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CHAPTER VI

Mandala Symbolism

Having explored the coincidence of opposites in Bonaventure's texts and in the systematic structure of his thought, we now turn to symbolism, which plays such an important role in his writings and in medieval culture as a whole. Although in the previous sections we have used Bonaventure's symbols as a way into the coincidence of opposites, we concentrate here on his symbolism itself, studying both his generic theory and the function of specific symbols in his writings. In this study the coincidence of opposites can be both illuminating and illuminated. On the one hand, it throws considerable light on Bonaventure's symbolism; and on the other, it finds powerful expression in Bonaventure's use of integrative symbols.

Throughout his writing Bonaventure expresses himself on two levels simultaneously: (1) the theological-philosophical level, and (2) the level of religious symbols. One might look upon Bonaventure's use of symbols as mere literary devices to adorn his style, but such a judgment would not take into account the depth and power of his symbolic imagination and the intricate interrelations of his symbols as they form a coherent pattern of their own and give structure and support to the theological-philosophical level. Thus for Bonaventure the symbol embodies a twofold coincidence of opposites. If we view the religious symbol on its own level, we see that it performs the function of theophany; for it attempts to manifest the divine in matter - through the coincidence of the infinite and the finite, the maximum and the minimum. Seen within Bonaventure's total thought, the symbol also unites matter and spirit, for it expresses on its own concrete level the theophanic vision that Bonaventure's theological and philosophical formulations are attempting to express. Thus the religious symbol becomes a microcosm for viewing the entire theological-philosophical structure of his thought. It is here that we see the Christological significance of religious symbols. The religious symbol is a microcosm pointing to Christ the macrocosm - who unites within himself the greatest possible coincidence of opposites.

Symbolism in the Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages symbolism reached one of its richest flowerings in the history of Western culture. Too often the logic of the schoolmen, their metaphysical speculations and their scholastic disputations have distracted twentieth century scholars from the importance of symbols in the fabric of medieval life. Medieval man lived in a world that was alive with symbols. All about he saw graphic representations of Biblical themes: on frescoes on chapel walls, on the capitals of Romanesque columns, on the facade of Gothic cathedrals, on the pages of illuminated manuscripts. Each year in his liturgical cycle he re-enacted the great events of his religious past: the Exodus, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Knighthood and courtly love provided him with new variations to ancient mythic themes. Allegory flourished in all genres of literature: in the romances, the songs of the troubadours, the miracle and morality plays. Political and military life were ablaze with color and embellished with symbols of power, courage, and fidelity.

Medieval symbols were decidedly Christian and were molded by the political and economic forces of the times. Yet they were deeply grounded in the past. Their roots plunged back into the Roman and Greek era and to the more primitive mythic substructure of the Indo-European world. They were ultimately grounded in the most basic mythic level of mankind. In many respects, the symbolic world of the Middle Ages was like the cathedral of Chartres. In ancient times the area of Chartres was an important Druid center, where ceremonies were held around a well which has been discovered under the cathedral crypt. In the Gallo-Roman era there were venerated at such sacred areas statues of the mother goddess, at times depicted seated with an infant on her knees. Christian legend claimed that before the birth of the Virgin Mary a pagan king of the region of Chartres, under mysterious inspiration, had a statue sculptured of a woman holding an infant and containing the inscription: Virgini pariturae.³⁵⁰ On the site of the ancient pagan place of worship, Christians built a series of churches where devotion to Mary flourished. Through the centuries the structures became more elaborate until in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there rose the great cathedral Notre Dame de Chartres, with its intricate Gothic-Romanesque design, its elaborate stained glass windows, and its delicate sculpture. Like the cathedral of Chartres, the symbols of the Middle Ages emerged from primitive levels and evolved through succeeding stages until they flowered in the elaborate synthesis of the high Middle Ages.

Symbols not only played a major role in medieval life, but they were reflected upon with considerable self-consciousness. The architects of the great cathedrals employed a type of symbolic geometry in developing their intricate structures. Theologians explored religious symbols systematically according to the fourfold sense of Scripture. Philosophers developed a metaphysics that was so profoundly in touch with symbols that it not only provided a philosophical explanation of symbolic thinking, but affirmed that the symbol was the key to understand the deepest level of reality. All of reality - the inner life of God and the created world - is to be understood according to the metaphysics of expression and representation. The divine life is self-expressive; for the Father begets his Son, who is his Image. The Son contains the archetypes of all possible creation; hence the created world - as a whole and in all of its parts - is the expression of the divinity; for it participates in and reflects the divine Image or Word. Thus the world is seen as a mirror reflecting God. Consequently it is not enough that one understand the internal intelligible structure of finite beings or see them as created by the power of God. One must also see them as reflections of God, for this is their deepest reality.

This metaphysics of expressionism and exemplarism was derived from Platonism and Neo-Platonism but was developed with distinctly Christian and medieval dimensions. It was Augustine who formulated Christian Platonism for the West, and from him the tradition flowed into the Middle Ages. He situated the Platonic ideas in the divine mind, thus laying the basis for Christian exemplarism. The Pseudo-Dionysius underscored the dynamic aspect of God, whose self-diffusive goodness overflows into the entire created cosmos. Anselm highlighted the expressive aspect of the generation of the Son, and the Victorines explored a wide spectrum of religious symbols. To the earlier Augustinian and Victorine traditions Bonaventure brought specifically Franciscan elements: Francis's love of nature, an interest in individual material objects, and a sense of the coincidence of opposites. This exemplaristic tradition, which reaches a certain climax in the early Franciscan school, is of paramount importance for understanding symbolism in medieval culture. Unfortunately, the predominance of Aristotelian logic throughout the Middle Ages and of Aristotelian metaphysics in the late thirteenth century - with its emphasis on efficient, formal, and final causality - has tended to obscure the strong current of exemplarism that permeated the earlier Middle Ages and provided a philosophical and theological basis for the rich symbolic life of the period.

Symbolism in Bonaventure

These two strands - the rich symbolic life of the Middle Ages and its philosophical-theological theory of symbol - converge in a remarkable way in Bonaventure. His theory of symbol is highly developed and integrates systematically the richness of the long exemplaristic tradition. On the other hand, in keeping with the medieval ethos, Bonaventure's writings abound in symbols: Biblical images such as the tree of life, the Exodus, the journey, the tabernacle, the mountain; philosophical images such as the sun, light, and darkness used to express basic epistemology; geometrical images such as the circle, the center and lines intersecting in the form of a cross. These images are not used as mere ornaments overlaid on a philosophical or theological treatise; rather they form part of an organic whole. They are intimately connected with the grasp and expression of his metaphysics and theology. Bonaventure's chief images emerge from the deepest strata of the psyche and provide a comprehensive vision; yet they manifest a cultivated and not a primitive aspect. They are to a large extent present to conscious reflection and are integrated into his abstract philosophical and theological speculation.

Bonaventure belongs to the tradition of medieval writers who use symbols to convey their theological vision. In an age when scholastic logic had been developed into a precision instrument for the theologian, Bonaventure did not abandon the language of symbols for that of abstraction. He used the logic of the schools with great skill, especially in his Commentary on the Sentences, the Breviloquium, and the disputed questions, but even here symbols play a role. Submerged under the logical structure, they appear obliquely and offer the alert reader a clue to Bonaventure's meaning. In his spiritual treatises such as The Tree of Life, as well as in many of his sermons, symbols provide the central structural elements. In the third group of writings - the shorter treatises such as the Itinerarium and the later collationes - symbols combine with abstractions to form an organic matrix. Often the fusion is so effective that the reader cannot disengage the symbols from the abstractions without destroying the texture of the whole.

