§ 105. Hugo and Richard of St. Victor.
§ 105. Hugo and Richard of St. Victor.
Literature for Hugo.—Works, first publ. Paris, 1618, 1625, etc. Migne, vols. 175–177.—Lives by A. Hugonin in Migne, 175. XV-CXXV. In Hist. Lit. de France, reprinted in Migne, 175. CXXVI. sqq.—*A. Liebner: Hugo von St. V. und d. Theol. Richtungen s. Zeit., Leip., 1832.—B. Haureau: Hugues de S. V. avec deux opuscules inédits, Paris, 1859. new ed. 1886.—A. Mignon: Les origines de la scholastique et Hugues de St. V., 2 vols. Paris, 1896.—Kilgenstein: D. Gotteslehre d. Hugo von St. V., Würzb., 1897.—Denifle: D. Sentenzen Z. von St. Victor, in Archiv, etc., for 1887, pp. 644 sqq.—Stökl, pp. 352–381.
For Richard.—Works, first publ. Venice, 1506. Migne, vol. 196.—J. G. V. Engelhardt: Rich. von St. V., Erlangen,—Liebner: Rich. à S. Victore de contemp. doctrina, Gött., 1837–1839, 2 parts.—Kaulich: D. Lehren des H. und Rich. von St. Victor, Prag., 1864.—Art. in Dict. Of Natl. Biogr., Preger, Vaughan, Stökl, Schwane, etc.
In Hugo of St. Victor, d. 1141, and more fully in his pupil, Richard of St. Victor, d. 1173, the mystical element is modified by a strong scholastic current. With Bernard mysticism is a highly developed personal experience. With the Victorines it is brought within the limits of careful definition and becomes a scientific system. Hugo and Richard confined their activity to the convent, taking no part in the public controversies of the age.1442
Hugo, the first of the great German theologians, was born about 1097 in Saxony.1443 About 1115 he went to Paris in the company of an uncle and became an inmate of St. Victor. He was a friend of St. Bernard. Hugo left behind him voluminous writings. He was an independent and judicious thinker, and influenced contemporary writers by whom he is quoted. His most important works are on Learning, the Sacraments, a Summa,1444 and a Commentary on the Coelestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite. He wrote commentaries on Romans, Ecclesiastes, and other books of the Bible, and also a treatise on what would now be called Biblical Introduction.1445 He recognized a triple sense of Scripture, historical, allegorical, and anagogical, and was inclined to lay more stress than was usual in that period upon the historical sense. An illustration of these three senses is given in the case of Job. Job belonged to the land of Uz, was rich, was overtaken by misfortune, and sat upon the dunghill scraping his body. This is the historical sense. Job, whose name means the suffering one, dolens, signifies Christ who left his divine glory, entered into our misery, and sat upon the dunghill of this world, sharing our weaknesses and sorrows. This is the allegorical sense. Job signifies the penitent soul who makes in his memory a dunghill of all his sins and does not cease to sit upon it, meditate, and weep. This is the anagogical sense.
From Hugo dates the careful treatment of the doctrine of the sacraments upon the basis of Augustine’s definition of a sacrament as a visible sign of an invisible grace. His views are given in the chapter on the Sacramental System.
The mystical element is prominent in all of Hugo’s writings.1446 The soul has a threefold power of apprehension and vision, the eye of the flesh, the eye of reason, and the eye of contemplation. The faculty of contemplation is concerned with divine things, but was lost in the fall when also the eye of reason suffered injure, but the eye of the flesh remained unimpaired. Redemptive grace restores the eye of contemplation. This faculty is capable of three stages of activity: cogitatio, or the apprehension of objects in their external forms; meditatio, the study of their inner meaning and essence; and contemplatio, or the clear, unimpeded insight into the truth and the vision of God. These three stages are likened unto a fire of green fagots. When it is started and the flame and smoke are intermingled so that the flame only now and then bursts out, we have cogitatio. The fire burning into a flame, the smoke still ascending, represents meditatio. The bright glowing flame, unmixed with smoke, represents contemplatio. The carnal heart is the green wood from which the passion of concupiscence has not yet been dried out.1447
In another place Hugo compares the spirit, inflamed with desire and ascending to God, to a column of smoke losing its denseness as it rises. Ascending above the vapors of concupiscence, it is transfused with light from the face of the Lord and comes to behold Him.1448 When the heart is fully changed into the fire of love, we know that God is all in all. Love possesses God and knows God. Love and vision are simultaneous.
The five parts of the religious life, according to Hugo, are reading, reflection, prayer, conduct, and contemplation.1449 The word "love" was not so frequently on Hugo’s pen as it was on St. Bernard’s. The words he most often uses to carry his thought are contemplation and vision, and he has much to say of the soul’s rapture, excessus or raptus. The beatitude, "The pure in heart shall see God," is his favorite passage, which he quotes again and again to indicate the future beatific vision and the vision to which even now the soul may arise. The first man in the state of innocence lived in unbroken vision of God.
