Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus (Cursor Mundi, 39) 9782503585130, 2503585132

Table of contents :
Front Matter
Robert J. Porwoll. Introduction
Andrew Benjamin Salzmann. A Trinitarian Introduction to Hugh of St Victor’s Exegesis
Rainer Berndt, SJ. The Sacraments of Christian Faith
Conrad Rudolph. ‘In Its Extraordinary Arrangement’
Dominique Poirel. Hugh’s Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy
Ineke van ’t Spijker. After the Manner of a Contemplative, According to the Nature of Contemplation
David Allison Orsbon. Restoration through Experiential Exegesis
Nico den Bok. From Triad to Trinity
Kyle Rader. Free and Abundant Love
Csaba Németh. Dionysian Elements, Structures, and Limits
Katherine Wrisley Shelby. Thomas Gallus’ Explanatio and Dionysian Thought
Back Matter ("Works Cited", "Index")

Citation preview

VICTORINE RESTORATION

CURSOR MUNDI Cursor Mundi is produced under the auspices of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.

Volume 39 General Director Chris Chism (English, UCLA) Managing Editor Allison McCann (CMRS, UCLA) Editorial Board Matthew Fisher (English, UCLA) Javier Patiño Loira (Spanish & Portuguese, UCLA) Peter Stacey (History, UCLA) Erica Weaver (English, UCLA) Bronwen Wilson (Art History, UCLA) Luke Yarbrough (Near Eastern Languages & Cultures, UCLA) Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

Victorine Restoration Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus

Edited by robert j. porwoll and david allison orsbon

F

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

© 2021, Brepols Publishers n. v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2021/0095/14 ISBN 978–2-503–58513-0 eISBN 978–2-503–58514-7 DOI 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.117717 ISSN 2034–1660 eISSN 2565–943X Printed in the EU on acid-free paper.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

7

Abbreviations

9

Introduction Regular Canons, Restoration, and Reform Robert J Porwoll11

Hugh A Trinitarian Introduction to Hugh of St Victor’s Exegesis Texts, Purpose, Reception Andrew Benjamin Salzmann45 The Sacraments of Christian Faith A Key Concept within Hugh of St Victor’s Doctrine Rainer Berndt, SJ Translated by Jonathan S King99 ‘In Its Extraordinary Arrangement’ Hugh of Saint Victor, the History of Salvation, and the World Map of The Mystic Ark Conrad Rudolph123 Hugh’s Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy Dominique Poirel Translated by David Orsbon147

Richard After the Manner of a Contemplative, According to the Nature of Contemplation Richard of Saint-Victor’s De contemplatione Ineke van ’t Spijker175

6

ta bl e o f co nt e n t s

Restoration through Experiential Exegesis A Study of Richard of Saint-Victor’s Benjamin minor David Allison Orsbon197 From Triad to Trinity Richard of St Victor and the Renaissance of Trinitarian Theology in the Twelfth and Twentieth Century Nico den Bok219 Free and Abundant Love Constructive Considerations on the Four Degrees of Violent Love Kyle Rader253

Thomas Gallus Dionysian Elements, Structures, and Limits Thomas Gallus, Interpreter and Spiritual Author Csaba Németh269 Thomas Gallus’ Explanatio and Dionysian Thought Katherine Wrisley Shelby297 Works Cited

329

Index

363

List of Illustrations

Conrad Rudolph Figure 1. The Mystic Ark. Original 1125 to early 1130. Shown as it might have appeared if constructed at the convent of Hohenbourg during the abbacy of Abbess Herrad in the late twelfth century. The construction here has a height of 3.632 metres (11 feet, 11 inches) and width of 4.623 metres (15 feet, 2 inches). Digital construction: Clement/ Bahmer/ Rivas/ Bozhilova/ Rudolph. 124 Figure 2. The Mystic Ark, diagram. Relative proportions of different Mystic Ark compositions. Clement/ Bahmer/ Rivas/ Rudolph. A) The relative size of The Mystic Ark if made according to the reduced proportions recommended in the text of The Mystic Ark (Ark proper 200 × 50 cubits). These proportions allow the image to fit onto the wall of a cloister — the traditional place of learning in a monastery — the size of Saint-Trophime in Arles.126 B) The relative size of The Mystic Ark if made according to the unaltered biblical proportions of Genesis 6.15, which result in an image too large for a contemporary cloister wall (Ark proper 300 × 50 cubits). 126 Figure 3. The Mystic Ark, detail. The central cubit. Clement / Bahmer / Rivas / Bozhilova / Rudolph. 128 Figure 4. The Mystic Ark, diagram. The cosmic structure and the three stages of the Ark. Clement/ Bahmer/ Rivas/ Rudolph. 129 Figure 5. The Mystic Ark, diagram. Main components. Clement / Bahmer / Rivas / Rudolph. 130 Figure 6. Macro/microcosm. Byrhtferth’s Diagram. Oxford, St John’s College, ms 17:7v. Reproduced by permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford. 131 Figure 7. The Mystic Ark, detail. The world/world map and the Ark proper. Clement / Bahmer / Rivas / Bozhilova / Rudolph. 132 Figure 8. The Mystic Ark, diagram. The line of generation. Clement / Bahmer / Rivas / Rudolph. 133 Figure 9. The Mystic Ark, diagram. The Flood, the serpent, and the sixty men and sixty women. Bozhilov/Rudolph. 134 Figure 10. The Mystic Ark, diagram. The four ascents, with ascent/descent patterns. Clement / Bahmer / Rivas / Rudolph. 135