In this last body of writings, symbols constitute an entire structural level. They convey in their own way the philosophical and theological vision that Bonaventure also formulates in abstract terms. For example, in the Itinerarium he works out a network of the following symbols: the journey, the mirror, the ladder, the tabernacle, light, darkness, the six-winged Seraph and the two Cherubim.³⁵¹ This pattern of symbols is interwoven with his metaphysical analyses of exemplarism, his epistemology, a dialectic of being and non-being, and his analysis of the Trinity under the aspect of the self-diffusive good. These two strata - the symbolic and the abstract - mutually clarify and re-enforce each other. The abstract element brings the meaning of the symbol to reflexive consciousness; and the symbol gives vivid, concrete expression to metaphysical and theological speculation. Bonaventure has a rare gift for blending the abstract and the concrete, the philosophical and the symbolic. This is the secret of his effectiveness as a literary artist: he combines imaginative power with philosophical penetration. Not only is he sensitive to his heritage of cultural symbols, but he has the creative power to present a symbol with vividness and the rhetorical skill to shape it into the structure of his work.

Bonaventure's Theory of Symbolism

It is not surprising that beneath this powerful and intricate use of symbols Bonaventure has developed a most articulate metaphysics of symbol. As Gilson says:

Far from being an accident or an adventitious element, St. Bonaventure's symbolism has its roots deep in the very heart of his doctrine; it finds its whole rational justification in his fundamental metaphysical principles, and it is itself rigorously demanded by them as the only means of applying them to the real.³⁵²

What are these metaphysical principles? They are two: the principle of expressionism and that of exemplarism. That these two principles are at the core of Bonaventure's metaphysics is succinctly stated at a key point in his most mature work:

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.³⁵³

For Bonaventure the true metaphysician is the one who traces all created things back to their source - through exemplarity to the divine emanation or expressionism. Through the principle of exemplarity one is led to the principle of expressionism at the core of the divine life itself. It is here at the center of the divine life

- in the principle of expressionism - that we find Bonaventure's ultimate basis of symbolism. For Bonaventure all symbolic thinking and all symbolic reflection within creation are grounded in the expression of the Word by the Father.

Since we have presented Bonaventure's Trinitarian theology and his doctrine of exemplarism at some length in previous chapters,³⁵⁴ we will merely summarize them as a backdrop for understanding his theory of symbolism. Bonaventure has a dynamic notion of the divinity. He views the inner life of God as consisting of self-communication, self-diffusion, self-expression. In the Commentary on the Sentences, he describes the Father as fontalis plenitude

- fountain-fullness, or the one who as source is pre-eminently fecund.³⁵⁵ He applies to the Father a principle derived from the Liber de causis: the more primary a thing is the more fecund it is.³⁵⁶ Since the Father is most primary, he is most fecund. In his fecundity he eternally generates his Son, who is his perfect Image. The Son, then, is both the Image of the Father and his Word through whom he expresses himself in creation.

In the Itinerarium Bonaventure applies a principle derived from Anselm to the Pseudo-Dionysian notion of God as self-diffusive good:

Behold, therefore, and observe that the highest good is unqualifiedly that in comparison with which a greater cannot be thought. And this good is such that it cannot rightly be thought of as non-existing, since to be is absolutely better than not to be. And this good exists in such a way that it cannot rightly be thought of unless it is thought of as triune and one. For good is said to be self-diffusive, and therefore the highest good is most self-diffusive.³⁵⁷

The absolute self-diffusive nature of God requires that there be a diffusion that is absolute, actual, and eternal. Could creation satisfy this demand? Bonaventure answers in the negative; for creation is limited, like a mere speck before the vastness of the divine fecundity. Hence we must look within the divinity itself. Through revelation we learn that the demands of the divine fecundity are met by the mystery of the Trinity, in the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit.³⁵⁸

In Bonaventure's view of the relation of philosophy and theology, revelation can bring to greater consciousness a principle that is grasped only vaguely prior to revelation. Hence the revelation of the dynamic self-expressive nature of the divinity in the Trinitarian processions brings to greater realization the principle of the absolute self-diffusiveness of the good. The significance of this expressionism for a metaphysics of symbol is profound. It means that at its deepest level - within the dynamics of the divine life itself - reality is self-expressive and symbolic. The Son is the expression of the Father; the Father is not knowable in himself, but only through the Son, his Image and Word. As Logos the Son is the principle of intelligibility; however as Image and Word he is not merely a self-contained principle of intelligibility, but the expression and manifestation of the Father, who is silent ground and generative power. With this expressive base within the divinity, the symbolic nature of creation and the function of symbolic thinking are solidly grounded. Since all created things share in the Son, they are symbolic expressions of the Father. Hence symbolic thinking, in its most authentic form, is not a second-best mode of grasping reality, but a penetration of its most profound metaphysical structure and dynamics.

From this divine expressionism flows the principle of exemplarity. In expressing the Son, the Father produces in the Son the archetypes of all that he can create. Bonaventure states: "The Father generated one similar to himself, namely the Word, coeternal with himself; and he expressed his own likeness and as a consequence expressed all things that he could make."³⁵⁹ Hence it is through the Word that creation takes place, and creation - grounded in the expressiveness of the Word - reflects back to the Word and ultimately to the Father. This theme runs through Bonaventure's writings and is expressed in both technical philosophical terms and in images such as the book, the mirror, and light shining through a window. For example, Bonaventure states:

. . . the entire world is a shadow, a road, a vestige, and it is also "a book written without." [Ez. 2:9; Ap. 5:1]. For in every creature there is a shining forth of the divine exemplar, but mixed with darkness. Hence creatures are a kind of darkness mixed with light. Also they are a road leading to the exemplar. Just as you see that a ray of light entering through a window is colored in different ways according to the different colors of the various parts, so the divine ray shines forth in each and every creature in different ways and in different properties; it is said in Wisdom: "In her ways she shows herself." [Wis. 6:17]. Also creatures are a vestige of the wisdom of God. Hence creatures are like a kind of representation and statue of the wisdom of God. And in view of all of this, they are a kind of book written without.³⁶⁰

Bonaventure divides creatures according to their degree of representing God and classifies them in a descending scale: similitude, image, vestige, and shadow. Shadow refers to a general reflection of God; vestige indicates the reflection of God's power, wisdom, and goodness; image refers to rational creatures and indicates the presence of God reflected within subjectivity in the memory, understanding, and will; similitude refers to the rational creature transformed by grace.³⁶¹ Of special interest here is Bonaventure's notion of vestige, since he applies vestige most extensively to the material world and it is the material world that has most direct bearing on symbol. In the Itinerarium Bonaventure contemplates the material world as vestige. After a general consideration that visible things reflect the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, he embarks on a detailed study of the sevenfold properties of creatures: their origin, greatness, multitude, beauty, plenitude, activity, and order. In each case he sees the reflection of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God.³⁶²

Although Bonaventure's analysis is detailed and profound, I believe that it leaves untouched a major aspect of his own symbolism. It does not uncover the specific nature of the very symbols he uses throughout his writing. Are his own literary and mythic symbols - such as light, darkness, the tabernacle, and the mountain - vestiges? From one point of view, they are; but in my opinion this point of view does not exhaust or pinpoint their most significant function. If we bring to bear on Bonaventure's symbolism the research of Mircea Eliade and C. G. Jung, we may be able to complete the picture. Both Jung and Eliade have studied extensively the type of symbol that Bonaventure uses in his writings. For example, Eliade has studied, especially in primitive peoples, the symbolic meaning of sacred space, and specifically of the holy building or temple. By taking into account a vast array of data, Eliade can isolate the common elements and indicate that the temple and its holy precincts are an elaborated form of the more primitive and universal symbol of the center.³⁶³ In the same vein, but dealing within the psyche, Jung can describe the function of symbols for interior life and the process of individuation. Jung indicates that there are certain basic patterns or archetypes such that certain symbols seem to have the same meaning for men throughout time and space. Hence the inner way and the center of the soul are often described by the symbol of entering into a holy building or temple and discovering the center which is simultaneously the center of the soul.³⁶⁴