They who have the spirit of God, have God. They see God. Because the eye has been illuminated, they see God as He is, separate from all else and by Himself. It is the intellectual man that partakes of God’s bliss, and the more God is understood the more do we possess Him. God made man a rational creature that he might understand and that by understanding he might love, by loving possess, and by possessing enjoy.1450
More given to the dialectical method and more allegorical in his treatment of Scripture than Hugo, was Richard of St. Victor. Richard is fanciful where Hugo is judicious, extravagant where Hugo is self-restrained, turgid where Hugo is calm.1451 But he is always stimulating. Of his writings many are extant, but of his life little is known. He was a Scotchman, became subprior of St. Victor, 1162, and then prior. While he was at St. Victor, the convent was visited by Alexander III, and Thomas á Becket. In his exegetical works on the Canticles, the Apocalypse, and Ezekiel, Richard’s exuberant fancy revels in allegorical interpretations. As for the Canticles, they set forth the contemplative life as Ecclesiastes sets forth the natural and Proverbs the moral life. Jacob corresponds to the Canticles, for he saw the angels ascending and descending. Abraham corresponds to the Proverbs and Isaac to Ecclesiastes.1452 The Canticles set forth the contemplative life, because in that book the advent and sight of the Lord are desired.
In the department of dogmatics Richard wrote Emmanuel, a treatise directed to the Jews,1453 and a work on the Incarnation, addressed to St. Bernard, 1454in which, following Augustine, he praised sin as a happy misdemeanor,—felix culpa,—inasmuch as it brought about the incarnation of the Redeemer.1455 His chief theological work was on the Trinity. Here he starts out by deriving all knowledge from experience, ratiocination, and faith. Dialectics are allowed full sweep in the attempt to join knowledge and faith. Richard condemned the pseudo-philosophers who leaned more on Aristotle than on Christ, and thought more of being regarded discoverers of new things than of asserting established truths.1456 Faith is set forth as the essential prerequisite of Christian knowledge. It is its starting-point and foundation.1457 The author proves the Trinity in the godhead from the idea of love, which demands different persons and just three because two persons, loving one another, will desire a third whom they shall love in common.
Richard’s distinctively mystical writings won for him the name of the great contemplator, magnus contemplator. In the Preparation of the Mind for Contemplation or Benjamin the Less, the prolonged comparison is made between Leah and Rachel to which reference has already been made. The spiritual significance of their two nurses and their children is brought down to Benjamin. Richard even uses the bold language that Benjamin killed his mother that he might rise above natural reason.1458
In Benjamin the Greater, or the Grace of Contemplation, we have a discussion of the soul’s processes, as the soul rises "through self and above self" to the supernal vision of God. Richard insists upon the soul’s purification of itself from all sin as the condition of knowing God. The heart must be imbued with virtues, which Richard sets forth, before it can rise to the highest things, and he who would attempt to ascend to the height of knowledge must make it his first and chief study to know himself perfectly.1459
Richard repeats Hugo’s classification of cogitatio, meditatio, and contemplatio. Contemplation is the mind’s free, clear, and admiring vision of the wonders of divine wisdom.1460 It includes six stages, the last of them being "contemplation above and aside from reason," whereby the mysteries of the Trinity are apprehended. In transgressing the limits of itself, the soul may pass into a state of ecstasy, seeing visions, enjoying sublimated worship and inexpressible sweetness of experience. This is immediate communion with God. The third heaven, into which Paul was rapt, is above reason and to be reached only by a rapturous transport of the mind—per mentis excessum. It is "above reason and aside from reason."1461 Love is the impelling motive in the entire process of contemplation and "contemplation is a mountain which rises above all worldly philosophy." Aristotle did not find out any such thing, nor did Plato, nor did any of the company of the philosophers.1462
Richard magnifies the Scriptures and makes them the test of spiritual states. Everything is to be looked upon with suspicion which does not conform to the letter of Scripture.1463
The leading ideas of these two stimulating teachers are that we must believe and love and sanctify ourselves in order that the soul may reach the ecstasy and composure of contemplation or the knowledge of God. The Scriptures are the supreme guide and the soul by contemplation reaches a spiritual state which the intellect and argumentation could ever bring it to.
Rupert of Deutz.—Among the mystics of the twelfth century no mean place belongs to Rupert of Deutz.1464 A German by nationality, he was made abbot of the Benedictine convent of Deutz near Cologne about 1120 and died 1136. He came into conflict with Anselm of Laon and William of Champeaux through a report which represented them as teaching that God had decreed evil, and that, in sinning, Adam had followed God’s will. Rupert answered the errors in two works on the Will of God and the Omnipotence of God. He even went to France to contend with these two renowned teachers.1465 Anselm of Laon he found on his death-bed. With William he held an open disputation.