8

l is t o f i l lus t r at i o n s

Figure 11. Three-dimensional reconstruction of the three-stage Ark proper from Hugh of Saint Victor’s two-dimensional painting of The Mystic Ark as described in the text of The Mystic Ark. Bahmer/Rudolph.136 Figure 12. The Mystic Ark, diagram. The three stages. Clement / Bahmer / Rivas / Rudolph. 137 Figure 13. The Mystic Ark, diagram. Systems of periodization. Clement/ Bahmer/Rivas/Bozhilov/Rudolph.138 Figure 14. The Mystic Ark, diagram. Selected components of the Ark proper and the earth. Clement / Rivas / Rudolph. 141 Figure 15. The Mystic Ark, detail. The central pillar, the River Jordan, and the twelve Apostles. Clement / Bahmer / Rivas / Bozhilov / Rudolph. 141 Figure 16. T-O map. London, British Library, ms Royal 6.C.1:108v. Reproduced by permission of the British Library Board. 143 Figure 17. World map. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, ms Clm 10058:154v. Reproduced by permission of Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München. 146 Dominique Poirel Table 1. Contents of Hugh’s Commentary.149 Table 2. Chapter Breakdown. 155 Table 3. Triadic Structures. 156 Table 4. Comparative Angelic Lists. 158

Abbreviations

AHDLMA BV CS CWS CCCM CCSL CV MGH PL

PG RSR RTAM RTPM SC TPMA VTT

Archives d’histoire doctrínale et littéraire du moyen âge (Paris, 1926–) Bibliotheca Victorina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991–) Cistercian Studies (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publication, 1970–) Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah: Paulist, 1978–) Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971–) Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954–) Corpus Victorinum (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008–) Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Hannover, 1826–) Patrologiae cursus completus, sive bibliotheca universalis, integra, uniformis, commoda, oeconomica, omnium SS. Patrum, doctorum scriptorumque ecclesiasticorum qui ab aevo apostolico ad Innocentii III tempora floruerunt… series Latina, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, 221 vols (Paris, 1844–1864) Patrologiae cursus completus sive bibliotheca universalis, integra, uniformis, commoda,… series graeca, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris, 1857–1876) Recherches de science religieuse (Paris: Centre Sèvres, 1910–) Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale (Leuven: Peeters, 1929–) Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales, (Leuven: Peeters, 1997–2014) Sources Chrétiennes (Paris: Cerf, 1942–) Textes philosophiques du moyen âge (Paris: Vrin, 1958–) Victorine Texts in Translation (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010–)

Robert J Porwoll

Introduction Regular Canons, Restoration, and Reform

Introduction The Victorines too often remain a well-kept secret of the Christian tradition — despite the great efforts in recent decades to study their thought and authenticate, edit, and translate their writings. This volume arises from gratitude to this scholarly inheritance and aims to help open Victorine thought to new readers among scholars of religion, theology, philosophy, culture, literature, and history. The Victorines take their name from the Abbey of Saint-Victor, which was once located on the Left Bank of Paris. That Abbey was destroyed in the Revolution, remaining only in name as the Saint-Victor Quarter. The heyday of the Abbey of Saint-Victor began before the University of Paris, in the twelfth and early thirteenth century. In that time, the abbey and school produced a constellation of important writers whose brilliance, mutual fellowship, and wider influence was rivalled only in the great universities of Paris or Oxford in the European Middle Ages. The origins of Saint-Victor began in 1108, when the famous and respected William of Champeaux began to break from his powerful and lucrative positions as schoolmaster and archdeacon of the old Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. First, he renounced his individual revenues as archdeacon; shortly after (in 1111), he removed to a ruined church (the vetus cella) outside Paris. In the community that followed him, William planted the seed that would become the canons regular of the Abbey of Saint-Victor.1



