The Journey of the Mind to God with On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology

St. Bonaventure (c. 1217-1274), the Seraphic Doctor, wrote The Journey of the Mind to God in 1259 on Mount La Verna, the mountain where St. Francis had received the stigmata from a six-winged Seraph. Taking those six wings as his figure, Bonaventure leads the soul up six steps of contemplation: first through the vestiges of God in the visible world, then through His image imprinted on the mind, and at last to the contemplation of Being and of the Good itself, until, at a seventh step, the mind passes over into a mystical rest in God. It is one of the enduring masterpieces of Christian mysticism. With it is gathered his shorter On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology, which shows how every light of human knowledge (from the mechanical arts through the senses and philosophy) descends from and leads back to the one Light that is God. The volume is a compilation of these two short works.