and death. But since he is Life itself, he leads humanity through death to life. Satan used the coincidence of opposites, promising life and giving death; Christ also used the coincidence of opposites, taking up death and pushing it to its ultimate to draw from it newness of life. Bonaventure describes Christ's logic as follows:

The major proposition was from eternity, the minor on the cross and the conclusion in the resurrection. The Jews believed they had confounded Christ, and they taunted him: "If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross" (Mt. 27:40). Now Christ did not say: Let me live. Rather he said: Let me assume death and be linked with the other extreme, to suffer and to die. And then the conclusion follows. And so he tricked the devil.³²²

Having shattered the hold of evil, Christ can lead man on his return back to the Father. On the return Christ is first the medium ethicum in his ascension. Bonaventure uses the symbol of Moses' ascent of the mountain to illustrate the progress one should make in the life of virtue.³²³ Having climbed from the foot of the mountain to its summit, man must stand before Christ as the Judge. Here Christ is the medium iudiciale or politicum, since he renders judgment and determines reward and punishment.³²⁴ Finally, he is the medium theologicum in eternal happiness. For the Word is the persona media of the Trinity, and from him is derived all happiness.³²⁵ Having begun from the Word as persona media in the Trinity, we return through this medium, which is also our goal. Here at the end of the cosmic process, we return to our source; the Omega is revealed as the Alpha; the end is the beginning.

Summary of Coincidence of Opposites

As we look back over the cosmic vision painted in this collatio, we can see, first, several types of coincidence of opposites; secondly, that these are related in a dynamic way so as to become moments in an on-going process; thirdly, that Christ himself is the greatest coincidence of opposites, who integrates in himself all opposites and draws them to their completion and ultimate reconciliation.

In the Trinity we saw the coincidence of the static and dynamic: for the Word, as persona media Trinitatis, coincides with the Word as dynamic expression of the Father, through whom emanation and return are mediated in the Trinitarian life. Again it is through the Word that the coincidence of opposites is mediated in the mystery of creation. In the Word, in whom are produced the rationes aeternae, we have the ground for the union of the eternal and the temporal, the maximum and the minimum; and hence we have the metaphysical basis for Bonaventure's doctrine of exemplarism. Yet, from this point of view, exemplarism might appear static. However, the static aspect coincides with the dynamic, for the Word is also the Alpha and the Omega of the cosmic process. Just as the Trinitarian emanatio and reditus flowed through the Word, so the Word, as the Ars Patris, is the source of the emanation of temporal creation and, as divine Exemplar, he is the Omega drawing the cosmic process to its completion and return to the Father.

It is in the Word incarnate that creation reaches its highest perfection. For in Christ are united the polar opposites of divinity and matter in the microcosm of human nature. What appears as a union of static perfection becomes a cosmic force; for when Christ enters the cosmic process, he not only stands as the highest perfection on the scale of being, but also is a center of radiating energy drawing all things to himself. While, on the one hand, he brings the cosmos to its physical perfection, on the other, he has taken upon himself all the imperfections and suffering of a finite world burdened with sin. He has entered into the very depths of the universe, into the ashes of humility. But the way down paradoxically becomes the way up, for out of the destruction of death comes the glorified life of the resurrection. Since Christ has plunged into the depths of the struggle of the opposites of good and evil and emerged victorious, he can draw the cosmic process to its completion and bring man through a virtuous life and final judgment to eternal happiness.

Christological Opposites

Having seen Bonaventure's Christocentric vision in its mature expression in the first Collatio in Hexaemeron, we will now analyze in greater detail the chief types of the coincidence of opposites in his Christology. We will isolate the different types and study systematically their inner structure and interrelation. Taking our point of departure from Bonaventure's mature vision in the collatio, we will range back over his earlier writings drawing material that will clarify the development of the coincidence of opposites in his thought and that will indicate how his mature vision was foreshadowed in the earlier periods. We will focus here on the specifically incarnational coincidence of opposites since we dealt systematically with the Trinitarian coincidence in the previous chapter. We must bear in mind, however, that since the incarnate Word is also the eternal Word, the coincidence of opposites in the mystery of the Incarnation is rooted in the Word as the persona media of the Trinity, the Art of the Father and the eternal Exemplar of creation.