The data studied by Eliade and Jung have a common presupposition: that material objects and their varied configuration have a direct bearing on one's spiritual awareness and development. Independently of the rational analysis that Bonaventure does of material objects, certain objects - such as light, water, temples, mountains - have an immediate, nonreflexive meaning for man's spirit. This meaning follows certain patterns and dynamics, such as those explored by Jung and Eliade. The goal of this is man's spiritual self-realization, or from a religious perspective his journey to God. If this is the case, then the material world provides resources for spiritual development that are enormously powerful and fruitful. This seems to indicate a much closer interpenetration of matter and spirit in the area of symbolism than Bonaventure articulates. Yet this interpenetration of matter and spirit is quite in harmony with the major structure of Bonaventure's metaphysics and theology.

Two Types of Symbolism

I claim, then, that there are two types of symbolism in Bonaventure. Corresponding to the two poles of Bonaventure's theology studied in Chapter Two,³⁶⁵ these can best be designated in theological terms as Trinitarian and Christological symbolism. The Trinitarian symbolism is grounded in the expressionism of the Trinity and has for its philosophical and theological matrix Bonaventure's doctrine of exemplarism. This symbolism is universal, applying to all creatures: to angels, men, and material beings. All creatures are symbols of the divinity since all are grounded in the Word and reflect the divine power, wisdom, and goodness. All creatures are shadows reflecting God as their cause and all are vestiges of the Trinity. This symbolism is not rooted in materiality as such, as is the case of the symbols studied by Jung and Eliade; rather it applies uniformly to all created beings, whether rational spirits or material objects. However, there are degrees of symbolic representation, as distinguished by Bonaventure: All creatures are shadows just as all are also vestiges; but only rational creatures are images, and only those rational creatures adorned with grace are similitudes. This type of symbolism is based on the form of the being, seen in its most general mode, not in its unique materiality. For example, all material objects are vestiges in so far as they reflect the divine power, wisdom, and goodness. But in the case of the other type of symbol, such objects as light and fire, the temple and the center function as archetypal symbols with special power and significance.

This second type of symbol can be called Christological because it mediates the divine through its very materiality. Such symbols as water, fire, the temple, and the mountain do not act merely as vestiges in a general Trinitarian symbolism, but exercise a specific effect in the process of spiritual growth: They divinize the spirit of man precisely through their materiality. As material symbols they have a power to divinize the human spirit in a way that reflects the power of Christ in his materiality to divinize the spirit of mankind. Because they mediate human spirit and divinity through their materiality, and not merely through their grounding in the Word, they contain a Christological model of the coincidence of opposites in addition to the Trinitarian model through exemplarism. They are a microcosm pointing to Christ, the macrocosm of the coincidence of opposites.

Bonaventure's Trinitarian symbolism has its roots in Platonism and Neo-Platonism and in the theology of the Greek Fathers, which Bonaventure inherited as an elaborated tradition and which he built into his synthesis in the earliest stage of his writing. Having been thoroughly developed in the very beginning, it does not undergo an evolution in his later writing. However, from the time of the Itinerarium onward, this Trinitarian level of symbolism is expressed and supported also by the Christological level of symbols, by material symbols functioning precisely in their materiality. Although Bonaventure's Christocentricity evolves during this period, there is no evolution of a theory of Christological symbols that would compare with his theory of Trinitarian symbolism. In spite of the fact that Bonaventure is extraordinarily gifted in expressing his vision in archetypal religious symbols, he develops no theory of these symbols nor any consciousness of them as a distinct class.

Mandala Symbolism

This lack in Bonaventure's system can be supplied by tapping the extensive research done in the twentieth century in this area of symbols. In the remainder of this chapter, I will explore the Christological level of Bonaventure's symbolism in the light of this research. Making no attempt to be comprehensive, I will concentrate on a group of symbols that play a central role in his work. These symbols are the circle, the center, the cross, and the journey. Appearing at key points in his theological writing, these symbols convey themes relating to his doctrine of the Trinity, creation, Christology, and spiritual growth. As my analysis proceeds, I will make the claim that this group of symbols and the corresponding themes can be coherently understood from the perspective of the mandala, as it has been explored by C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Giuseppe Tucci.³⁶⁶ Described briefly, the mandala is a symbol of total integration, usually in the geometric form of a circle with a center, along with a square or cross. To view Bonaventure's work from the perspective of the mandala can bring to light a deep level of dynamic unity both in his symbols and in his thought as a whole. This will have the effect not only of illumining Bonaventure's system, but of completing the development of the Christocentric pole of his theology; for I believe that Bonaventure's Christocentricity reaches its culmination in the symbol of Christ the center of the mandala. Finally since in the history of religions the mandala is the most basic and most elaborate symbol of the coincidence of opposites, it will reveal the most highly developed form of the coincidence of opposites in Bonaventure's thought.

I will concentrate on three instances of this group of symbols in Bonaventure's text: the circle, the center, and the cross in the first of the Collationes in Hexaemeron, where he develops the theme of Christ the center;³⁶⁷ the six-winged Seraph in the form of the crucified, on which he meditates as a symbol of the mind's journey into God in the Itinerarium;³⁶⁸ and the symbol of the tabernacle, in the latter part of the Itinerarium, where he leads the reader into the various sacred zones, as a symbol of the inner way, until he encounters Christ at the center of the Holy of Holies.³⁶⁹ After analyzing the structure and function of these symbols in their literary context, I will view them as instances of mandala symbols and draw certain conclusions relative to the interpretation of Bonaventure's thought.

The image of the circle or sphere appears throughout Bonaventure's writing, often with a reference to the center. For example, borrowing from Alanus de Insulis, he refers to God as an "intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."³⁷⁰ He also speaks of the "circle of eternity," in which the temporal process terminates.³⁷¹ He sees the life of the Trinity as a circular process and describes the emanation of creation and its return as participating in this great circular dynamism. For example, he says that rational creatures return to their source in the Trinity "by way of an intelligible circle":

Hence this alone is eternal life: that the rational spirit, which flows from the most blessed Trinity and is an image of the Trinity, return by way of an intelligible circle by memory, understanding and will, through divine likeness of glory to the most blessed Trinity.³⁷²

Bonaventure is here referring to the great circle of emanation and return that forms the foundation of medieval theological syntheses. All things emanate from God and all things return to God. He links the emanation and return of creatures with the inner life of the Trinity. Hence the great circle begins with the Father in the Trinity - with the generation of the Son and the completion of the Trinity in the Spirit. This circular movement is the basis of the emanation of creatures ad extra and the return of rational creatures "by way of an intelligible circle" to their Trinitarian source.³⁷³ In this circular process, Christ is the center. As eternal Logos, he is the medium of the emanation of creatures; and as incarnate Logos, he is the medium of their return. Perhaps more than any other medieval theologian, Bonaventure emphasizes the fact that Christ is the center, or medium, of this circular process.

