The third dispensation

Our bulletin every now and again posts capsule biographies of our Saints. Last Mass we were alerted of one Bonaventure whose day is ... tomorrow. This one was a Franciscan who had - we're told - cleared up a heresy within the Franciscan Order itself. Why would this need to be done?

Gaddis reminds his readers (a bit ahead of his Late-Antique skis) that Francis had gone off to Egypt during the AD 1219 Damietta Crusade; and, when that failed, Francis went to the Sultan al-Kamil al-Ayyubi, to preach his Gospel. I must ask if this Gospel was the Gospel.

The heresy within Franciscanism, which Bonaventure combatted, held that the Old Testament was the rule of the Father, that the New Testament was the rule of the Son; and that a future age would come under the Spirit. Under John's Paraclete, if that time still be mortal time. This theory tracks with Dispensationalism - I am unsure that we Catholics have a problem with Dispensationalism as such, on account we do accept that the Israelite Law was a "dim looking-glass" for Christ, and we do look forward to Christ's return in glory in an age when various "religions" won't apply as we know them.

Except: for us, the next and last age will be ruled by the Son too at the Father's right hand. To the extent the Church Triumphant be a "third dispensation", it is not special to the Spirit; the Spirit flows from both the Son and the Father, in Old Testament times as in New, and as now. As for the Paraclete: that's been with us since Pentecost, at Rome if we follow the Spirit's passage in Luke (and by 1219, Constantinople couldn't much argue for it anymore).

In Ayyubi-era Sunni Islam, by contrast, there does exist a qada al-muminin. The dispensation of Belief is here, by Ibn Ishaq's reading, that promised Paraclete; Muslims argue that Luke lied. The Quran and the sunna of Muhammad serve to guide in this dunya.

Once again, not all our Church Fathers are Church Doctors; and all our Saints were humans and did not always see through the dark glass, with sufficient vision. Harry Turtledove (a Byzantinist) among his alternate timelines suggested that - were it not for the Umayyads' Quran - Muhammad might be remembered as founder of a Christian desert order. If not for Bonaventure, Francis today might be remembered only in Sufism.