Bonaventure's treatment of Christ as incarnate Word embodies three major types of the coincidence of opposites: (1) cosmological, (2) soteriological, and (3) mystical. In the cosmological, Christ unites in his being the polar spheres of reality: the uncreated and the created, the eternal and the temporal, the highest and the lowest. In the soteriological, he frees man from the power of evil; by entering into its logic of evil, he transforms destruction into creativity, bringing life out of death. The redemptive process leads to the mystical coincidence of opposites. As mediator and redeemer Christ leads the soul in its mystical ascent into God. This cosmological-soteriological-mystical coincidence of opposites can be studied through two basic religious symbols found throughout the world, both among primitive peoples and in developed cultures: the axis mundi and the mandala. The axis mundi is a cosmic pillar linking together heaven, earth, and the underworld. The mandala is a geometric design with a center, a circle or square and cross, which is used in ritual and meditation as a symbol of total integration. Drawing from the research of Mircea Eliade, in this section we will use the axis mundi as a way of understanding Bonaventure's Christological coincidence of opposites. In the following chapter, we will study Christ as the center of the mandala, basing ourselves on the research of Jung, Eliade, and Tucci.³²⁶

Eliade describes the axis mundi as follows:

This communication [between levels] is sometimes expressed through the image of a universal pillar, axis mundi, which at once connects and supports heaven and earth and whose base is fixed in the world below (the infernal regions) . . . around this cosmic axis lies the world (our world), hence the axis is located 'in the middle,' at the 'navel of the earth'; it is the Center of the World.³²⁷

In the first Collatio in Hexaemeron, we have a graphic example of Christ as axis mundi. As medium physicum, Christ stands at the center, linking God and creation; as medium mathematicum and medium logicum, Christ goes not only to the earth, but to the underworld. He encounters evil and Satan. In the cosmic struggle between good and evil, he emerges victorious. He has entered into the depths of evil, has unmasked its deception, has transformed death to life and so restores the heavenly dwellings. Christ is seen as the great mathematician who restores the cosmic order - not by a simple external measurement, but by entering into the very depths of the cosmos to right its axes and to bring the human spirit to its center. Although Christ as axis mundi has restored the cosmic harmony and has provided a center for the integration of the universe, each soul must go through the cosmic process on its return to the Father. As medium ethicum, politicum and theologicum, Christ leads the soul through death and resurrection into union with the Father. As axis mundi, Christ is the road, the doorway, the vehicle of our ascent from the depths of fallenness to the heights of glory. The notion of Christ as axis mundi - along with all of the forms of the coincidence of opposites therein contained - is based on the hypostatic union. The union of the human and the divine natures in the person of the Word is a first principle supporting the coincidence of opposites structure of Bonaventure's Christology. He studied the mystery of the hypostatic union at great length in his Commentary on the Sentences and in a highly condensed way in the Breviloquium.³²⁸ Although the hypostatic union is the base of the coincidence of opposites, Bonaventure does not treat it systematically from that perspective in his early writings; yet foreshadowings of the later perspective are not lacking. The essence of his understanding of the hypostatic union is expressed in the following passage from the Breviloquium:

The Incarnation was brought about by the Trinity, through whom the Godhead assumed flesh, and a union was accomplished between Godhead and flesh in such a way that the assuming was not only of the material flesh, but also of the rational spirit in its three functions, vegetative, sensitive, and intellective; and that the union occurred through oneness, not of nature, but of person; not of a human person, but of a divine; not of any [divine] Person indifferently, but of the Word alone, in whom the oneness is so absolute that whatever may be said of the Son of God may be said of the Son of Man, and vice versa; excepting, however, such matters as designate the union itself or imply some contradiction.³²⁹

Three Types of Cosmological Opposites

As the union of God and man, the incarnation involves three types of the cosmological coincidence of opposites: (1) maximum-minimum, (2) microcosm-macrocosm, and (3) Alpha-Omega. The first is based on ontological hierarchy, with the highest joined to the lowest; the second is based on similarity of structure: e.g., man is the microcosm who recapitulates or contains within himself the elements of the universe as a whole. The third is based on time or origin, and implies that the beginning is the end. In Christ all three types interpenetrate in such a way that they embody the highest form of the coincidence of opposites.