As we saw in the previous chapter, the theme of Christ the center is developed by Bonaventure with striking vividness in the first of the Collationes in Hexaemeron. Bonaventure calls Christ the medium or center of all the sciences. For Bonaventure, Christ is the medium metaphysicum, physicum, mathematicum, logicum, ethicum, politicum, theologicum.³⁷⁴ Christ is the center of the divine life, the center of creation, and the center of man's return to God. First, as eternal Word, he is the center of the Trinitarian life, the media persona of the Trinity.³⁷⁵ As expressive Word, he is the dynamic center of creation; for he is the medium through which creation takes place.³⁷⁶ As incarnate Word, he is the center of the universe; like the sun in the heavens and the heart in the body, Christ is the center of radiating energy.³⁷⁷ Finally, he is the center of man's return to God: In the suffering of the cross, Christ locates man's lost center; and through his resurrection and ascension, he leads man back to the unity of the Father.³⁷⁸

This latter point is graphically depicted in the collatio through the geometrical figure of the circle whose center is found by two lines intersecting in the form of a cross.³⁷⁹ Bonaventure claims that Christ is the mathematical center in his crucifixion. By his cross he was able to locate man's lost center and restore the structure of order that was lost through pride and sin. Bonaventure says: "For when the center of a circle has been lost, it can be found only by two lines intersecting at right angles."³⁸⁰ Bonaventure sees the cross leading to resurrection, death to life, sin to redemption, humility to glory. Thus in Christ and in his cross the opposites are reconciled.

This collatio is more than an isolated statement of Bonaventure's ideas. Rather it presents in concentrated and graphic fashion the essential lines of his vision. It is not only a microcosm of the entire series of collationes of which it is the introduction, but it is the full flowering of the vision that had taken shape in his youth and whose major lines had clarified and deepened through the years. In this context the symbols of the circle, the cross, and, above all, the center take on added significance.

A second example of Bonaventure's symbolism is the six-winged Seraph in the form of the crucified, the major structural symbol of the Itinerarium. As we saw above, this image is derived from the vision Francis of Assisi had on Mount La Verna in 1224 at the time he received the stigmata.³⁸¹ Thirty-five years after Francis' vision, Bonaventure retired for a period of time to the same mountain, as he tells us, in order to seek peace.³⁸² While he meditated there on the vision, the thought occurred to him that the six-winged Seraph indicated the height of contemplation Francis had attained and at the same time symbolized the stages by which this goal could be reached. "The figure of the six wings of the Seraph, therefore," Bonaventure writes, "brings to mind the six steps of illumination which begin with creatures and lead up to God, whom no one rightly enters save through the crucified."³⁸³ The entire structure of the Itinerarium is based on Bonaventure's interpretation of the wings of the Seraph. The six stages symbolized by the six wings are the subject matter of the six chapters of the Itinerarium, leading to the seventh and final chapter, which deals with mystical ecstasy. The first two stages deal with the material world, the next two with the soul of man, and the last two with the contemplation of God. Bonaventure believes that by contemplating the material universe as a vestige of God, by gazing within the soul as image of God, and by meditating on God as Being and the Good, man rises through progressive stages toward the height of contemplation Francis reached at the climax of his life. By the fact that the Seraph has at its center the figure of the crucified man, Bonaventure sees that Christ and his cross are at the center of the passage into God. Thus from the standpoint of the literary structure of the Itinerarium, the Seraph is the master symbol providing the skeletal pattern of the whole. From the standpoint of a cosmic vision, the Seraph symbolizes the structure of the cosmos, which as vestige and image reflects God and provides man with an ascending path into the divine. From the standpoint of the soul's journey along this path, the Seraph symbolizes the progressive stages, the passage by way of the cross and the goal of the ascent.

The six-winged Seraph leads to the third symbol under consideration, that of the tabernacle in the latter half of the Itinerarium. As we observed above, when Bonaventure reaches the third stage of the mind's journey, he introduces the symbol of the tabernacle to depict the entrance of the soul into its own depths.³⁸⁴ The symbol is drawn from Exodus, where a detailed description is given of the tabernacle or tent that Moses prescribed to be built to house the ark of the covenant.³⁸⁵ As described in Exodus, the tabernacle had an outer court; an inner area or sanctuary, in which a golden candelabra was placed; and finally, a most sacred innermost chamber, the Holy of Holies, in which the ark was housed. Upon the ark between two golden Cherubim was placed the propitiatory or Mercy Seat, from which God was to communicate to men. All of these elements enter into Bonaventure's symbol. After contemplating the material world as a vestige of God, he bids the reader to enter into himself. Leaving the outer court of the external world, we now enter into the sanctuary of the tabernacle, that is into our own souls, where "the light of truth, as from a candelabra, will shine upon the face of our mind, in which the image of the most Blessed Trinity appears in splendor."³⁸⁶ After contemplating this reflection of God, we move deeper into ourselves, into the Holy of Holies, that is, into the contemplation of God himself. The Cherubim symbolizes two different modes of contemplating God: as Being and as the Good. In each case Bonaventure contemplates God as a coincidence of opposites. Finally, he turns his gaze to the Mercy Seat, which he appropriately sees as a symbol of Christ. If we wondered at the union of opposites in the divinity itself, we will be amazed at Christ, the God-man, who embodies the most extraordinary coincidentia oppositorum. Contemplating Christ as "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,"³⁸⁷ the mind passes over into the mystical silence of the seventh stage.

Like the Seraph, the tabernacle provides a symbolic matrix for the stages of the mind's journey into God and hence for the literary structure of the Itinerarium. In most respects the symbols of the Seraph and the tabernacle are related as opposites. The Seraph is an exterior image; the tabernacle symbolizes the interior of the soul. The Seraph suggests height and ascent, for the Seraph is a heavenly messenger appearing on a mountain top. The tabernacle suggests depth, for we enter into the inner chambers and into the depths of our souls. Yet they have a common center in Christ. In the wings of the Seraph is the form of the crucified; and at the center of the Holy of Holies is the Mercy Seat, which is Christ. As center of each symbol, Christ is the way to union with God.

Mandala in Religion and Psychology

Although we have explored these symbols previously by analyzing their function in their literary context, we can now understand them on a deeper level in the light of contemporary research on the mandala. The term mandala is a Sanscrit word which is translated as "circle" or "center" or "that which surrounds."³⁸⁸ It denotes "the ritual or magic circle used in Lamaism and also in Tantric yoga as a yantra or aid to contemplation."³⁸⁹ By meditating on the mandala symbol or by participating in a mandala ritual, the Oriental seeks to effect an inner transformation and to advance towards the goal of the spiritual journey. In his book The Theory and Practice of the Mandala, Giuseppe Tucci observes that "the theories of the mandala took their origin in India and then penetrated into Tibet and these theories, expressed in symbols, allegories and connotations, have, as it were, the colour of the spiritual world in which they developed."³⁹⁰ However, Tucci does not believe that the mandala is confined to the Orient or that its meaning is limited to an external design or ritual pattern. Rather the mandala symbol reflects a basic dynamic structure - or archetype - of the human psyche. Tucci observes that his study of the Oriental mandala will reveal "some striking analogies with comparable ideas expressed by currents of thought in other countries and in other ages."³⁹¹

Jung has explored the mandala in terms of the structure and dynamics of the psyche. He believes that mandala symbols "signify nothing less than a psychic center of the personality not to be identified with the ego."³⁹² This psychic center Jung calls the "self," which he describes as "not only the center but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the center of this totality, just as the ego is the center of the conscious mind."³⁹³ In the process of psychic growth, the self is both the beginning and the end, the source and the goal. The process of growth - or in Jung's term, the process of individuation - consists in a differentiation and integration of psychic forces leading to the realization of one's full potential, or a realization of the self. From a dynamic point of view, the self is the alpha and the omega of the spiritual journey; from a structural point of view, it is both the center of the psyche and its organized totality.

