Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Center Blossoms, Part 1:The Pneumatological Fruit of the Incarnate Word in Bonaventure's BreviloquiumBr. Thomas A. Piolata OFM Cap. (bio)This paper asks the following question: What is the fruit of Saint Bonaventure's theological focus on Christ as the center of all theology? While Bonaventure's christocentric vision has rightly received ample scholarly attention and recognition, a clear and robust explication of the fruit—i.e., the culmination or goal—of this vision yet remains to be articulated.1 The above question has not received a full answer. There is thus a lacuna and a need within the secondary literature on the Seraphic Doctor's thought. This study addresses and begins to remedy this lacuna. It offers a preliminary answer to the above question.2 To this end, I will argue that Bonaventure's christocentrism yields a theology that accentuates the Spirit's role in salvation—a pneumatological soteriology.To argue this point, I focus principally on Bonaventure's systematic masterpiece, the Breviloquium. I have chosen this text for two principal reasons. The first reason: the Breviloquium makes manifest the Seraphic [End Page 195] Doctor's distinctive christocentrism.3 After all, in a work consisting of seven parts,4 it is precisely Part 4—De incarnatione Verbi—that constitutes the text's undeniable structural center. Bonaventure's treatment of the Incarnate Word constitutes, as Part 4 of the text, the centerpiece of the seven-part theological synthesis developed in the Breviloquium.The second reason: the Breviloquium makes explicit the inherent— and specifically pneumatological—fruitfulness of Bonaventure's christocentrism. Significantly, that is, the centrality of Christ in the text does not end in Christ. Already in Part 4, the text's structural center, the centrality of Christ culminates and finds its fullness in a pneumatological, pentecostal reflection: "Postremo, ut inflammaret ad caritatem, misit [Christus] ignem Spiritus sancti in die Pentecostes."5 These words reveal the pneumatological climax of Christ's mission. They are taken from the tenth and final chapter of Part 4, where Bonaventure makes explicit reference to the "Spiritus sanctus" nine times.6 This pentecostal conclusion and cluster of references to the Spirit imbues this final chapter of Part 4 De incarnatione Verbi with a pronounced pneumatological accent and culmination. The centrality of the Incarnate Word already—within its own structure—begins to blossom into the Spirit. Indeed, the centrality of Christ is a blossoming center.This pneumatological apogee of the centrality of Christ does not go unnoticed by Joshua Benson in his careful study of the Breviloquium's Christology. Benson utilizes as a structural hermeneutic Bonaventure's triadic division of ortus, progressus/modus, and status/fructus introduced in the prologue of the text,7 and arrives at the following synthesis: "This chapter [Chapter 10 of Part 4] is the ultimate fructus of Bonaventure's investigation of the incarnate Word and also establishes Christ further as the ortus of the life of grace that Bonaventure will examine in part 5 [De gratia Spiritus sancti]."8 Benson thus eventually concludes: "The paschal mystery is the foundation for the pneumatological mystery of the church."9 [End Page 196]Ultimately, then, Benson's comments bear witness to the inherent trajectory of the Breviloquium's distinctive christocentrism. Indeed, the center not only anticipates, but even reaches into the subsequent parts that follow: Part 4 does not stand alone as an isolated monad, but betrays directionality, a movement toward the Spirit. Put differently, the text's undeniable christic center is a vibrant center that bears fruit, a center that breathes forth the mystery of the Spirit. In a word, the center blossoms: pneumatological presence pulsates within and so blossoms forth from the reality of the Incarnate Word.This insight motivates the present study. After all, it is this basic insight that lies at the genesis of, formulates an initial answer to, and evinces the theological gravity within the very question that opened this essay: What is the fruit of Bonaventure's theological focus on Christ the center? Answering this question constitutes the goal of this study. To answer it, I will explicate the—pneumatological—fruit of Christ the center. In brief, the answer I propose lies in what I will...