Rupert’s chief merit is in the department of exegesis. He was the most voluminous biblical commentator of his time. He magnified the Scriptures. In one consecutive volume he commented on the books of the Old Testament from Genesis to Chronicles, on the four Major Prophets, and the four evangelists.1466 The commentary on Genesis alone occupies nearly four hundred columns in Migne’s edition. Among his other exegetical works were commentaries on the Gospel and Revelation of St. John, the Minor Prophets, Ecclesiastes, and especially the Canticles and Matthew. In these works he follows the text conscientiously and laboriously, verse by verse. The Canticles Rupert regarded as a song in honor of the Virgin Mary, but he set himself against the doctrine that she was conceived without sin. The commentary opens with an interpretation of Cant. 1:2, thus: " ’Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth.’ What is this exclamation so great, so sudden? Of blessed Mary, the inundation of joy, the force of love, the torrent of pleasure have filled thee full and wholly intoxicated thee and thou hast felt what eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has entered into the heart of man, and thou hast said, ’Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth’ for thou didst say to the angel ’Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be unto me according to thy word.’ What was that word? What did he say to thee? ’Thou hast found grace,’ he said, ’with the Lord. Behold thou shalt conceive and bare a son.’... Was not this the word of the angel, the word and promise of the kiss of the Lord’s mouth ready to be given?" etc.1467
Rupert also has a place in the history of the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, and it is an open question whether or not he substituted the doctrine of impanation for the doctrine of transubstantiation.1468
1. Milman, Hist. of Lat. Christianity, VIII. 257, is certainly unjust when he says: "With all their search into the unfathomable, the Schoolmen have fathomed nothing; with all their vast logical apparatus, they have proved nothing to the satisfaction of the inquisitive mind." One has only to think of the ontological argument of Anselm and the cosmological arguments of Thomas Aquinas and the statements wrought out on the satisfaction of Christ to feel that the statement is not true.
See Roger Bacon: Opus Majus, Bridges’ ed. I. 54-56; Sandys, Class. Scholarship, pp. 507, 540-546, 568-sqq., and Seth, Enc. Brit., XXI. 419.
The council of Paris, 1209, forbade the use of his Natural Philosophy. Gregory IX., 1231, condemned the Physics, but in 1254 the University of Paris prescribed the number of hours to be devoted to the explanation of Aristotle’s works.
Omnis hic excluditur, omnis est abjectus.
Qui non Aristotelis venit armis tectus. Chart., I. p. xviii.
Cousin made three periods, the first when philosophy was in subjection to theology, the second when they were in union, and the third when they were separated.
"Otherness," applied by Rich. de St. Victor to the Trinitarian distinctions.
de sacram., I. 7; Migne’s ed., 176, 290.
Peltier’s ed., V. 38.
Thomas Fuller quaintly compared the Schoolmen to those who built their houses in London on small patches of ground "improving their small bottom with towering speculations."
H. Doergens, Lehre von d. Universalien, Heidelb., 1867; J. H. Löwe, D. Kampf zwischen d. Realismus und Nominalismus im Mittelalter, Prag, 1876. Art."Universalien," in Wetzer-Welte, XII. 305 sqq. The Histt. of Philosophy.
According to John of Salisbury there were no less than thirteen different shades of opinion on the subject. See Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, II. 118.
The passage from Porphyry runs—mox de generibus et speciebus illud quidem sive subsistant, sive in solis nudis intellectibus posita sint, sive subsistentia corporalia sint an incorporalia, et utrum separata a sensibilibus, an insensibilibus posita et circa haec consistentia, dicere recusabo. Altissimum enim negotium est hujusmodi et majoris egens inquisitionis. See Gieseler, Ch. Hist., Germ. ed., III. 384.
Otto of Freising, de gest. Frid., I. 47, spoke of him as the originator of Nominalism in that age, qui primus nostris temporibus in logica sententiam vocum instituit. According to John of Salisbury, nominalism almost wholly vanished with Roscellinus, Metalog., II. 17.
Pseudo-Dialecticus. Ep., 21. De fide trin. 3. tres personae sunt tres res sicut tres angeli aut tres animae, ita tamen ut voluntas et potestas omnino sunt idem. Also Ep., II. 41.
Loofs, p. 271, says, "He is perhaps the most important of all the mediaeval theologians."
Church gives a graphic picture of "wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills." Aosta was a Roman settlement bearing the name Augusta Praetoria, and was made a bishopric about the fifth century.
His views were set forth in the de processione Spiritus Sancti. He argued that the Spirit proceeded from the Father not as father but as God. He must therefore also proceed from the Son as God.
See quotations in Freeman, W. Rufus, II. 661.
Paradiso, XII. 137.
Freeman has an excursus on Anselm’s letters in his W. Rufus, II. 570-588.
Qui non crediderit, non experietur, et qui expertus non fuerit non intelliget, de fide trin., 2; Migne, 158, 264.
Ep., II. 41;Migne, 158. 1193, Christianus per fidem debet ad intellectum proficere non per intellectum ad fidem.
Cur Deus homo, I. 2; Migne, 158. 364.
Eadmer: nihil asserere nisi quod aut canonicis aut Augustini dictis posse defendi videret.
aliquid quo majus nihil cogitari potest.
si vel in solo intellectu est, potest cogitari esse et in re, quod majus est.