If the nature of the self be granted, its symbol - the mandala - contains a focus on the center, an encompassing circle, an ordered pattern of four and an interrelation of elements forming a coincidentia oppositorum. Jung's follower Jolande Jacobi describes the structure of the mandala symbol as follows:

The mandalas all show the same typical arrangement and symmetry of the pictorial elements. Their basic design is a circle or square (most often a square) symbolizing 'wholeness,' and in all of them the relation to a center is accentuated. Many have the form of a flower, a cross, or a wheel, and there is a distinct inclination toward the number four.³⁹⁴

Since from Jung's point of view the mandala is the symbol of a universal psychic archetype, it is to be expected that mandalas should have a wide diffusion. Hence they are found not only in Hinduism and Buddhism, but in Western religions as well. They are not confined to religious settings, but appear in works of art and literature and in the dreams and fantasies of individuals. Granted differences due to diverse cultures, the basic pattern of the mandala is found throughout the world and across history since prehistoric times in both primitive peoples and advanced cultures.³⁹⁵

The mandala plays an important role in primitive rituals, in the architecture of temples and churches, and even in the development of a cosmological vision. Mircea Eliade has studied the mandala in the context of extensive research on the symbolism of the center.³⁹⁶ Since primitive times man has sought a center around which to organize his universe and through which to enter into the divine sphere. He has located this center in a sacred mountain, a sanctuary, a temple, a palace, a city. He has expressed the significance of this center through the symbol of the center of the world: the point where the three cosmic cones - heaven, earth, and the underworld - are put in communication. This communication is effected through the universal pillar, the axis mundi, which appears at times as a ladder, a mountain, a vine, or the Cosmic Tree with roots in hell and branches in heaven. Here, Eliade notes, "we have a sequence of religious conceptions and cosmological images that are inseparably connected and form a system that may be called the 'system of the world' prevalent in traditional societies."³⁹⁷ Basic to this system is the organization of a cosmos around a center, the integration of opposites through the center, and access through the center into the divine sphere. Thus the same forces that shape the mandala symbol in Lamaism and Tantric yoga are at work in shaping a cosmological vision.

Cosmic Mandala

If we view Bonaventure's symbols in the light of contemporary research into the mandala, we can discern that the three examples of symbols we have studied are, in fact, three different types of mandalas. The first of the Collationes in Hexaemeron presents a cosmic mandala. By depicting Christ as the center, Bonaventure has developed a vision of the universe according to the mandala structure, a vision closely associated with the research of Eliade into the symbolism of the center and its relation to the construction of a cosmological scheme. In the collatio Bonaventure constructs his cosmic vision around Christ. As eternal Logos, Christ is the source of order and form within the cosmos; as incarnate Logos, he performs the function of the axis mundi linking the zones of the universe; through his cross he restores the lost center of the circle; and through his passage to the Father he is the gateway of man's return to the Trinity.

Bonaventure develops his theme by seeing Christ as the center of all the sciences that study the various aspects of the universe. As metaphysical center Christ is the source of the exemplaristic structure of the world; as physical center he is a source of radiating energy in the cosmos; as mathematical center he functions as the axis mundi, for he links the cosmic extremes: heaven, earth, and the underworld. Bonaventure says of Christ: "In taking up our clay, he came not only to the surface of our earth, but to the depths of its center . . . For after his crucifixion his soul descended into hell and restored the heavenly dwellings."³⁹⁸ As logical center Christ overcame Satan and sin and re-established cosmic order. As ethical, political, and theological center, Christ leads mankind to the Father. At the midpoint of his presentation, Bonaventure introduces the geometrical figure of the circle whose center is rediscovered by lines intersecting in a cross. This figure, which has the elements of the classical geometrical mandala, reflects the mandala structure of Bonaventure's cosmic vision as a whole: Christ is the center of the world, the axis mundi, the coincidentia oppositorum, the center of the great cosmic circle of emanation and return. From this perspective, the mandala is a key not only to unlock the meaning of particular symbols in Bonaventure's writings but to reveal the structure of his entire cosmic vision.

Spiritual Journey

While the first collatio presents a cosmic mandala, the Itinerarium contains two mandalas relating to the spiritual journey. Both the six-winged Seraph and the tabernacle symbolize the progressive movement of the soul towards God. Although both reflect a cosmic structure, their chief function is to direct the soul on its spiritual path. The six-winged Seraph gives evidence of being a mandala from a variety of perspectives. In terms of its geometrical structure, there is a cross, a center, and the number four - all contained in the figure of the crucified. Whether the symbol also contains a circle is not clear, since Bonaventure's description gives no indication. The six wings may be arranged in the form of a circle, as is the case in certain representations of the vision in medieval art. Other representations show a circle formed by rays of light or a glowing aureole around the Seraph.³⁹⁹ Such a conception may be suggested by Bonaventure's account of the vision in the Legenda major, which speaks of the "Seraph, with six wings that were fiery and shining."⁴⁰⁰ Other representations give no suggestion of a circle, but depict the wings in different configurations and without a circle of light. On the other hand, the six wings themselves may symbolize a circle; for Jung indicates that the numbers twelve and six are known to constitute symbolic circles and hence may be found in mandalas.⁴⁰¹ Whether or not a circle is present does not seem to be crucial here since the other geometrical elements combine with the function of the symbol to indicate its mandala character.

The six-winged Seraph functions as a symbol of organized totality. First, it is a symbol unifying the entire literary piece. Secondly, it is a microcosm of the universe, since the three pairs of wings reflect the material world, man, and God. It is also a symbol of the soul, since it reflects the successive stages of the soul's journey to God. The six wings, then, symbolize the organized totality of the universe and of man's inner world and his spiritual progress. It is this total organization of the inner world according to a cosmic scheme as depicted in a symbol or image that is characteristic of the mandala. It is interesting to note, further, that in Bonaventure's meditation, the Seraph plays a role similar to that played by the Oriental yantra, or geometrical aid to contemplation. In the prologue to the Itinerarium, Bonaventure describes how he had retired to Mount La Verna and meditated on "that miracle which in this very place had happened to the blessed Francis-the vision he received of the winged Seraph in the form of the crucified."⁴⁰² In a flash Bonaventure grasped how the Seraph symbolized both the goal of the spiritual journey and the stages of the process. It is this combination of goal and stages of the journey that constitutes the very essence of the mandala design. Thus the personal vision of Francis is seen as a universal symbol of the goal and the stages of the spiritual ascent. It was precisely Bonaventure's reading of the geometrical configuration of the six wings that was the key to rendering the personal vision of Francis a universal psychic and cosmic symbol. The remainder of the Itinerarium can be seen as a continuation of this meditation on the Seraph as a mandala, leading ultimately to penetration into the divine realm in the seventh chapter.

Architectural-Ritualistic Mandala

On reaching the third stage of the journey, Bonaventure introduces the tabernacle, another mandala symbol. Not only does the tabernacle have a different configuration from the Seraph, but it belongs to a different class: that of the architectural-ritualistic mandalas. The Seraph functioned as an image for contemplation, like the Oriental yantra. In the description of the tabernacle, however, the reader is bid to enter a sacred structure and to move from zone to zone in a type of ritual of penetration. In terms of geometrical structure, the tabernacle follows the mandala pattern, since it consists of a square or rectangle, with various sacred zones leading to a center, namely Christ symbolized by the Mercy Seat. From a functional point of view, the tabernacle symbol is a mandala since it leads to a centering of the self on Christ and a passage into the divine sphere. The contemplation of Christ as the coincidence of opposites suggests the integration of opposites around the center of the mandala.