1 It has traditionally been thought that William departed immediately to an old, ruined church outside Paris, a vetus cella. See Fourier Bonnard, Histoire de l’Abbaye royale et de l’Ordre des Chanoines Réguliers de St-Victor de Paris (Paris: Arthur Savaète, 1904), pp. 4–7. More recently, Constant Mews has argued for William’s gradual shift out of the canonry, only complete in 1111, on the basis of documentary evidence that seems to place William teaching and operating within the Notre Dame cloister. See Robert J Porwoll  •  ([email protected]) holds a doctorate in History of Christianity from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, where he studied medieval education and pedagogies, particularly of the twelfth-century, and he teaches in the Religion Department at Gustavus Adolphus College. Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus, ed. by Robert J. Porwoll and David Allison Orsbon, CURSOR 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 11–42 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.122081

12

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

From this humble and uncertain beginning, the canons of Saint-Victor, or Victorines, experienced a meteoric ascension. In a few years, Saint-Victor had become a mother house overseeing a federation of affiliated houses and abbeys, an influential ally in the reformist movement, and an amply-supplied object of royal and noble endowments.2 Saint-Victor’s prominence waned in the thirteenth century. Yet, the Victorine thinkers that the abbey attracted and produced bore fruit in intellectual abundance. These include its first abbot Gilduin, Adam of Saint-Victor, Andrew of Saint-Victor, Achard of Saint-Victor, and Godfrey of Saint-Victor, but most especially Hugh of Saint-Victor, Richard of Saint-Victor, and Thomas Gallus. The Victorines were both prolific and profound in their thought and writings. In their works covering pedagogical, philosophical, exegetical, spiritual, liturgical, and mystical topics, these giants of Saint-Victor constitute a repository of medieval thought and cast a long shadow in their readership and influence. They appear to have gained universal respect from their twelfth-century contemporaries, including Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Lombard, and John of Salisbury. Moreover, scholastic, monastic, and vernacular theological cultures all held the Victorines in high regard. Thomas Aquinas treated their opinions seriously, and other Dominicans incorporated Victorine elements into their spirituality.3 Among the Franciscans, Bonaventure famously prized Hugh as one of the highest authorities. For the threefold division of sacred scripture’s teaching on faith, morals, and the contemplative end of both (in God), Bonaventure recommended authors for each: Augustine and Anselm for faith, Gregory the Great and Bernard of Clairvaux for morals, and Pseudo-Dionysius and Richard of Saint Victor for contemplation. ‘But Hugh [of Saint Victor] excels in all three’.4 Other Franciscans shared his admiration for the Victorines, particularly for Thomas Gallus.5 Dante placed Hugh and Richard of Saint-Victor in the circle of the wise in Paradise,

Constant Mews, ‘Memories of William of Champeaux: The Necrology and the Early Years of SaintVictor’, in Legitur in Necrologio Victorino: Studien zum Nekrolog der Abtei Saint-Victor zu Paris, ed. by Anette Löffler and Björn Gebert, CV, 7 (Munster: Aschendorff, 2015), pp. 78–86; pp. 71–97. 2 See Julian Führer, ‘L’Abbaye de Saint-Victor dans la réforme canoniale’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris: Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’Époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 57–77. See also: Jean Châtillon, ‘Le crise de l’Église aux xie et xiie siècles et les Origines des Grandes Fédérations Canoniales’, in Le Mouvement Canonial au Moyen Âge: Réforme de l’Église, Spiritualité, et Culture, ed. by Patrice Sicard (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), pp. 3–46, particularly pp. 34–39. 3 See Eduard Frunzeanu and Monique Paulmier-Foucart, ‘Saint-Victor et les premiers dominicains’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris: Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’Époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 493–519. That volume holds several important studies of Victorine influence and reception. 4 Bonaventure, Opusculum de reductione artium at theologiam, in S. Bonaventurae opera omnia, ed. by Collegio San Bonaventura (Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi): Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1882–1902) 5; ‘Hugo vero omnia haec’. For Bonaventure’s debt to Victorines, particularly Thomas Gallus, see Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God, Vol. III: The Flowering of Mysticisim: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200–1350) (New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 70–112. 5 See Sylvain Piron, ‘Franciscains et Victorins: Tableau d’Une Reception’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 521–45. See also the article by Katherine Wrisley Shelby in this volume.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

