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180 SERVUS OF ST. ANTHONIS Editors could also be contested. Now, the complete text of the Symbolica theologia, discovered in the Toulouse manuscript, fur– nishes us with all the evidence we need. In his prologue the anonymous author, speaking in the first person, announces his work in this way: « I, indeed, have begun a great thing, rather above my natural capacity, namely to find out the symbolical or figurative knowledge of the Holy Scripture. The occasion for doing so were some note-books of the lord friar Bonaventure, of renowned memory, formerly bishop of Albano, which he himself had prepared as some seeds for this purpose, but could not develop to their full growth, as he was occupied by other cares, first by those of a minister general,. then by those of a cardinal » 9 • From this text it results clearly that the author of the Symbolica theologia was not Bonaventure. Only after the death of the Saint (July 15, 1274) it was composed by a friar who had access to some of his note-books. What exactly these note-books (memorialia) were, is not easy to establish. It is true that in the Biblioteca Comunale of Assisi there is still extant a manuscript in the hand of Bonaventure 10 , but it contains a rough draft of his Commentary on the Sentences and its questions do not suit our pur– pose. More likely, these « memorialia » must have been something like the Collationes in Evangelium S. Ioannis published by the Quaracchi Editors for the first time 11 • They are not proper commenta-· ries, but rather outlines for sermons or short notes which, in a tropological or moral sense, adapt verses of the Gospel to the use of preachers. The Quaracchi Editors think that the Saint, who continuously meditated upon the Scriptures and very often had to preach, may have gathered those drafts and notes not only from his meditations on the Gospel of Saint John, but also from the other books of the Bible, though they did not reach us 12 • This supposition may find a confirmation in the note-books the author of the Symbolica of Saint Bonaventure with these words: « Et hoe explicatur aliqualiter in libello fratris Bonaventurae De media, collatione secunda, circa finem, de quarta fade sapientiae » (Toulou– se 232, f.45r; see Opera onmia V, Quaracchi 1891, 340s) and « in alio tractatu de configura– tione Ecclesiae militantis ad triumphantem, in fine» (ibidem : V, 438-441). An embarrassing question that we cannot go into here, is that the anonymous Franciscan seems to know of at least 41 Collationes in Hexai!meron instead of the 23 published by the Quaracchi Editors. After a rather diffuse outline of the « generatio per modum diffusionis, per modum expres-· sionis et per modum propagationis » our treatise reads: « De his plenius in libello De media, collatione XLI• » (Toulouse 232, f.45r). " See below p.184. 10 It is the famous codex 186, analysed by F. HENOUINET, Un brouillon autographe de· S. Bonaventure, in Et.Franc. 28(1932) 633-655 and 29(1933) 59-81; see also V. DOUCET, Prole– gomena in Librwn III necnon in Libros I et II « Summae Fratris Alexandri », Ouaracchi. 1948, CXLVI. 11 Opera omnia VI, Quaracchi 1893, 535-631. 12 Ibidem p.XXV.