Bonaventure's use of the tabernacle as a mandala recapitulates a long history of architecture and ritual. Since primitive times, as Eliade's research has shown, man has sought a center for contact with the divine. These centers have been natural objects such as stones, mountains, springs, trees. However, man has also established a center in his buildings, especially in temples and churches. Since ancient times temples were built according to a mandala pattern. In addition to the basic center point, the walls and chambers were designed as a labyrinth or in successive stages to allow for gradual entrance into the sacred center. This architectural pattern provided the context for a ritual of entrance that would lead by successive stages to the point of contact with the divine sphere.⁴⁰³ In the tabernacle in the Itinerarium, Bonaventure has used a mandala design from temple architecture as a symbol of the structure of the psyche; and he has employed the ritualistic entrance as a symbol of the inner way.

Seen in interrelationship, the three types of mandalas we have studied - the cosmic, the yantra, and the architectural-ritualistic - represent three diverse forms of the mandala structure. Every mandala is simultaneously a picture of the cosmos, of the inner world, and of the spiritual journey. Each of these forms is related to the other by way of microcosm-macrocosm. The soul reflects the cosmic structure, and the spiritual journey follows the pattern of both the cosmos and the soul. Each form, then, contains the other according to the specific coincidence of opposites that is realized in the microcosm-macrocosm relationship. The single point through which the opposites pass and unite is the center. In each of Bonaventure's three mandalas, the center is Christ. It is Christ who unifies the cosmos, the soul, and the journey. In studying the three types of mandalas in Bonaventure, we are viewing three different facets of the intricate structure of his thought - each facet itself structured according to the mandala design and each focusing on the single center: Christ.

Other Mandala Symbols

In this study we have confined ourselves to three major mandala symbols used by Bonaventure: the cosmic vision of the first collatio in Hexaemeron, with Christ as the center, the six-winged Seraph and the tabernacle of the Itinerarium. We can add to this group the image of Christ in the treatise The Tree of Life.⁴⁰⁴ In this work, written shortly after the Itinerarium, Bonaventure presents the life of Christ through the symbol of the tree of life, on whose branches blossom the fruits of virtue to nourish the soul. Bonaventure describes the image as follows:

Picture in your imagination a tree. Suppose its roots to be watered by an eternally gushing fountain that becomes a great and living river, a river which spreads out in four channels to irrigate the whole garden of the Church. Suppose next that from the trunk of this tree there spring forth twelve branches, adorned with leaves, flowers and fruits.⁴⁰⁵

Since Bonaventure identifies the life of Christ with the tree of life, artists through the ages have depicted Christ crucified on the trunk of the tree with his arms outstretched on two of the branches. On the twelve branches of the tree are often painted the scenes from Christ's life that Bonaventure describes in the treatise and from which the reader is to draw nourishment for his spiritual life.⁴⁰⁶ The image is in the form of a mandala since Christ is clearly at the center and the tree is in the form of a cross. In some reproductions the foliage produces the effects of a circle, although the circle design is not always present. On the other hand, the twelve branches may constitute a symbolic circle, according to the observations of Jung, cited above, on the symbolic meaning of the numbers six and twelve.⁴⁰⁷ The configuration of four is present in the cross and in the river which waters the tree's roots and branches into four channels to irrigate the entire garden of the Church.

Bonaventure clearly intends the tree of life to be an image of total integration: Christ's life is presented in its entirety as the ideal for the Christian moral and spiritual life. By meditating on the individual incidents in Christ's life, we identify ourselves with him as our center and are thus transformed into him. The Tree of Life, then, is situated in the great tradition of spirituality which affirms that one reaches spiritual maturity by identifying with Christ. Yet Bonaventure's treatise reflects the specific emphasis of Francis, since he meditates on the concrete particulars of Christ's life, seeking to imitate the virtues there manifested. As a mandala, the tree of life is comparable to the six-winged Seraph, in that it functions as a yantra, an image for contemplation, providing in Christ's life an ideal to be emulated and in the progressive meditation on his virtues the stages in the spiritual journey towards that ideal.

Configuration of Four

The mandalas studied above embody the geometrical form of the center, the cross, the circle, and the journey. There is, however, another type of mandala which is also found in Bonaventure. This is the mandala in which the configuration of four predominates. Of course, the configuration of four is found in the cross as an element in the above mandalas; but at times it provides the very basic structure of the mandala design. Jung has pointed out how the configuration four appears in dreams and in culture as an archetype of total integration.⁴⁰⁸ This can be seen, for example, in the four directions, the four seasons, the four elements, the four causes, the four moral virtues, the four senses of Scripture. In religious art this configuration is found in the mandala of the four evangelists, with Christ as a center. Two striking uses of the fourfold mandala design occur in the introductions to Bonaventure's two versions of his scholastic synthesis: the Commentary on the Sentences and the Breviloquium.

In the prooemium to the first book of his Commentary on the Sentences, Bonaventure proposes as an introduction to his work a consideration of the four causes of the book of The Sentences by Peter Lombard: the material, formal, efficient, and final causes.⁴⁰⁹ The prooemium begins like a medieval sermon, taking its point of departure from a Biblical text and proceeding by way of the interpretation of symbols and complex divisions. Bonaventure chooses the following text from Job: "He searched into the depths of the rivers and brought hidden things to light" (28:11). According to Bonaventure, this text provides us with a key to understand the four causes of The Sentences: for in the river we see symbolized the material cause; in searching the depths, the formal cause; in bringing to light hidden things, the final cause; and in the one who searches and brings to light, the efficient cause.

Bonaventure then explores the material cause according to another configuration of four. The subject matter, or material cause, is like a river, and the four books of The Sentence can be correlated to the four properties observed in a river; for a river flows constantly, it is extensive, it circulates, and it washes. The first book of The Sentences correlates with the constant flow of the river, since it deals with the eternal Trinitarian processions. The second book correlates with the vastness of the river, since it treats the vast expanse of creation. The third correlates with the circulation of the river since it deals with the Incarnation. "Just as in a circle the end is joined to the beginning, so in the Incarnation the highest is joined to the lowest, since God is joined to clay, and the first is joined to the last, since the eternal Son of God is joined to man created on the sixth day."⁴¹⁰ The fourth book correlates with the fact that a river washes, since it deals with the sacraments, which without being polluted themselves cleanse us from the stains of sin.

Bonaventure then compares the four books of The Sentences to the four branches of the river which watered the garden of Eden: "A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided into four branches" (Gen. 2:10). Since there are four rivers, there are four distinct depths, which the four books of The Sentences search into: the depth of the eternal emanation, the depth of creation, the depth of the Incarnation, and the depth of the sacraments. This searching into the depths is the formal cause; and the bringing to light of the hidden things is the final cause, which itself is divided into a configuration of four according to the four types of hidden things brought to light: the greatness of the divine substance, the order of divine wisdom, the strength of the divine power, and the sweetness of the divine mercy. Pointing, then, to Master Peter Lombard, the author and efficient cause of The Sentences, Bonaventure completes his original configuration of four according to the four causes.