In the incarnate Christ the maximum is joined with the minimum, for the hypostatic union unites the person of the Word with human nature, which includes within itself material nature. Thus the maximum in the realm of being - that is, the divinity - is joined in an intimate union with the least substance. This union of the divinity and matter in Christ then becomes a microcosm reflecting the macrocosm of the entire universe, for God is present in the entire universe, even in the least particle of matter. According to Bonaventure, man is a microcosm reflecting all the levels of creation; hence he is a type of the coincidence of opposites, since matter and spirit are joined in him. Thus in the incarnate Christ two types of the coincidence of opposites converge: the maximum-minimum of creator-creature and the microcosm-macrocosm of human nature itself. This produces a new microcosm-macrocosm in Christ, who is the greatest reflection of all the levels of reality, because in him there is a hypostatic expression not only of the union of matter and spirit, but of the divinity as well. This union of the maximum-minimum with the microcosm-macrocosm produces the third type of the coincidence of opposites, Alpha-Omega; for Christ is the primary and ultimate reality in the universe, the beginning and the end, the Exemplar from which all things are derived and the goal to which they are striving.

The theme of microcosm-macrocosm is developed by Bonaventure in the third book of the Commentary on the Sentences.³³⁰ He considers the question whether it was more appropriate for the hypostatic union to take place in man than in the universe as a whole or in an angel. He concludes that it was more appropriate in man because man is the microcosm, or as Bonaventure says, the minor mundus, a little world summing up in himself the larger world. It is precisely the fact that man is the microcosm that gives the Incarnation its special value as representing the universe, for in man there is a greater representation of the universe than in the angels. Bonaventure writes:

For the rational soul represents God not only as it is considered in itself, but insofar as it is united to the body, which it rules and in the totality of which it dwells, just as God does in the larger world; and Augustine says this many times. By reason of this greater similarity, there is a greater basis for union . . . Because man is composed of bodily and spiritual nature, and in a certain fashion has something in common with every creature, as Gregory says, it follows that when human nature is assumed and deified, in a certain fashion every nature is exalted in it when it is united to the Deity in what is similar to it.³³¹

Since man is the center of the world of creatures, in whom matter and spirit are united, when the eternal Word assumes flesh in human nature, he joins the maximum and the minimum at the midpoint of creation. He thus enters into the microcosm-macrocosm structure of the universe and transforms it into a more striking coincidence of opposites and more profound centering. The incarnation thus brings the Trinitarian expressionism and exemplarism to its ultimate realization: the hypostatic expression of the divine in matter through man the microcosm. As theophany in matter Christ reveals the theophanic nature of the created world, even in its lowest and most insignificant stratum of matter. The incarnate Christ manifests the mystery of the coincidence of opposites that is found in the very depths of the material world. Thus by contemplating Christ as the Verbum incarnatum, we are brought to make a reductio, by which we are led back to the Verbum increatum, where once again we find the world of the many mysteriously united to the Godhead in the divine ideas.