Thomas Aquinas said that, even if the name of God means illud quo majus cogitari non potest, yet it would not be possible to proceed to the affirmation of God’s real existence, because the atheist denies that there is aliquid quo majus cogitari non potest, Summa, I. ii. 2. Hegel replied to Kant that the Begriff an und für sich selbst enthält das Sein also eine Bestimmtheit. Professor E. Caird, in an article, Anselm’s Argument for the Being of God (Journal of Theolog. Studies, 1900, pp. 23-39), sums up his objection to Anselm’s argument by saying, "It is the scholastic distortion of an idea which was first presented in the Platonic philosophy," etc. Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, p. 217, makes the same objection when he says Anselm confuses reality and thought.
intelligere andin intellectu esse.
A careful statement of the history of the ontological argument was given by Köstlin, D. Beweise fürs Dasein Gottes, in Studien u. Kritiken, 1875, 1876. Also Ruze, D. ontol. Gottesbeweis seit Anselm, Halle, 1882.
Quamvis homo juste a diabolo torqueretur, ipse tamen illum injuste torquebat, etc., I. 7; Migne, 158. 367 sq. Again Anselm takes up this point, II. 20; p. 427 sq., and says it was not necessary for God to descend to conquer the devil or to proceed judicially against him in order to liberate man. Nothing else did God owe the devil but punishment, and nothing else did man owe the devil but to treat him as he had been treated, that is, to conquer him as man himself had been conquered. All that was demanded by the devil, man owed to God and not to the devil.
Non aliud est peccare quam Deo non reddere debitum. I. 11; Migne, p. 376.
pro contumelia illata plus reddere quam abstulit .... Debet omnis qui peccat, honorem quem rapuit, Deo solvere et haec est satisfactio quam omnis peccator Deo debet facere.
Satisfactio quam nec potest facere nisi Deus nec debet nisi homo, necesse est ut eam faciat Deus-homo, II. 6; Migne, p. 404.
II. 22; Migne, 158. 431. It is a matter of dispute how far Anselm drew upon the doctrine of penance which had been handed down from the Fathers or from the German law with its Wehrgeld, or debt of honor; or whether he drew upon them at all. It is probable that the Church’s penitential system had affected the chivalric idea of honor. Harnack, Dogmengesch., III. 252 sq., and Ritschl, Justification, etc., p. 263, make the objection against Anselm’s argument that it was based upon an "idea of God’s justice which implies an equality in private rights between God and man."
Harnack gives prolonged attention to Anselm’s argument (Dogmengesch., III. 341-358) and, in specifying its merits and defects, declares that the defects largely outweigh the merits. Anselm’s theory is not at all to be adopted, die Theorie ist völlig unannehmbar. It would not be necessary, Harnack says, to waste many words over the defects if it were not that the theology of the present day is stuck in traditionalism and neglects all the canons of Gospel, ethics, logic, and culture. He declares it to be a fearful thought that God may not forgive from pure love, but had to have his honor appeased by sacrfice. Anselm’s argument taken by itself does not justify such severe criticism, and, if his other writings and his own character be taken into account, he will be absolved from the implied charges.
Meditationes seu Orationes, Migne, 158. 709-1014. See Hasse, I. 176-232.
Jesu bone, quam dulcis es in corde cogitantis de te et diligentis te, Migne, 158. 770.
Rule, I. 48, describes from personal observation the ancient and dizzy bridge, le Pont de l’Aël, over a torrent near Aosta, which, as he says, Anselm in making his description may have had in mind.
Sine mensura profundum, et tenebrosa caligine horribiliter obscurum, Migne, 158, 719.
The later Schoolmen did not lean back upon Anselm’s theology as we might have expected them to do. He was, however, often quoted, as by Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus, e.g., Summa, I. 3, 13, etc., Borgnet’s ed., XXXI. 60<cbr>, 69</cbr>, 326.
From this point and the enmity of William, he dates his misfortunes. Hinc calamitatum mearum quae nunc perseverant coeperunt exordia et quo amplius fama extendebatur nostra, aliena in me succensa est invidia, Migne, p. 116.
Verborum usum habebat mirabilem, sed sensu contemptibilem et ratione vacuum, Migne, p. 123.
Ep., 326; St. Bernard’s Works, Migne, 182. 531.
Remusat gives an attractive picture of his appearance, I. 43 sq.
Ep., II.; Migne, 178, 188.
See his description, I. 47 sqq.
A letter is preserved written by Abaelard to his son. It indicates affection. The father urges him to study the Scriptures. An Astralabius is mentioned as belonging to the chapter of Nantes in 1150. Hausrath, p. 173, conjectures he was Abaelard’s son.
Ut amplius mitagarem, obtuli me ei satisfacere eam scilicet quam corruperam mihi matrimonio copulando, dummodo id secreto fieret, ne famae detrimentum incurrerem. Migne, p. 130.
Concupiscentia te mihi potius quam amicitia sociavit, libidinis ardor potius quam amor. Ep., II.; Migne, p. 186.
Deutsch, p. 35. So war Abaelard Mönch geworden, nicht von innerem Verlangen getrieben, etc. His relations with Heloise made freedom in his position as a public teacher in the open for the time impossible.