Does this configuration of four have a center? There is reason to detect at least the beginnings of the Christocentricity which years later will blossom into the image of Christ the center of the Gollationes in Hexaemeron. Immediately following the treatment of the symbol of the river, Bonaventure devotes four scholastic quaestiones to the four causes of The Sentences. In contrast with the earlier rhetoric, this section is cast in the scholastic form of reasons, counter-reasons, the resolution of the question, followed by answers to objections. In the quaestio on the material cause, or subject matter, Bonaventure considers Christ the "integral subject" of The Sentences. Christ is the "integral subject" because all things treated in the work are led back (reducuntur) to him as to an integral whole (totum integrale) :

The subject to which all things treated in this book are led back, as to an integral whole, is Christ, in so far as he encompasses the divine and human nature or the created and uncreated, which the first two books are about. He also encompasses the head and the members, which the two following books are about. I am taking the term "integral whole" in the sense that it embraces many things not only by composition, but by union and by ordering.⁴¹¹

In this passage, Bonaventure formulates the two modes of Christocentricity that will unfold throughout his life. As Godman, Christ is the mediating center between God and the world; he is the microcosm in which all of reality is reflected. As the head of the members and the universe, he is the focal center through which all things are ordered. As "integral subject," he is also the midpoint between the two other types of subject matter which Bonaventure distinguishes in this quaestio. The "root subject" (subjectum radicale) is God, since all things are led back to him as to their source; the "universal subject" (subjectum universale) consists of the things and signs (res et signa) or the objects of belief as understood by reason.⁴¹² As microcosm and organizing center, Christ draws together in an integral whole these other two subjects.

This configuration of four, with Christ as its center, is by no means as thoroughly developed a mandala structure as those found later in the Itinerarium and the Collationes in Hexaemeron; for here the element of Christ the center has not emerged into prominence. However, it is significant in that it is present at the very beginning of his writing career, and secondly, because it appears as the microcosmic design of his most extensive and comprehensive work, his Commentary on the Sentences. This means, in effect, that at the early stage of the formulation of his vision, the mandala was its controlling design.

Several years after the Commentary when Bonaventure composed the Breviloquium, the abbreviated version of his scholastic synthesis, he introduced it with a symbolic interpretation of the configuration four.⁴¹³ Once again taking his departure from a Biblical text, he quotes from the letter to the Ephesians: ". . . so that being rooted and grounded in love, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know Christ's love which surpasses knowledge" (Eph. 3:17-19). This pattern of four is then developed in two ways. Basing himself on Scripture rather than The Sentences of Peter Lombard, he views the breadth, length, height, and depth of the universe as it is described in Scripture; and then he studies the same four dimensions of Scripture itself. Speaking of the first perspective, he says:

Using, therefore, a language sometimes literal and sometimes figurative, it [Scripture] sums up, as it were, the content of the entire universe, and so covers the BREADTH; it describes the whole course of history, thereby comprehending the LENGTH; it displays the glory of those finally to be saved, thus showing the HEIGHT; it recounts the misery of the reprobate, and thus reveals the DEPTH, not only of the universe, but also of God's judgment."⁴¹⁴

Looking at Scripture itself, Bonaventure studies its breadth in the various books that make up the Old and the New Testament. Once again he sees a configuration of four: in the legal, historical, sapiential, and prophetical books of the Old Testament, which have their counterpart in the New Testament. He sees the correspondence of the two Testaments prefigured in the vision of Ezechiel, "who saw the wheels of the four faces, each wheel being, as it were, within another."⁴¹⁵ Bonaventure makes a further correspondence between the books and the four faces of the vision: the lion, the ox, the man, and the eagle. He proceeds to sketch another pattern of four in the ways that Scripture draws us toward good and away from evil.

Bonaventure studies the length of Scripture in the entire span of history that it describes; he explores its height in its description of the hierarchies and their ordered ranks; and he studies its depth in its fourfold interpretation: the literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical. Further on, in dealing with the explanation of Scripture, he correlates the fourfold interpretation with a fourfold division of the content of Scripture. He concludes his prologue with the following image:

Scripture, then, deals with the whole universe, the high and the low, the first and the last, and all things in between. It is, in a sense, an intelligible cross in which the whole organism of the universe is described and made to be seen in the light of the mind.⁴¹⁶

The pattern of the prologue to the Breviloquium is very similar to that of the prooemium of the Commentary on the Sentences. Just as there are complex patterns of four in each, so there is only a hint of Christocentricity. In the Breviloquium Christ the center is merely suggested in the image of Scripture as an intelligible cross manifesting the universe. Although Christ is not mentioned explicitly, the image of the cross in Bonaventure's writing naturally suggests Christ crucified. There are further hints in the text, such as the following: "By knowing and loving Christ . . . , we can know the breadth, length, height and depth of Scripture."⁴¹⁷ As in the case of the Commentary, the Christocentric element of the mandala design is not yet prominent; yet the general outlines of the mandala design are present, some of them in a high degree of development. Thus we see foreshadowed even in the early period the highly developed Christocentric mandala design that will emerge progressively throughout his writings.

Clarification through Mandala

To study Bonaventure's work from the standpoint of the mandala throws light on many aspects of his thought. First, the mandala, as a symbol of total integration, reflects the distinctive quality of Bonaventure's synthesis. Even in an age of synthesis, Bonaventure stands out for the synthetic nature of his vision. For he integrates Aristotelianism and Platonism, mysticism and scholasticism, affectivity and abstraction, the simplicity of Francis and the subtlety of the schools. Perhaps more than any other thirteenth-century writer, Bonaventure represents the differentiation and integration of major strands of medieval culture. Given this integral quality of his thought and the prominence of mandala symbolism therein, it is not surprising that his integrated cosmic vision should take the pattern of the mandala.

The mandala symbol is the ultimate revelation of the coincidence of opposites in Bonaventure's thought. Both in the history of religions and in psychology, the mandala is the most profound, the most complex, and the most comprehensive expression of the coincidentia oppositorum. By its very nature the mandala is constituted by the coincidence of opposites. The integration of polarities is not accidental to the mandala or of secondary importance; it is of its very essence. Furthermore, mandalas are comprehensive symbols, integrating an entire cosmos, the totality of psychic forces and the entire sweep of the spiritual journey. Thus the mandala symbols in Bonaventure reveal the depth, complexity, and comprehensiveness of the coincidence of opposites in his thought. The constant recurrence of mandala symbols at key points in his writings - in the introduction to the Commentary on the Sentences and the Breviloquium, in the Itinerarium and The Tree of Life, and finally in the Collationes in Hexaemeron - indicates that the coincidence of opposites is the foundational and overarching architectonic pattern in his thought.

Furthermore, the mandala provides a perspective for clarifying elements within Bonaventure's synthesis. Basic to his vision is the role of Christ as medium or center. In the three examples studied, Christ is the center of the cosmos, the center of the self, and the goal and path of the spiritual journey. From a hermeneutical point of view, it is difficult to give a philosophical and theological account of his notion of Christ as center. He is clearly assigning to Christ a pre-eminent significance in creation, redemption, and spiritual growth; but the precise nature of this significance has to be spelled out. The theologian needs a set of hermeneutical categories that will clarify this significance and account for the power of Christ in the synthesis. The mandala provides such a set of categories. When we scan the history of man's religious experience and observe - with Jung, Eliade, and Tucci - the significance of the 'center' as an organizing point for the psyche and the cosmos and if we see the power of the 'center' to integrate opposites and lead to union with the divine, we can glimpse some of the power of Christ in forming the center of Bonaventure's Christian mandala.

In the light of this, we can appreciate Bonaventure's opposition to Aristotle. We will touch this only briefly here, but will return to it in the next chapter.⁴¹⁸ Each generation of scholars attempts to re-interpret the great controversy of the thirteenth century and specifically Bonaventure's role as spokesman of the opposition to the new Aristotelianism at the University of Paris. Research into the mandala can throw new light on this controversy. In view of this research, Bonaventure's objection could be epitomized in the following way: Because the Aristotelians do not know Christ its center, they have shattered the Christian mandala. Without Christ as center, the divinity is separated from the universe, the world is eternal and history has no direction. For without Christ as eternal Word, there is no exemplarism and the world ceases to be expression of the divinity.⁴¹⁹ The world is thus uprooted from its ground in the divine life and stands apart, separated from the divinity by an infinite abyss. Without the incarnate Christ history has no center, and time is merely the endless repetition of events without meaningful direction. Hence there is no circle of emanation and return.

