Defense of the Mendicants: Works of St. Bonaventure, Volume XV - Softcover

Robert J. Karris; Jose De Vinck

9781576591598: Defense of the Mendicants: Works of St. Bonaventure, Volume XV

Softcover

ISBN 10: 157659159X ISBN 13: 9781576591598

Publisher: Franciscan Inst Pubs, 2010

In twelve chapters, St. Bonaventure defends the Franciscan way of life against the attacks of Parisian Master, Gerrard of Abbeville. Bonaventure clarifies the meaning of evangelical perfection,, gospel poverty and the imitation of Christ. He distinguishes different kinds of perfection and clearly indicates how the Old Testament relates to the dispensation of grace in the New Testament and how it is to be interpreted. This volume is a companion to Bonaventure's "Disputed Question on Evangelical Perfection" which is Volume 13 in this series.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Fr. Robert J. Karris, OFM, is a Franciscan priest of the Sacred Heart Province whose headquarters are in St. Louis. He earned an STL from Catholic University of America and a Th.D. from Harvard University in New Testament and Early Church History. Fr. Karris is a former professor of New Testament at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a former Provincial Minister of Sacred Heart Province and General Councilor of the Order of Friars Minor. Currently, he is research professor at The Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University. He has been widely published and his most recent New Testament books are, John: Stories of the Word and Faith and Eating Your Way through Luke's Gospel. He is a past president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America and for the last four years he has preached in over 60 churches in the United States on behalf of the poor served by Food for the Poor.

Review:

Bonaventure s Tears
and the Consequence

Bonaventure of Bagnoregio was crying. No. Better: He was bawling. As soon as the dense smoke emanated from the bottomless pit, polluting the air and darkening the sun, he could not control himself. His tear ducts shifted into high gear and spouted copious tears.
Bonaventure was aghast at Gerard of Abbeville s attempt to define the Franciscans out of the church. The church had its pastoral system, Gerard argued, founded on the Seventy-Two disciples sent forth by the Lord. The system had no room, thank you, for Bonaventure and his brothers. Sure of papal support, as well as of the church s need, Bonaventure set about dismantling Gerard s argument. He brought his great learning and his knowledge of the times into play and reread the account of the seventy-two disciples, while updating Dionysius s understanding of hierarchy. Mastering his sorrow, Bonaventure punished Gerard with his pen Whether Gerard broke out in tears I do not know. I hope not, for Bonaventure aspired to free Gerard s mind from a woefully inadequate grasp of the Lord s exemplarity and of the realities of the times; he offered Gerard (and us as well) his Defense of the Mendicants, the Apologia pauperum.
Robert Karris, O.F.M., of the Chicago-St. Louis province and The Franciscan Institute, has continued his relentless determination to get Saint Bonaventure s writings into English by laying before us, in English, Volume XV of the Bonaventure Texts in Translation Series, Defense of the Mendicants, the Apologia pauperum (Franciscan Institute Publications, 2010).
Karris presents Bonaventure s Defense of Franciscan life and his translation on pages 1-26. In the pages he explains why Bonaventure wrote the book and what he put into it. He answers several questions that help the reader get into the text and handle its characteristics: Why so many distinctions? How imitate Christ? He has a question of his own: Why read the Defense? Well, for general readers, it invites them to look at the struggle in the middle thirteenth century between secular theologians and mendicant theologians. For Franciscan readers, it promotes while explaining the evangelical life.
Our translator proposes, correctly, that his work is both faithful to the Latin text and readable for us today. Yet it is a medieval piece of writing, and for that reason his appendix to the text and his indices are a great help in getting the reader into Bonaventure s style and detail, as well as into its story. As for the appendix (357-386), it gives us a sermon (in translation) preached by Gerard of Abbeville on January 1, 1269. It puts his case against the Franciscans on display. Karris also gives Gerard a hearing (in English) by his many footnotes to the Defense drawn from Gerard s Contra adversarium. Then, in the three indices (389-423), where he distinguishes between scriptural, ecclesiastical, and philosophic plus canonical references, Karris gives the reader a map for exploring the witness of tradition sustaining and confirming Bonaventure s apologia. Karris s reader has in hand, then, a private course on Christian living and medieval church politics. It is a course well worth taking. --The Cord

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.