By reason of his discreteness, Christ is the microcosm in comparison with the entire universe. Yet by reason of intensification, he is the macrocosm - the greatest of all realities, the maximum manifestation of the divinity. By this reversal of opposites through the concept of intensity, Christ becomes the Alpha and Omega. By uniting the maximum and the minimum and the microcosm-macrocosm in the intensity of the hypostatic union, Christ is seen as the model in which the universe has been made, the goal of divinization to which it is going and the vehicle by which it will make its passover. By this reversal of opposites we arrive at the metaphysical ground in Bonaventure's exemplarity where he approximates the Scotist position on the primacy of Christ in creation. Since Christ is the Alpha and Omega, all of material creation points to Christ and tends to Christ.³³² In the De reductione artium ad theologiam, Bonaventure writes:

Again, the natural tendency in matter is so ordained toward intellectual causes that the generation is in no way perfect unless the rational soul be united to the material body. By similar reasoning, therefore, we come to the conclusion that the highest and noblest perfection can exist in this world only if a nature in which there are seminal causes, and a nature in which there are intellectual causes, and a nature in which there are the ideal causes are simultaneously combined in the unity of one person, as was done in the Incarnation of the Son of God. Therefore all natural philosophy, by reason of the relation of proportion, predicates the Word of God begotten and become incarnate so that he is the Alpha and the Omega, that is, he was begotten in the beginning and before all time but became Incarnate in the fullness of time.³³³

All of the universe is hierarchical, pointing and moving towards Christ, the maximum coincidence of opposites. Bonaventure calls Christ the supreme Hierarch, the Alpha and the Omega, who leads us to perfection:

. . . Jesus, who is at one and the same time our Neighbor and our God, our Brother and our Lord, our King and our Friend, Word incarnate and uncreated Word, our Maker and our Re-maker, "the Alpha and the Omega," who is also the supreme Hierarch, who purifies, enlightens, and perfects his spouse, that is, the whole Church and every sanctified soul.³³⁴

The combination, then, of these three types of coincidence of opposites produces the notion of Christ the center. The logic proceeds as follows: Christ as maximum-minimum is united with human nature, which itself is a microcosm, and thus there is produced a supreme microcosm-macrocosm as Alpha-Omega. By adding the dimension of divinity to human nature as microcosm through the hypostatic union, Christ reverses the relation to macrocosm-microcosm, becoming the Alpha and the Omega of all the universe. Thus every creature is related to the incarnate Word - not merely to the eternal Word - as Alpha and Omega. This means, then, that Christ is the universal cosmic center. In this way, Christ as axis mundi, uniting the polar zones of the universe through the hypostatic union, becomes through the coincidence and reversal of the microcosm-macrocosm the cosmic center to which all things are related. In the emergence of Christ as center there appears a new form of the coincidence of the universal and the particular. Through the hypostatic union, the universal is joined to the particular, for the eternal Word is united to individualized human nature. Yet because Christ is the supreme microcosm, this particularized humanity is not merely one point among many in the universe, but the unique center of the whole to which all the other points are related. Thus in Christ the particularizing element is universalized through its very particularity by becoming the universal cosmic center.

The basic elements of this cosmological aspect of Bonaventure's Christology were present as early as the Commentary on the Sentences, in his treatment of the hypostatic union and the appropriateness of the Incarnation in human nature as microcosm. The awareness of Christ as maximum-minimum emerged to prominence in the mid-period in the Itinerarium. Finally in the Collationes in Hexaemeron, these elements combined through their inner logic to produce Bonaventure's crowning Christological notion of Christ the center, in which all the other forms of coincidence of opposites are drawn together.

SOTERIOLOGICAL OPPOSITES

A similar evolution can be discerned in Bonaventure's treatment of the soteriological coincidence of opposites. As in the case of the cosmological opposites, the doctrine of redemption is founded on the hypostatic union as a first principle. Bonaventure sums up his position in the Breviloquium:

The most excellent Restorer could be none but God, the most friendly Mediator, none but a man, and the most superabundant Satisfier, none but him who was both God and man: therefore, it was absolutely the most fitting thing for our restoration that the Word become incarnate. For as the human race came into being through the Word Not Made, and as it sinned because it failed to heed the Word Inspired, so it would rise from sin through the Word Made Flesh.³³⁵