Introductio in theologiam. Abaelard is our chief authority for the trial. Hist. Calam., Migne, pp. 141-150. See Otto of Freising.
Abaelard closes his autobiography by declaring that like another Cain he was dragged about the earth, a fugitive and vagabond, but also by quoting passages upon the providence of God as that all things work together for good to them that love Him.
Ep. Bernardi, 326; Migne, 132. 531 sqq. William sent to Bernard Abaelard’s Theologia and other works to make good his charges. He feared Abaelard would become "a dragon" whom no one could destroy. Kutter, in his Wilhelm von St. Thierry, pp. 34, 36, 43, 48, insists, as against Deutsch, that William was the exciting originator of the trial of Abaelard, which was soon to follow, and that Bernard preferred silence and peace to conflict, and was amused to action by William’s appeal.
Ep. Abael., X.; Migne, 178. 335.
Bernard’s biographer, Gaufrid, states that Abaelard promised amendment. No reference was made to such a promise in the charges at Sens, an omission difficult to understand if the promise was really made. See Remusat, I. 172, and Poole, p. 163.
Ep. Bernardi, 189; Migne, 182. 355. Bernard describes the meeting and sets forth the danger from Abaelard’s influence, Epp. 187-194, 330-338. For an account of this trial, see my art., "St. Bernard the Churchman" in Princeton Rev., 1903, pp. 180 sqq.
This preliminary meeting rests upon the testimony of Berengar and upon a passage in John of Salisbury, Hist. Pontif., chap. VIII. 9. John, in describing the trial of Gilbert of Poictiers, says Bernard wanted to have Gilbert’s case prejudged in a preliminary sitting and by the same method he had resorted to in the case of Abaelard, —arte sim ili magistrum Petrum agressus erat. Berengar’s defence of Abaelard descends to passionate invective. Migne, 178. 1858 sqq. Berengar represents the bishops and Bernard as being heated with wine at this preliminary conference, when they decided against Abaelard. The details of his account and his charges against Bernard are altogether out of accord with his character as it is otherwise known to us. Deutsch (Neander’s St. Bernard, II. 1 sqq.) cannot free Bernard from unfairness in the part he took at this conference, as Vacandard does.
The statement is not inconsistent with the representation of Otto of Freising, a disinterested reporter, who gives as reason for refusing to make an argument that he feared a popular tumult.
Migne, 182. 1049-1051. Also Hefele, V. 463 sqq.
Ep., 331; Migne, 182. 537. There are nine of these letters to the cardinals, 188, 192, 193, 331-335, 338. The longest letter was the one addressed to the pope, 190; Migne, 182. 1051-1071. The great vehemence of these letters have exposed Bernard in some quarters to unmitigated condemnation. From the standpoint of Christian moderation and charity they are difficult to understand and cannot be justified. Hausrath, p. 248, etc., represents him as der werltkluge Abt von Clairvaux, resorting to all the arts of diplomacy to secure a verdict against Abaelard. M’Cabe, in a very readable chapter, pp. 322-354, takes the same view. Without excusing him, it must be remembered in passing judgment that heresy was regarded with horror in that age. Bernard, no doubt, also shrank from Abaelard as a man who sought applause rather than the advancement of the Church. Morison, p. 302, speaks "of a horror of great darkness falling upon Bernard," when he recognized the dangers of a new era. Neander, St. Bernard, II. 3, says that no one can question that Bernard’s zeal proceeded from a pure Christian purpose, but that he used the weapons of hatred under the mask of holy love.
Migne, 178. 103.
The Story of Misfortunes was written while he was abbot of St. Gildas. It has been compared to the Confessions of Augustine. But no comparison could more sadly offend against truth. Abaelard revealed his inward states to gain a worldly end. He wanted to draw attention to himself and prepare the way for a new career. His letters to Heloise are not so much to assure her of his orthodoxy as to make that impression upon the Church authorities. This is the position taken by Deutsch, pp. 43 sqq., Hausrath, 275 sqq., and Nitsch, art. Abaelard in Herzog.
The French writers designate Abaelard’s theory Conceptualism, and hold that he substituted conceptus for voces. Deutsch, p. 105. Walter Map, writing in the second half of the twelfth century, speaks of Abaelard as "the leader of the Nominalists, princeps nominalismi, who sinned more in dialectics than he did in his treatment of Scripture." Wright’s ed., I. 24, p. 41.
See also Introd. ad Theol., Migne, 178. 980.
Dubitando ad inquisitionem venimus, inquirendo veritatem percipimus. Sic et Non, Migne, p. 1349. Deutsch, pp. 159 sq., speaks of this spirit of free inquiry, Die Freiheit der Forschung, as the note running through all Abaelard’s writings.
Hist. Calam., Migne, 178. 142. Nec credi posse aliquid nisi primitus intellectus, etc.
Introd. ad Theol., Migne, p. 1051, also p. 959. Fides quippe dicitur existimatio non apparentium, cognitio vero ipsarum rerum experientia per ipsam earam praesentiam.
