Bonaventure’s Use of Jerusalem as Metaphor for Protological and Eschatological Human Nature

Abstract

According to Bonaventure, the circle represents the perfect consummation of creation, in that creation comes from the Father and returns to him through the intermediary work of the Son. This circular portrait of creation takes on concrete shape in Bonaventure’s use of Jerusalem as a metaphor for human nature. In the 39th dominical sermon, Bonaventure uses Jerusalem as a metaphor for the original innocence of Adam’s nature before the fall. In the Journey of the Mind to God and Conferences on the Hexaemeron, however, Bonaventure looks not to the Jerusalem of original innocence but to the heavenly Jerusalem as a model for the final redemption of human nature. Bonaventure combines both of these traditions about Jerusalem in his portrait of Saint Francis in the Major Legend. According to Bonaventure, Francis is the exemplar of perfect human nature because, in him, the circular pattern of redemption is made complete.