In Christ's work of redemption the most intricate forms of the coincidence of opposites are found, for in Christ the cosmological opposites confront the opposites of evil and their destructive logic. Out of this encounter a new logic of death and resurrection emerges: Christ reverses the entire logic of the sphere of evil and brings life out of death rather than death from life. I believe that the coincidence of opposites is the proper logic for understanding Anselm's satisfaction theory of redemption, which Bonaventure and the medieval theological tradition in general incorporated into their synthesis.³³⁶ For the entire satisfaction theory is founded on the coincidence of opposites: Because finite man's sin produces an infinite offense against God, it is required - at least for condign or proportionate satisfaction - that reparation be made by the God-man. But this means that the God-man, who embodies the cosmological coincidence of opposites, must enter into the destructive opposites produced by evil: into humiliation, suffering and death. By taking this logic to its ultimate on the cross, Christ transforms it to its opposite by resurrection.

This comprehensive grasp of the dynamics of evil and redemption reaches full flowering in Bonaventure's notion of Christ as medium mathematicum and medium logicum in the first Collatio in Hexaemeron, but its elements are present throughout his extensive treatment of redemption in the Commentary on the Sentences and are studied often from the standpoint of the coincidence of opposites in the Breviloquium.³³⁷ For example, in the latter treatise, Bonaventure says: "The work of restoration must respect the harmonious functioning of the universe. Wherefore it was achieved by means wholly consonant to that end, for it is most fitting that evils should be healed through their opposites."³³⁸ He goes on to show how man's pride should be overcome by humility, man's lust by physical suffering.

Christ's confrontation with the logic of evil draws him to the very depths of the cosmos so that he can restore the cosmic harmony on all levels. Thus in the soteriological aspect Christ becomes the complete axis mundi, linking the underworld, the earth, and heaven. In the Breviloquium, Bonaventure develops this theme, which he will repeat later in the first Collatio in Hexaemeron:

The means used for man's redemption was utterly sufficient, for it embraced heaven, earth and the nether world. Through Christ, the souls in the lower regions were recovered, those on earth restored and the heavenly ranks replenished . . . After the passion, the soul of Christ descended into hell in order to release the souls detained there; then he rose from the dead in order to restore life to those dead in sin; he ascended into heaven and led captivity captive in order to fill the ranks of the heavenly Jerusalem.³³⁹

The relation of the two spheres of opposites - the cosmological and the soteriological - is seen clearly in the mature vision of the first Collatio in Hexaemeron. With the clarification that comes with the notion of Christ the center, Bonaventure is able to reveal the logic of the opposites in the sphere of evil and the way in which they are transformed by the cosmological opposites of the hypostatic union. Having explored the cosmological opposites in Christ as medium metaphysician and physicum, he takes up the soteriological opposites in his treatment of Christ as medium mathematicum and logicum.³⁴⁰ We will recall here, in this more systematic context, some of the points we explored above in our exposition of the collatio.³⁴¹

For Bonaventure, Christ is the medium mathematicum. Mathematics measures the earth and studies the movements of the heavenly bodies as they influence the lower bodies. In the cosmology of the Middle Ages, the earth was at the center and at the lowest level of the structure of the universe. In the incarnation, Christ came to the depth of the universe. "The Son of God - lowly, poor, insignificant - came not only to the surface of the earth, but even to the depths of its center,"³⁴² since after his crucifixion, he descended into hell. In the incarnation, and crucifixion, he emptied himself and plunged into the depths. Christ, then, is the medium mathematicum in his crucifixion, because he plumbed the very depths of humility. We are tempted to pride, but Christ worked our salvation in the ashes of humility on the cross. "For when the center of a circle has been lost, it can be found only by two lines intersecting at right angles."³⁴³

Bonaventure next calls Christ the medium logicum and depicts a confrontation of Christ and Satan in the form of a scholastic debate. He transforms the universe into a medieval debate hall, where in a type of cosmic quaestio disputata Christ argues with Satan over the fate of man. Satan with his false logic has tricked man into sin. Christ with the subtle logic of suffering destroys Satan's logic and saves man from hell.