Credimus ut cognoscamus; nisi credideritis, non intelligetis. See other quotations in Hefele, V. 463-469; also Deutsch, in his chapter on Faith and Knowledge, pp. 168 sqq.
So the charges of Bernard and the Synod of Sens, and Otto of Freising. De gestis Frid., 48.
Introd. ad Theol., Migne, p. 986.
Introd. ad Theol., Migne, p. 1052.
Catholica quippe est fides, id est universalis quae ita omnibus necessaria est ut nemo discretus absque ea salvari possit, Migne, p. 986. In view of such a statement, Poole’s remark has much in its favor, "it was not really Abaelard’s results that formed the strength of the indictment against him, but the method by which he reached them," p. 153.
They are found in his Com. on Romans, as well as in his Introd. ad Theol. and his Sermons, V., X., XII.
They are set forth more particularly in the ethical treatise Scito te ipsum and the Com. on Romans, especially in an excursus on original sin, appended to chap. V., Migne, pp. 866-874.
He thinks the tree whose fruit excited the sexual passions was the vine. Hexameron, Migne, p. 777.
Com. on Romans, chap. II. 6. Deutsch, pp. 344 sqq., deals at length with Abaelard’s views on Sin.
Introd. ad Theol., Migne, p. 1008.
Hausrath, pp. 293 sqq., assigns to Abaelard a place in the front rank of such martyrs. He justifies him for declining to stand by his conclusions in these words: "It would be unfair to demand that a scholar, who was under the pressure of such circumstances (that is mediaeval ecclesiasticism should have the courage of a farm hand, or carry his views to their logical conclusion like a statesman."
Abaelard left admiring pupils, some of whom, like Omnibene, wrote books of Sentences based upon their teacher’s Theology, and followed his threefold division of faith, the Sacraments, and love. See Denifle, Archiv, pp, 613 sqq.
Denifle includes the Lombard in the theological school of Abaelard. See his Abaelard’s Sentenzen und d. Bearbeitungen seiner Theologie, Archiv, 1885, pp. 613-624.
Neander-Deutsch, St. Bernard, II. 131. Poole, p. 181, calls Gilbert’s exposition of the Trinity "one of the subtlest and most elaborate contributions to theological metaphysics the Middle Ages produced."
Hist. pontif., VIII.; Migne, pp. 522 sqq. One of the accusers was Adam du Petit Pont, an Englishman, afterwards bishop of St. Asaph. He got his name from the school he set up on a little bridge connecting Paris with the Latin quarter. Schaarschmidt, p. 13.
Otto of Freising states the four detailed charges as follows: 1. divina essentia non est deus. 2. proprietates personarum non sunt ipsae personae. 3. theolog. personae in nulla praedicantur propositione. 4. dimna natura non est incarnata. Gaufried, Migne, 185. 617, states the first three a little differently.
Stephens calls him "by far the most distinguished English scholar of his century."Hist. of the Engl. Ch., pp. 320 sqq.
Schaarschmidt calls it "the first great theory of the state in the literature of the Middle Ages." In view of the variety of its contents, Poole, p. 218, says that "it is to some extent an encyclopaedia of the cultivated thought of the middle of the twelfth century."
Poole says, "No writer of his age can be placed beside him in the extent and depth of his classical reading."Dict. of Natl. Biog., XXIX. 441. Schaarschmidt speaks of his marvellous acquaintance with the classics—eine staunenswerthe Vertrautheit.
Metalog., VII. 2.
This is the date given on an ancient epitaph in Paris, but the date is made uncertain by the appointment of a bishop of Paris as the Lombard’s successor, 1160. This would seem to indicate his death occurred at that time unless he was deposed on the charge of simony, of which, as Walter of St. Victor says, he was guilty. Migne, 199. 1140.
Liber quem dicunt sententarium, Ep., 188; Migne, 182. 668. Walter of St. Victor declares it to have been by Abaelard’s hand or taken from his works, aut ex libris ejus excerptus. See Deutsch, P. Abaelard excursus.
Denifle, Archiv, 1885, learnedly establishes the relation of these works to Abaelard. They exist in MSS. at Nürnberg, Munich, etc. Omnebene expressly declared his work to be a compilatlon taken from different sources.
Sententiarum theologicarum libri, VII.; Migne, vol. 186. His name is spelt Pullein, Pullan, etc. See Rashdall’s art. in Dict. of Nat’l Biogr., XLVII. 19.
The Jesuit Possevin gives a list of 246 commentaries in print. See Wetzer-Welte, IX. 1921, which speaks of the number of commentaries as unzaelig, "without number." Hergenröther (Gesch. II. 516) speaks of them in the same way as zahllos. The first commentary, according to Werner (Thom. von Aquino, I. 314), was by William of Seignelay, teacher in Paris and later bishop of Paris.
Prolog. to the Sentences, brevi volumine complicans patrum sententias appositis eorum eorum testimoniis, etc.
