Friday, February 23, 2024

Bonaventure for Lent IX

 Since the First Principle is most exalted and utterly perfect, it follows that in it are found the highest and most universal properties of being to the highest degree. These are the one, the true, and the good, which are not associated with being in its supposits but with its very principle. For 'one' describes being as numerable, and this is because it is not susceptible of division in itself; 'true,' as intelligible, and this by virtue of being inseparabel from its proper form; and 'good,' as communicable, and this by reason of being inseparable from its proper operation. This triple indivisibility has a logical ordering in that the true presupposes the one, and the good presupposes the one as well as the true. Thus it follows that these three qualities, as being perfect and transcendental, are attributed to the First Principle to the highest degree, and, as having an orderly reference, are attributed to the three persons.

[Bonaventure, Breviloquium 1.6.2, Monti, tr., Franciscan Institute Publications (St. Bonaventure, NY: 2005) pp. 45-46.]