Bonaventure sees Christ as the medium or middle term of a cosmic syllogism. Prior to redemption through Christ, the extremes of the syllogism were not united. They did not harmonize since man and God were separated by sin. But through the middle term which is Christ, the extremes are united in the conclusion. Satan had tricked Adam with his sophistry, using a true major premise: All men should desire to be like God since they are his image. But Satan's minor premise was false: If you eat, you will be like God. Christ's argument is true; it saves man from evil and makes him truly like God, and it destroys the logic of Satan. To unite the extremes, Christ had to be both God and man; and he had to assume human nature in all of its suffering, poverty, and death. Christ's "major proposition was from eternity, the minor on the cross and the conclusion in the resurrection."³⁴⁴ From all eternity he was God; he assumed human nature in time, and in all of its suffering, on the cross; and he led man to the glory of his resurrection. "Now, Christ did not say: Let me live. Rather he said: Let me assume death and be linked with the other extreme, to suffer and to die. And then the conclusion follows. And so he tricked the devil."³⁴⁵ For the devil considered Christ's argument worthless when he saw him suffering. Bonaventure exhorts us to use the logic of Christ: "This is our logic, this is our reasoning which we have against the devil who constantly disputes against us."³⁴⁶ Like Christ, we must assume the minor premise of suffering, even though it is against the grain. "In assuming the minor, we must exercise our full force, since we do not want to suffer, we do not want to be crucified."³⁴⁷

Mystical Opposites

By entering into the depths of the mystery of evil, Christ has transformed the entire sphere to its opposite. Thus through the complex logic of the coincidence of opposites redemption is effected on all levels. It is here that the cosmological-soteriological aspects of Bonaventure's Christology reach their climax in the mystical. Through the coincidence of opposites on the cross, the estranged opposites of God and man are united through the Godman. Although the cosmic harmony is restored, each soul must make the ascent to the Father, which according to Bonaventure is accomplished through Christ as medium ethicum, politicum and theologicum. These latter three points encompass the mystical dimension of Bonaventure's Christology. Although the return of the soul is sketched from the standpoint of Christ the center in the collatio, it is more thoroughly developed in the Itinerarium and in the mystical writings of the middle period.³⁴⁸

The mystical aspects of Bonaventure's Christology are grounded in the cosmological-soteriological aspects, on the one hand, and in the notion of the soul as image of God, on the other. The soul as image is itself a form of the coincidence of opposites; for in the soul, the infinite is reflected in the finite. However by sin the image has been turned away from its Exemplar and is in need of restoration. In the mystical perspective this means a turning back to the Word and a growth as image of the Word. These themes are developed systematically in the fourth chapter of the Itinerarium and are completed in the treatment of mystical ecstasy in chapter seven. The specifically Christological function of Bonaventure's mysticism is spelled out in chapters six and seven, where the contemplation of Christ as the greatest coincidence of opposites becomes the doorway and vehicle of our passage into the ecstasy of union with the Father. As Bonaventure says: "With Christ crucified, let us pass 'out of this world to the Father,' so that, when the Father is shown to us, we may say with Philip: 'It is enough for us.' "³⁴⁹ In Bonaventure's doctrine of mystical union, the soul is not absorbed into the oneness of the divinity. Rather precisely through Christ as medium, the individuality of the soul is preserved in the union of the soul with God as lover and beloved.

From the point of view of the mystical ascent, all the forms of the coincidence of opposites in Bonaventure's Christology reach their culmination. In Christ the center - as the road, the doorway, the passage to the Father - all forms of opposites in the cosmological-soteriological spheres are focused. Through Christ as maximum-minimum, microcosm-macrocosm and Alpha-Omega, evil is overcome and death transformed into life. As axis mundi Christ has linked the cosmic zones, overcoming evil, restoring cosmic harmony and uniting earth and heaven. As the center of the cosmos and the center of our soul, he leads us to union with the Father. In the next chapter we will see these themes graphically expressed in Bonaventure's symbolism, particularly in the notion of Christ as the center of the mandala.

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