Truth and Reality : The Wisdom of St Bonaventure

A study of Collations on the Hexaëmeron, the last work of Saint Bonaventure, and one of the most important texts of medieval theology.

This is a thorough study and exposition of the last work for which St Bonaventure was responsible before his death in 1274. The Collations on the Hexaëmeron, also called The Illuminations of the Church comprises lectures that he gave in Paris in 1273 to Franciscan and other students and masters in the university there. They were recorded by two independent witnesses and one version, the definitive one, was prepared for publication and approved by Bonaventure.

This is one of the most interesting, original and important texts of medieval theology and it has been well translated and edited in a new edition. The purpose of this study is to examine the precise context for the approach that Bonaventure took, to place this work as the culmination of his spiritual theology, and to provide the reader with a lucid epitome of the contents of the text, drawing out their significance for theology and prayer in the life of the Church today.

DOUGLAS DALES was from 1984 to 2012 Chaplain of Marlborough College, Wiltshire, and he is now a parish priest in the diocese of Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and the author of several studies in Anglo-Saxon church history and other areas of theology. The other books in the St. Bonaventure series published by James Clarke & Co. are: Divine Remaking: St Bonaventure and the Gospel of Luke (2017), Way Back To God: The Spiritual Theology of Saint Bonaventure (2019) and Truth and Reality: The Wisdom of St Bonaventure (2021).