Chapter 3 Mulier Amicta Sole: Bonaventure’s Preaching on the Marian Mode of the Incarnation and Marian Mediation in His Sermons on the Annunciation
J. Isaac Goff
Bonaventure’s homiletical works on Mary provide a wealth of insight into his mature and maturing views on the person and role of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and are pivotal in grasping the development of his Marian thought that began in his scholastic works.1 His vision of the ‘Woman’ is couched within, yet helps illumine, his presentation of the Trinity, Christology, Anthropology, and Sacra- mental theology, providing many key links between these different areas of his theological reflections. Together Bonaventure’s sermons on the Blessed Virgin Mary provide the general outline of what later systematic Mariologies would treat. His presentation of Mary’s role in both the order of the Incarnation and her mediatory role in the Church, especially as it relates to questions of Pneu- matology, has, arguably, not been surpassed. Bonaventure’s two sermons2 on the Annunciation, the topic of this es- say, provide a striking picture of Mary’s unique sanctity and singular agency
1 These sermons are divided according to the solemnities of the Purification, Annunciation, Assumption, and Nativity of Mary. A larger collection of twenty-four sermons on Mary were first gathered and published in 1901 in a single volume in Bonaventure, Sermones de tempore, de Sanctis, de B. Virgine Maria et de diversis, Opera Omnia, 10 vols., eds. PP. Collegii a S. Bo- naventurae (Quaracchi, 1882–1902), vol. 9, 633–721. A new critical edition of Bonaventure’s Marian discourses was published in 1993, which retains only nine of the original twenty-four sermons and adds collation 6 of Collationes de septem donis Spiritus sancti as the second sermon on the Annunciation for a total of ten. Bonaventure, Sermons de diversis, ed. Jacques Guy Bougerol (Paris, 1993), vol. 2, 554–578. See Bonaventure, Opera omnia, vol. 5, 483–489 for placement of the Annunciation sermon in Collationes de septem donis Spiritus sancti in the Quaracchi edition of Bonaventure. This essay will follow the Bougerol edition. Any modifica- tions to Bougerol’s text will be noted. The Bougerol edition will henceforth be cited as SD 2 with appropriate page numbers. 2 This number follows the Bougerol edition. The Quaracchi edition contains five additional sermons on the Annunciation that were thought by the editors to have come from Bonaven- ture. These are Sermo ii, Ecce virgo concepiet (Op. omn., vol. 9, 659b–667a); Sermo iii, Do- minus dabit benignitatem (Op. omn., vol. 9, 667a–670a); Sermo iv, Qui creavit me requievit (Op. omn., vol. 9, 671b–677b); Sermo V, Ave Maria gratia plena (Op. omn., vol. 9, 677b–682a); Sermo vi, Benedicta tu inter mulieres (Op. omn., vol. 9, 682a–687b). Bougerol determined
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from manuscript evidence that these texts are passed down as anonymous and, thus, can- not safely be ascribed to Bonaventure. Scholarly discussion will likely continue over whether these excised sermons ought to be re-introduced into the authentic Bonaventurean corpus. For the purposes of this essay it is sufficient to simply follow Bougerol’s editorial decisions. For a recent presentation of the status quaestionis of Bonaventurean textual studies, regard- ing questions of authorship and inclusion within the Bonaventurean corpus, see Aleksander Horowski, ‘Opere authentiche e spurie, edite, inedite di san Bonaventura da Bagnoregio: bi- lanco e prospettive,’ in Collectanea Francescana 86 (2016), 461–544. 3 On the Marian mode of the Incarnation, see Bonaventure, Breviloquium p. 4, c. 3, in Op. omn., vol. 5, 243a–244a. In this section, Bonaventure discusses ‘de incarnatione quantum ad modum.’ For discussion of the metaphysical and theological implications for Bonaventure’s Mariology, see Lorenzo Di Fonzo, Doctrina sancti Bonaventurae de universali Mediatione B. Virginis Mariae (Rome, 1938), 41–42. More recently Peter Damian Fehlner has a discussion of this aspect of Bonaventure’s understanding of the incarnation in Fehlner, ‘Mater Unitatis,’ in Mary at the Foot of the Cross-iii, ed. Peter Damian Fehlner (New Bedford, MA, 2003), 1–24; idem, ‘Opening Address,’ in Mary at the Foot of the Cross-vi, ed. Peter Damian Fehlner (New Bedford, MA, 2007), 1–10; idem, ‘Coredemption and the Assumption in the Franciscan School of Mariology: The ‘Franciscan Thesis’ as Key,’ in Studies in Honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe-i, ed. Peter Damian Fehlner (New Bedford, MA, 2013), 163–249. 4 Bonaventure, ii Sent., d. 9, q. 7, fund. 4 (Op. omn., vol. 2, 253a): ‘cum… sit [Virgo Maria] supra omnes ordines, per se constituet ordinem.’ This statement is to be understood in terms of Bo- naventure’s notion and application of hierarchy, which implies mediation and mediators in the superior hierarchies, hierarchizing members in lower grades of these hierarchies. Mary is under Christ but above all other hierarchies and thus has a unique relation to Christ in the incarnation and a singular relation to the Spirit in the mediation of his graces. For a helpful recent study, with relevant bibliography and texts from Bonaventure, see Katherine Wrisley Shelby, ‘Bonaventure on Grace, Hierarchy, and the Symbol of Jacob’s Ladder,’ in Ordo et Sanc- titas: The Franciscan Spiritual Journey in Theology and Hagiography: Essays in Honor of J.A. Wayne Hellmann, o.f.m. Conv. (Leiden, 2017), 207–228. 5 For Bonaventure’s commentary on Mary’s status vis-à-vis angels and humankind, see Bo- naventure, Sermo 39: De purificatione Beatae Mariae Virginis, in SD 2, 526, 531; Sermo 49: De assumptione Beatae Mariae Virginis, in SD 2, 648–652. For Bonaventure, the unique hierar- chical order that Mary constitutes in the economy of salvation as Panagia and mother of God is what allows her to function directly with and through the Holy Spirit as Purificatrix, Illuminatrix, and Perfectrix in the Church.