SCHOLION.
I. In composing this Commentary, St. Bonaventure, besides the interlinear and ordinary Gloss (which is for the most part derived from the Commentary of St. Jerome on Ecclesiastes), made use both of the aforementioned exposition of Jerome himself and of the other by Hugh of St. Victor, which, at least in the editions, does not extend beyond chapter 4, verse 7 of Ecclesiastes. From Hugh he borrowed that principal division of threefold vanity, namely of mutability, of iniquity, of penalty. That he also knew the Mystical Exposition on Ecclesiastes of Salonius, Bishop of Vienne (see Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. LIII, col. 993 ff.), who flourished around 453, a certain passage cited by us seems to suggest, unless perhaps he received that opinion as reported by other authors. Nor have we found certain evidence that he made use of the Commentaries of Alcuin and Rupert, Abbot of Toul, who in expounding Ecclesiastes closely follow Jerome.
Moreover, this exposition is a work entirely proper to the Seraphic Doctor and reflecting his native character. He himself, employing at times other versions, especially those of Jerome and the Septuagint, expounds the text of the Vulgate according to the literal sense, so that by very many parallel passages of Scripture, as if Scripture itself explaining Scripture, he illuminates the meaning. After a not insignificant portion of the text has been expounded according to the literal sense, there is usually subjoined a brief exposition of the mystical or spiritual sense of the same portion. There are furthermore added in their proper places more than eighty questions composed in the scholastic manner, by which special difficulties occurring around the doctrine or the more obscure sense of passages are briefly and clearly resolved.
II. In drawing out, dividing, and ordering weighty propositions from the words of Sacred Scripture, the holy Commentator displays a most ingenious subtlety. Very many more recent expositors of this book deny that a determinate order and logical progression is found in it. Whatever is to be thought about this, for understanding the true opinion of our author concerning the order arranged by him, what he sets forth in the Collations on the Hexaemeron, collation 44, no. 5, with respect to all the books of Scripture concerning the order, so to speak, organic of Sacred Scripture, or concerning the diversity which exists between its order and the order of human books, can serve—namely that in Scripture a statement is not placed thus after a statement: "It is not so, he says; because it is most orderly, and its order is similar to the order of nature in the germination of the earth," etc.
It is indeed difficult to retain in mind the exceedingly great number of divisions and subdivisions. Lest therefore the reader be confused, we have already taken care as best we could in arranging the text, both by the titles which we have placed above the major parts, and by the marginal notes and the typefaces which they call italics. However, we think it neither superfluous nor unwelcome to the reader that we set forth in a single view, outlined in these four diagrams, the multitude of divisions and principal propositions which are found in the literal exposition. Similar diagrams are found here and there in the codices of the Commentaries on Sacred Scripture, written in the margins.
Diagram I.
Diagram II.
Diagram III.
Diagram IV.
OF SAINT BONAVENTURE