alongside the great luminaries (Augustine, Dionysius, Boethius, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and Peter Lombard), and highlighted Richard ‘who was more than man in contemplation’.6 Later medieval thinkers and spiritual writers, including Jean Gerson and the Devotio Moderna, looked back to the Victorines.7 Moreover, monastic and reform movements through to late medieval and early modern periods found great resources in Victorine thought.8 In recent decades, the Victorines have come back into light and received much scholarly attention and treatment. The present volume offers collected essays introducing the thought of three preeminent Victorines: Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus. Hugh of Saint Victor (d. 1141) was the first and greatest master of the school and set its direction with an ambitious pedagogical and theological programme. Richard (d. 1173) was its second great master, who presumed much of Hugh’s programme and pressed further into spiritual and contemplative heights. Thomas Gallus or Thomas of Saint Victor (d. 1246), often called the ‘last of the great Victorines’, bequeathed works of great learning and richness, whose influence is only recently becoming recognized. Translations, articles, and monographs have brought attention to more obscure members of the school.9 Hugh, Richard, and Thomas Gallus exhibit diverse projects and thought, though animated by the Victorine spirit. This volume’s studies focus on the greatest Victorines so as to invite us into the treasury of Victorine thought and the larger Victorine school. This introduction has five parts, with each part aiming to frame a context of the Victorines and Victorine studies, concluding with a synthetical overview of the volume’s articles. The first section situates the Victorines within a larger historical 6 Dante, Paradiso, x–xiii, x. 131–32 (Riccardo, che a considerar fu più che viro), xii. 133; for translation, see Paradiso, ed. and trans. by Robert M. Durling, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, vol. iii (Oxford: Oxford Univerity Press, 2011), pp. 212–13. 7 For Jean Gerson, see John Connolly, Jean Gerson: Reformer and Mystic (Louvain: Librairie Universitaire, 1928), pp. 207–10; for examples of Gerson’s recommendations and praise of Hugh and Richard, see Brian McGuire, ed., Jean Gerson: Early Works (New York: Paulist, 1998), pp. 209, 272, 324, 332–33. For the Devotio Moderna, see Niklaus Staubach, ‘L’Influence victorine sur la dévotion moderne’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris: Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’Époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 583–99. 8 For Carthusian reading of Victorines, see Christian Trottmann, ‘Lectures chartreuses des victorins’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris: Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’Époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 547–82. For a careful study of reformers’ uses of Hugh in particular, see Torsten Edstam’s dissertation: ‘From Twelfth-Century Renaissance to Fifteenth-Century Reform: The Reception of Hugh of St Victor in the Later Middle Ages’ (unpublished dissertation, University of Chicago, 2014). For a case study of Victorine influence, Grover Zinn studied the diffusion of Hugh’s treatise De institutione novitiorum (Formation of Novices): ‘Vestigia victorina: Victorine Influence on Spiritual Life in the Middle Ages with Special Reference to Hugh of Saint-Victor’s De institutione novitiorum’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris: Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’Époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 405–31. 9 Particularly worthy of attention is the ambitious translation enterprise in Victorine Texts in Translation, presently preparing its seventh volume with Brepols.The twenty-six volumes of the Bibliotheca Victorina present an invaluable mine of scholarship, likewise published with Brepols. See the volume’s bibliography.

13

14

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

trajectory of reform movements. Although the regular canons of Saint-Victor were rooted in the Carolingian program of clerical reform, they also sprung from renewed effort for clerical reform under the eleventh-century papal reform movement (often referred to as the Gregorian reforms). The second section focuses upon the Abbey of Saint-Victor as a phenomenon of the political and social landscape of Paris, the royal Capetian court of Louis VI, and the tension with the reformist party. Saint-Victor took on a mediatory role between royalists and reformists that won it respect and prestige and so advanced the restoration of the Church. Third, Saint-Victor had a direct relationship with the new Parisian schools that were giving rise to the proto-scholastic and scholastic forms of education. The Victorines distinguished themselves from these schools by directing their moral and intellectual education as preparation for church reformers. Victorine formation increased Saint-Victor’s influence, as many houses invited Victorine canons to take positions as ecclesiastical leaders (bishops, abbots, cardinals, masters) and this influence served to promote the cause of reform. In order to provide background to these figures, the fourth section offers brief introductions to the lives of Hugh, Richard, and Thomas, whose thought the volume chiefly examines. Finally, the fifth and final section concludes by offering brief comments highlighting some of the thematic syntheses arising out of the articles of the volume. ***

