Enter into yourself, therefore, and observe that your soul loves itself most fervently; that it could not love itself unless it knew itself, nor know itself unless it summoned itself to conscious memory, for we do not grasp a thing with our understanding unless it is present in our memory. Hence you can observe, not with the bodily eye [oculo carnis], but with the eye of the mind [oculo rationis], that your soul has three powers. Consider, therefore, the activities of these three powers and their relationships, and you will be able to see God through yourself as through an image; and this indeed is to see God through a mirror in an obscure manner [in aenigmate].
He then goes through the powers, showing how each of the activities of each of the powers participates God in some way. At the end he says:
See therefore, how close the soul is to God, and how, through their activity, the memory leads us to eternity, the intelligence to Truth, and the elective faculty to the highest Good [in bonitatem summam secundum operationes suas].
He then gives the standard Augustinian Trinitarian exposition:
Moreovoer, if one considers the order, the origin, and the relationship [habitudinem] of these faculties to one another, he is led up to the most blessed Trinity itself. For from the memory comes for the intelligence as its offspring, because we understand only when the likeness which is in the memory emerges at the crest of our understanding [in acie intellectus] and this is the mental word. From the memory and the intelligence is breathed forth love, as the bond of both. These three -- the generating mind, the word, and love -- exist in the soul as memory, intelligence, and will, which are consusbtantial, co-equal and contemporary, and interpenetrating [circumincedentes]. If God, therefore, is a perfect spirit, then He has memory, intelligence, and will; He has both a Word begotten and Love breathed forth, which are necessarily distinct, since one is produced by the other -- a production, not of an essence [non essentialiter], nor of an accident [non accidentaliter], but of a Person [ergo personaliter].
The soul, then, when it considers itself through itself as through a mirror [speculum], rises to the speculation [speculandum] of the Blessed Trinity, the Father, the Word, and Love, Three Persons co-eternal, co-equal and consubstantial, so that whatever is in any one is in the others, but one is not the other, but all three are one God.
Then we have the distinctively Bonaventuran discussion. Bonaventure, if you've never read him, is ingenious at making lists; most medieval scholastics are, but he is the Great List-maker among all the scholastics. This comes through clearly when he continues by discussion how the Trinitarian image of the soul is reflected in philosophy:
For all philosophy is either natural, or rational, or moral. The first is concerned with the cause of being [de causa essendi] and thus leads to the power of the Father; the second is concerned with the basis of understanding [de ratione intelligendi] and thus leads to the Wisdom of the Word; the third deals with the order of life [de ordo vivendi] and thus leads to the goodness of the Holy Spirit.
Hence the first, natural philosophy, is divided into metaphysics, mathematics, and physics. Metaphysics deals with the essences of things; mathematics, with numbers and figures; and physics, with natures, powers, and diffusive operations. Thus the first leads to the first Principle, the Father; the second, to His Image, the Son; and the third, to the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The second, rational philosophy, is divided into grammar, which makes men capable of expressing themselves; logic, which makes them keen in argumentation; and rhetoric, which makes them apt to persuade or move others. This likewise suggests the most Blessed Trinity.
The third, moral philosophy, is divided into individual, familial, and political. The first of these suggests the unbegettable nature of the First Principle [primi pincipii innascibilitatem]; the second, the familial relationship of the Son [Filii familiaritatem]; and the third, the liberality of the Holy Spirit.
All these triads are traditional, but the steady adaptation of traditional triads to Trinitarian thought is one of Bonaventure's strengths.
These are by no means the only things Bonaventure says about the Image of God. But a full account of them, with adequate commentary, would take a book. My intention here is just to point out some of them.
[English translations are from Saint Bonaventure, Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, Philotheus Boehner, tr. The Franciscan Institute (Saint Bonaventure, New York: 1956) 63-71. I don't entirely like this translation, but it is the most easily available. I've added the Latin, not very consistently, where I think the translation might be a little misleading.]