Another important point is that Bonaventure integrates history into his mandala. This may show a major difference between Christian mandalas and those of the Orient. The circle of Bonaventure's mandala is not merely the "intelligible sphere" of Alanus de Insulis that symbolizes the fact that God is eternal and without limits.⁴²⁰ Bonaventure's is a dynamic circle because his doctrine of God is dynamic. His mandala circle symbolizes the dynamic life of the Trinitarian processions. This Trinitarian dynamism stands behind the circle of emanation and return in the universe. It is here that Bonaventure finds his metaphysical grounding for his notion of history. For him, history has a positive value, since it is involved in the emanation and return of creatures from the fecundity of the Trinity. Bonaventure's notion of center makes possible the emanation and return, and this notion likewise gives history meaning.

In a study of Bonaventure's theology of history, Joseph Ratzinger indicates how his notion of Christ as center emerges to shape his notion of history. Jesus Christ, the middle person of the Trinity and the mediator between God and man, gradually becomes the synthesis of all that is expressed in the notion of the center. "And as a consequence of this general interpretation of Christ from the notion of center, he becomes also the 'center of time.' "⁴²¹ Ratzinger shows how Bonaventure's notion of time differs radically from the Aristotelian notion. "For Aristotle and Thomas, time was the neutral measure of duration, 'an accident of movement.' "⁴²² But for Bonaventure it was much more. He considered time a positive reality involved in the emanation and return of things from the creative power of God. "It is integrated right from the start into the great Bonaventurian vision of the world, for whenever we speak of egressio, we affirm a regressio together with it."⁴²³ In such a context the thought of an infinite duration of time is nonsensical.

The Mandala: Francis and Bonaventure

In addition to clarifying philosophical-theological issues, the mandala can throw light on the lives of Francis and Bonaventure. Does the vision of the Seraph function as a mandala in the life of Francis? There is much reason to think that it does. It comes at the climax of his life, as an extraordinary spiritual gift, as the sum and expression of his entire spiritual past. Yet it lifts him to a new level of incorporation into Christ, for he bears in his body the sign of Christ crucified. It would be of special interest to explore the stigmata as an incorporated mandala, that is, a mandala realized within the body. One of the forms of the mandala studied by Tucci is that of the mandala in the human body.⁴²⁴ From this perspective, the mandala revealed by the vision of the Seraph was so incorporated into Francis' person that his body expressed the identity through the wounds of Christ crucified. It may be that the highest stage of incarnating the Christian mandala within the body is precisely in the stigmata which Francis received.

Does the Seraph also function as a mandala in the life of Bonaventure? At times of crisis or transition in one's life, the archetype of the self - and its symbol the mandala - may emerge to bring about an integration of psychic forces and to give a new direction to one's life. Such seems to have been the case for Bonaventure. Whereas the Seraph functioned as a goal-mandala for Francis, it seems to have brought Bonaventure to a new level of integration at a stage along the journey. The period of the composition of the Itinerarium was a troubled time both for Bonaventure and the Franciscan Order. The year was 1259, just two and a half years after he had been chosen Minister General of the Friars. The young General had inherited a host of problems. The Order was torn by dissension with the Spirituals, who were armed with the ideology of Joachim of Fiora. In this controversy, Bonaventure would have to preside over the trial of John of Parma, his predecessor as General and his personal friend. Throughout these years Bonaventure had to deal with the tension between the Franciscan ideal of poverty and the demands of practical life, between the simplicity of the early friars and the learning of the universities, between the spontaneity of Francis' spirit and the need for institutional structures in an expanding order. It was in this context that Bonaventure withdrew to Mount La Verna to seek peace. He describes his mood as follows:

It happened that, thirty-three years after the death of the Saint [Francis], about the time of his passing, moved by a divine impulse, I withdrew to Mount La Verna as to a place of quiet, there to satisfy the yearning of my soul for peace.⁴²⁵

Bonaventure sought this peace, he tells us, "with yearning soul."⁴²⁶ He had come to his spiritual source: to the holy mountain where Francis had received his greatest spiritual gift. In this setting, while meditating on the vision of the stigmata, Bonaventure saw in a sudden insight its symbolic meaning: "the uplifting of Saint Francis in contemplation" and "the way by which that state of contemplation can be reached."⁴²⁷ The six wings symbolize the six stages of the journey and the form of the crucified suggests that the road "is through nothing else than a most ardent love of the crucified."⁴²⁸ This love so absorbed Francis that "his spirit shone through his flesh the last two years of his life when he bore the most holy marks of the Passion in his body."⁴²⁹

The setting, Bonaventure's description of his psychological mood, his meditation on the image, the insight, its immediate yielding of meaning, and its elaborate unfolding in the text of the Itinerarium all indicate that the image of the Seraph functioned as a mandala in Bonaventure's personal life. The Itinerarium shows a new integration of Franciscan elements and his own cosmic vision.⁴³⁰

From the standpoint of the mandala, this would not mean something radically new in Bonaventure's life. Rather it would indicate a new level of integration of elements that had operated from his early years. From this point onward the scholasticism of the University of Paris is more integrated with his Christocentric and Francis-centered vision. This trend can be traced in a growing fashion into the Collationes in Hexaemeron. Thus we can observe that not only does Christ become ever more sharply focused as the center of Bonaventure's cosmic mandala, but that Francis becomes more clearly centered with Christ. For Bonaventure, the Franciscan General and architect of the developing Order, this meant that both he and the friars would enter the Christian mandala through the personality of Francis.

Conclusions

By applying to Bonaventure the twentieth century research into the mandala, we can clearly discern the two levels of his symbolism: (1) the universal level on which all creatures are symbols of the divinity in so far as they reflect the Trinity; (2) the more particularized level on which certain material symbols, such as the tree and the tabernacle, divinize the human spirit through their materiality. Although particularized in being a specific symbol, in the mandala they take on a universal function since they integrate through themselves as through a center the totality of reality; in a cosmic structure or a spiritual journey. In this they reflect the mystery of Christ the center, who as the greatest coincidence of opposites unites all the polar aspects of reality. Having established these two classes of symbolism, I do not wish to give the impression that they are so diverse in Bonaventure that they are not integrated. On the contrary, Christ the center draws them together. As divine Word and archetype of creation, he is the center of all Trinitarian symbolism; and as incarnate Word, he is the center of all material symbolism. Thus in the total mystery of Christ as eternal Word and incarnate Word, we have the integration of these two forms of symbolism in Bonaventure's thought - in the all-embracing mandala of which Christ is the center.

Seen against the background of the twentieth century research into the mandala, then, Bonaventure's thought reveals its enormous depth and richness. On the one hand, Eliade, Jung, and Tucci aid in our understanding of Bonaventure; but on the other, Bonaventure provides a concrete case of religious symbolism which brings to a high point of expression the very principles they propound. Bonaventure was a religious genius, whose creative powers were in close touch with the archetypal religious symbols which are the heritage of men throughout the world. In this context, we can see the universal value of Bonaventure's thought and his relevance to our present age. For he not only draws richly upon universal religious symbols, but he provides an example of that fully developed and integral consciousness which is the goal of mankind. It is not by chance that mandala symbols abound in his writings, for he embodies in his own person a high degree of differentiated opposites which are at the same time integrated into a multi-dimensional totality. And he points the way to others, at their own position in space and time in the cosmic process, to join with him in the return to the Father. For it is by the integration of all the opposites: of matter and spirit, of the eternal and the temporal, of the divine and the human, of death and life, of the resolution of the struggle of good and evil, that one reaches the height of the mountain and enters into the fullness of union.

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