Bonet, Nicholas

Bonet, Nicholas (surnamed the Profitable Doctor), was, according to different writers, a Spaniard, a Sicilian, or a Frenchman. .He was a monk of the order of St. Francis, legate of the holy see in Tartary, bishop of Malta in 1342, and died in 1360. He wrote, Postilla in Genesim (Venice, 1505); — Comment. super Quatuor Libros Senentiarum Petri Lombardi: — Interpretationes in Prcecipuos Libros Aristotelis, etc. Bonet made much stir in the world by advancing in one of his works the preposterous notion that the words of our blessed Saviour on the cross to his mother, "Woman, behold thy son!" had the effect of producing an actual transubstaintiation; so that from that moment St. John became really the son of the blessed Virgin. Inconceivable as it may appear, this doctrine found many followers, and was the origin of a long dispute. See Biog. Universelle, 5, 99; Landon, Eccles. Dict. s.v.; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, s.v.