description of the ranged hierarchies, the ecclesiastical, angelic, and divine. ... Even as things have being in matter or nature, they have also being in the anima through its acquired knowledge ; they have also being in the anima through grace, also through glory; and they have also being in the way of the eternal – in arte aeterna. Philosophy treats of things as they are in nature, or in the anima according to the knowledge which is naturally implanted or acquired. But theology as a science (scientia) founded upon faith and revealed by the Holy Spirit, treats of those matters which belong to grace and glory and to the eternal wisdom. Whence placing philosophic cognition beneath itself, and drawing from nature (de naturis rerum) as much as it may need to make a mirror yielding a reflection of things divine, it constructs a ladder which presses the earth at the base, and touches heaven at the top: and all this through that one hierarch Jesus Christ, who through his assumption of human nature, is hierarch not in the ecclesiastical hierarchy alone, but also in the angelic; and is the medial person in the divine hierarchy of the most blessed Trinity."[1]
The depth (profunditas) of Scripture consists in its manifold mystic meanings. It reveals these meanings of the creature world for the edification of man journeying to his fatherland. Scripture throughout its breadth, length, height, and depth uses narrative, threat, exhortation, and promise all for one end. "For this doctrina exists in order that we may become good and be saved, which comes not through naked consideration, but rather through inclination of the will. ... Here examples have more effect than arguments, promises are more moving than ratiocinations, and devotion is better than definition." Hence Scripture does not follow the method and divisions of other sciences, but uses its own diverse means for its saving end. The Prologue closes with rules of Scriptural interpretation.[2]
In our plan of following what is of human interest in mediaeval philosophy or theology, prologues and introductions are sometimes of more importance than the works which they preface; for they disclose the writer's intent and purpose, and the endeavour within him, which may be more
- ↑ Breviloquium, Prologus.
- ↑ One feels the reality of Bonaventura's distinctions here between theology and philosophy. They are enunciations of his religious sense, and possess a stronger validity than any elaborate attempt to distinguish by argument between the two. Thomas distinguishes them with excellent reasoning. It lacks convincingness perhaps from the fact that Thomas's theology is so largely philosophy, as Roger Bacon said.
