Franciscan Studies

ADVICE TO SUPERIORS IN EARLY TERTIARY COMMUNITIES:«DE SEX ALIS SERAPHIM" Among the shorter works attributed to Saint Bonaventure is found a study of the virtues of a religious superior, De sex alis seraphim, which has been used in religious communities ever since its initial publication at the end of the fifteenth century. Often reprinted, it has also been translated into German, French, and several times into English, and for generations was recommended especially in the Society of Jesus as a handbook for superiors.1 The intrinsic qualities of the work had much to do with its popularity: its emphasis on practical moral psychology, its brief and memorable allegory, and what was considered its happy use of abundant scriptural references. Saint Bonaventure's supposed authorship must have contributed to its high repute, all the more in that works on governance and pastoral care in the religious life were few; little existed apart from Saint Bernard 's treatise "On Precept and Dispensation." A book on leadership, presumably for the ministers and guardians of his own Order, by the Seraphic Doctor, who had himself been the Minister General, was surely to be prized; moreover its contents were general, its advice somewhat flexible and of wide application. Religious superiors of many institutes found it helpful and Claudius Aquaviva, the Father General of the Jesuits, could direct that Jesuit superiors were to study it, 1 The text is in Vol. 8 of Saint Bonaventure's Opera omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) 131-51, with prefatory material on p. LX. The editors collated just one of the surviving manuscripts, of which only four were known, with the previous Vatican edition. There are translations by Fr. Sabinus Mollitor, O.F.M., TheVirtues of a Relgious Superior (St. Louis Herder, 1920); Dominic Devas, A Franciscan View of the Spiritual and Religious Life: Being Three Treatises from the Writtings of St. Bonaventure (London: Thomas Baker, 1922) 26-124; Jos^ de Vinck, "The Six Wings of the Seraph," The Works of Bonaventure, Vol. 3 (Paterson: St. Anthony Guild, 1966); and Philip F. O'Mara, The Character of a Christian Leader (Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1978). 82PHILIP F. O'MARA since "It is in conformity with our spirit and fits in with the Society's way of doing things."2 Ignatius Brady, O.F.M., has shown, however, that De sex alis seraphim is not by Saint Bonaventure but is an anonymous fourteenth century treatise.3 His three arguments against Bonaventurian authorship may be characterized respectively as weak, strong, and all but demonstrative. His weak argument is that there are no thirteenthcentury manuscripts. Almost all European libraries have undergone such vicissitudes in seven centuries that in itself this reason is not telling, but it is not quite negligible, especially as not all the early manuscripts carry the traditional attribution; Saint Bonaventure's confreres, had they supposed from the beginning that the treatise was his, might have been led to preserve the work in good early copies, especially when it would appeal by topic and treatment to heads of religious houses. Much stronger, however, is the argument that the treatise, although it employs the same device of attributing specific meaning to the six wings of Francis' seraphic vision as is found in the Prologue to the Itinerarium, and mentions the vision in terms consistent with its narration in Legenda maior, (ch. 13), is stylistically quite different from these and all of Saint Bonaventure's other authentic works. Brady's final argument is that this work employs certain terms that are not part of Saint Bonaventure's vocabulary and that in fact date it to a period not earlier than the middle of the fourteenth century. He notes that superior and rector 2 Opera omnia, 8: LX. 8 "The Writings of Saint Bonaventure regarding the Franciscan Order," Miscellanea Francescana 75 (1975): 89-112; this treatise in discussed on pp. 105106 . Fr. Brady's essay is reprinted in San Bonaventura maestro di vita francescana e di sapienza cristiana (Atti del Congresso internazionale per il vii centenario di San Bonaventura da Bagnoregio), ed. Alfonso Pompei (Rome: Pontificia facoltà Teológica San Bonaventura 1976), with the same pagination. The book will hereafter be referred to as Pompei...