Baltzer, pp. 2-5, gives the results of a careful study. Augustine furnishes 1000 quotations. Hilary comes next, being quoted 86 times. Baltzer’s book is a laborious comparison of every paragraph of the Lombard with the Fathers and his predecessors among the Schoolmen, especially Abaelard and Hugo of St. Victor.
Denifle (Archiv, pp. 621 sqq.) is authority for the statement that he also quotes from Gandulf’s Sentences which still remain in MS. at Turin.
Migne, 192. 522.
Reprobatio Dei est praescientia militiae in quibusdam non finiendae, et praeparatio poenae non terminandae.
II. 31; Migne, p. 211.
Mors nos justificat, dum per eam caritas excitatur in cordibus nostris, III. 19; Migne, p. 285. John of Cornwall, his pupil, expressly says that the Bombard learned his view of the atonement from Abaelard and often had Abaelard’s Theologia in his hands, Migne, 199. 1052. See Denifle, pp. 616 sqq. Baltzer, pp. 96 sqq., goes so far as to say that his silence is to be interpreted as a denial of the Anselmic theory.
IV. 3; Migne, p. 335.
Quaedam summa res est Pater et Filius et Spiritus et illa non est generans neque genita nec procedens.
From time to time questionable articles continued to be cited from the Lombard. In the middle of the thirteenth century the number of such articles at variance with the doctrine of the Church was given as eight. The doctors of Paris increased the number. Eymeric wrote a treatise on twenty-two such heretical statements. A list of fifteen are given at the close of Peter’s Sentences. Migne, 451-454.
He is probably a different man from Alanus, archbishop of Auxerre, with whom he has often been identified, and who spent the last twenty years of his life at Clairvaux and wrote a life of St. Bernard. Migne, 186. 470-523. See Deutsch, Alanus, Herzog, I. 283 sqq. Hergenröther-Kirsch frequently quotes Alanus.
Regulae de sacra theologia, Migne, 210. 621-684; and de arte sive de articulis catholicae fidei, Migne, 593-617.
Congregatio fidelium confitentium Christum, et sacramentorum subsidium, Migne, p. 613. Under the title liber sententiarum, Migne, 229-264, he wrote also on the Lord’s birth, John the Baptist, and Mary.
Walter speaks of the four labyrinths as "treating with scholastic levity the mysteries of the Trinity and the incarnation and vomiting out many heresies." Planck gave an analysis of Walter’s work in Studien und Kritiken, 1844, pp. 823 sqq. Bulaeus, in Hist. universitatum, vol. II. 402, 629, gives extracts, which are reprinted in Migne, 199, pp. 1127 sqq. Denifle also gives quotations, Archiv, etc., 1886, pp. 404 sqq.
Harnack, Dogmengesch., III. 314 sqq., 373 sqq., turns to ridicule the alleged difference between scholasticism and mysticism. With the emotional or quietistic type of religion, die Pektoraltheologie, the cardiac theology, as the Germans call it, he has little sympathy. Piety, he says, is the starting-point of both and full knowledge their goal. He makes the brusque statement, p. 318, that "a mystic who does not become a Roman Catholic, is a dilettante." Ritschl had said before that there is "no normal mysticism except in connection with the hermit life. The love for it, widely prevalent among evangelical Christians, is dilettanteism."Pietismus, II. 12. Harnack, however, is willing to allow a distinction in the terms and to speak of scholasticism when the relation of God to the universe is thought of and of mysticism when we have in mind the union of the soul with God.
Paradiso, XXXI. 130, XXXIII. 49, etc. Dr. Philip Schaff said, Lit. and Poetry, p. 232, "Bernard defended orthodox mysticism and the theology of the heart against speculative rationalism and the theology of the intellect in contrast with Peter Abaelard."
"The mediaeval mystics were steeped in Dionysius." Inge, p. 110.
De perf. monachi, VIII.; Migne, 145. 303.
De preparat. ad contemplationem sive Benjamin minor, I. 73; Migne, 196. 52.
C. Faus. Man., XXII. 52.
Sermo in Cant., 51, 2. See De consid., I, 1.
Dogmengesch., III. 301, 305. For Bernard’s acquaintance with Scripture, see Ries, pp. 11 sq.
Ries, pp. 9, 15.
Omnia vestra in caritate fiant, Ep., 221. Melius est ut unus pereat quam unitas, Ep., 102; Migne, 182. 257.
Non ea disputatio comprehendit sed sanctitas, quoting Eph., III., 18. Sancti comprehendunt. De consid., V. 14; Migne, 182. 804.
Ep., 142, 2; Migne, 182, 297. Dr. Philip Schaff said that "love and humility were the crowning traits of Bernard’s character."Lit. and Poetry, p. 232.
Ries, pp. 35, sqq.
Causa diligendi Deum Deus est, modus sine modo diligere. De dilig. Deo. 1. Migne, 182. 974.
In Cant., p. 919, as quoted by Ries, p. 212.
Sic affici deificari est. Bernard does not shrink from the use of this word as also Origen and Gregory of Nyssa did not, and other Fathers who used it or its Greek equivalent.
Serm., LXXV. 2; LXIII. 1; LXXIII. 1, 2.
