Abstract

As Hans Urs von Balthasar has put it, “nothing is more typical of [St. Bonaventure] than the prologue to the whole commentary on the Sentences.”Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. II: Studies in Theological Style: Clerical Styles, trans. Andrew Louth, Francis McDonagh, and Brian McNeil, C.R.V. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1984), p. 264. This remark is the inspiration for the following rereading of Bonaventure’s inaugural lecture. Not only does the Commentary succeed to a remarkable degree in unifying scholasticism and mysticism, but it also contains the seeds of a descriptive theological method that is original in ways that parallel contemporary phenomenological thought, despite the risk of anachronism inherent in such a claim.