Serm., VIII. Migne, p. 810.
Divinitus inspiratus Christi et ecclesiae laudes, et sacri amoris gratiam et aeterni connubii cecinit sacramenta, etc. Serm., I. 8.; Migne, p. 788.
Serm., LXXIX. 1; Migne, p. 1163.
Haec mea philosophia scire Jesum Christum et hunc crucifixum. Serm., XLIII. 4; Migne, p. 995.
Jesus mel in ore, in aure melos, in corde jubilus. Serm., XV. 6; Migne, p. 847.
See Vacandard, Vie de S. Bernard, II. 497, and Ries, pp. 198 sq.
Unitas quam facit non confusio naturarum, sed voluntatum consensio. Serm. in Cant., LXXI. 7; Migne, 183. 1124. Harnack, whose treatment of St. Bernard is one of the most stirring chapters in his Hist. of Doctrine, nevertheless says unjustly III. 304, that Bernard’s mysticism naturally led to Pantheism. In Bernard himself there is no trace of Pantheism. See Ries, pp. 190 sq.
1442 St. Victor, the convent which William of Champeaux, Hugo, and Richard made famous, had its filial houses not only in France but also in Ireland. With the French Revolution the convent and its grounds disappeared. Two streets of Paris, the Rue Guy de la Brosse and the Rue de Jussieu, were driven through them. See Wetzer-Welte, St. Victor, XII. 914 sqq.
1443 The argument in favor of Saxony is well stated by Preger, Deutsche Mystik, I. 227 sqq. So Zöckler in Herzog, and the art. on Hugo, in Wetzer-Welte.
1444 Summa Sententiarum, Migne, 176. 42-172. This work has been denied to Hugo by Denifle on insufficient grounds. Hugo opens the work with a treatment of the three cardinal virtues, faith, hope, and love, and proceeds to the discussion of the Trinity, creation, the five sacraments, and marriage.
1445 He discusses the senses of Scripture, the number of the books, the apocrypha, the translation, the historical difficulties of Scripture, etc. See Migne, 175. 9-28. The same topics are treated in his treatise on Learning. Migne, 176. 778-811.
1446 Among his mysticalwritings are de arca Noe morali, Migne, 176. 619-680; de arca mystica, Migne, 176. 681-703; de vanitate mundi. Noah’s ark is symbolical of the spiritual house and Christ is the "Captain, the supreme Noah." The wood, windows, and other parts of the ark are all spiritualized. In the second treatise the ark represents the cross.
1447 Carnale cor quasi lignum viride necdum ab humore carnalis concupiscentiae exsiccatum, etc. See Liebner, p. 315.
1448 De arca morali, III. 7; Migne, 176. 654.
1449 de erud. didasc., Migne, 176. 797.
1450 Quia non potest dei beatitudo participari nisi per intellectum, etc. Summa, II. 1: Migne, 176. 79.
1451 See Liebner, Hugo von St. Victor, pp. 81 sq.
1452 Migne, 196. 409.
1453 .De Emmanuele, Migne, 196. 601-665
1454 Migne, 196. 995-1011. Richard calls Bernard, divus Bernardus, and "my Bernard," V; Migne, 195. 999. He also addressed other works to St. Bernard.
1455 O felix culpa quae talem ac tantum meruit habere redemptorem, Migne,196. 1003.
1456 See Engelhardt, pp. 14 sqq.
1457 Fides totius boni initium est atque fundamentum, Migne, 196. 889.
1458 Interficit matrem ubi omnem supergreditur rationem. De prep., 86; Migne, 196. 62, etc.
1459 Animus qui ad scientae altitudinem nititur ascendere, primum et principale sit ei studium se ipsum cognoscere. De prep., 76; Migne, 196. 54.
1460 Contemplatio est libera mentis perspicacia in sapientae spectacula cum admiratione suspensa. De gratia, I. 5; Migne, 196. 67. Here, as in other places, Richard quotes his teacher Hugo.
1461 Supra rationem et praeter rationem. De prep., 86; Migne, 196. 61.
1462 De prep., 74; Migne, p. 54.
1463 Suspecta mihi est omnis veritas, quam non confirmat scripturarum auctoritas. De prep., 81; Migne, 196. 57.
1464 A fall edition of his works is given by Migne, vols. 167-170. See Bach and Schwane. Also Rocholl, Rupert von Deutz. Beitrag zur Gesch. der Kirche im 12ten Jahrh., Gütersloh, 1886.
1465 Rupert gives an account of his journey to France to meet William and Anselm in disputation in his De regula Benedicti, I. 1; Migne, 170. 482 sq.
1466 The name of the work is De operibus sanctae trinitatis Migne, 167. 199-1827. The first two parts represent the work of the Father and the Son and the third the work of the Holy Spirit, pp. 1571-1827.
1467 Migne, 168. 841.
1468 De operibus S. trinitatis, II. 10. Bellarmin pronounced Rupert a heretic because of his views on the Lord’s Supper. Schwane, Dogmengesch., p. 641, denies the charge.