The Emergence of the Regular Canons While the particular order of Saint-Victor was founded in the early twelfth century, the Victorines were part of a larger reforming and spiritual movement of the regular canons. This section will sketch the origins, development, and aims of the clerical reform movements that produced the canons regular, including those of Saint-Victor Abbey. A ‘canon’ (canonicus, an ecclesiastical term that emerged in the late sixth century) was a priest or cleric who was listed on the episcopal canon rolls of a supervising bishop. Canons were clergy who were attached to a large, public church and sometimes would live in community under a rule of some kind. Unlike western monks, who after Charlemagne were largely Benedictine, disparate rules and customs might govern canons, some stricter, some laxer. Further, canons were uncloistered and likely to have pastoral duties, such as preaching or administering sacraments.10 Decrees on canons played an important role in the Carolingian reform

10 For a brief overview of canons, see Michel Parisse, ‘Les Chanoines avant les Chanoines Réguliers’, in Les Chanoines réguliers: Émergence et expansion (xie–xiiie siècles), ed. by Michel Parisse (Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 2009), pp. 7–11; See also J. C. Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and Their Introduction into England (London: S.P.C.K., 1950), pp. 13–19; Cf. Charles

i nt ro d u ct i o n

programmes but later were renovated as regular canons (or canons regular) with stricter disciplines. These renovations emerged as part of the larger movement for clerical reform in the eleventh-century papal reform programmes. In short, the canons emerged from Carolingian reforms, but that Carolingian model later seemed unsatisfactory, and a heightened reform model produced the regular canons (distinct from the secular canons). The Carolingian court made special efforts to stabilize the administration of its vast, newly-conquered realm. Special attention was paid (by Charlemagne and his heir, Louis the Pious) for ecclesial reforms, including standardization, improvement, and maintenance of churches. Imperial monastic reforms — increasing austerity, elaborations of the liturgy, and uniformly adopting the Rule of Benedict — reached its programmatic zenith at the synods at Aachen in 816–817.11 Reforms of the clergy were an early and important of this programme, albeit less well-known. Early Carolingian reformers developed roles for canons in the local administration and care of souls (cura animarum) under episcopal supervision.12 In these efforts, canons emerged not only as subjects of reforms but also as its instruments or implementors.13 Bishop Chrodegang of Metz (d. 766) followed up on the reforming efforts of Boniface of Mainz and sought to organize the ecclesiastical structures to create a larger spiritual culture among the previously disparate and fragmentary localities within Francia.14 Among his efforts for clerical and monastic reform, he borrowed much from the Rule of Benedict and regularized his canons into a community. He composed a Rule for Canons (Regula canonicorum) for the canons of his cathedral of St Stephen of Metz, which began with a reforming note: Clamat nobis Scriptura divina: ‘Omnis qui se exaltat, humiliabitur; et qui se humiliat, exaltabitur’ (Luc. XIV)… Nam dum omne genus humanum Cristianorum [atque omne vulgus] humilitatem habere conveniat, nimis inicu pessimumque ac detestabile est, ut qui servicio Dei peculiarius se junxerunt, humilitatem non derelinquant, superbiae, vel diabolicae tyrannidi se sociant. (Holy Scripture crieth out to us: ‘Everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted’. (Luke 14.11) … It is proper for all Christian men [and for the whole human race] to display Dereine ‘Chanoines’, in Dictionnaire d’Histoire et de Geographie Ecclesiastiques, vol. xii (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1953), pp. 359–70; See also: Concilium claremontanum (535) in Concilia Galliae, 511–696, ed. by Charles de Clercq, CCSL, 148A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1963). 11 See C. H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism (New York: Longman, 2001), pp. 66–82. 12 Gregory the Great provided the standard for cura animarum in his Book of Pastoral Rule (Liber regulae pastoralis). Charlemagne decreed that all bishops should read Gregory’s Pastoral Rule. See C. Colt Anderson, The Great Catholic Reformers: From Gregory the Great to Dorothy Day (New York: Paulist, 2007), p. 29. 13 Châtillon, ‘La crise de l’Église’, pp. 3–12; M. A. Claussen, The Reform of the Frankish Church: Chrodegang of Metz and the Regula Canonicorum in the Eighth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 12–18. 14 Claussen, The Reform of the Frankish Church, pp. 19–28, pp. 42–57.

15

16

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

humility, but it is an evil and monstrous thing if those who have devoted themselves to the special service of God leave the way of humility, and ally themselves with pride, which is the tyranny of the devil.15) Though he could hold property, the canon must not live luxuriously nor align himself with the proud landholding nobility. Echoing Benedict’s Rule, Chrodegang saw humility as the first foundation of the clerical community.16 His canon was to live a disciplined life, devoting himself to the divine office and to the pastoral care of souls: …Decernimus ut omnes sint unanimes officiis divinis lectionibusque sacris assidui, atque ad oboedientiam episcopi sui praepositique, ut ordo canonicus deposcit, parati, caritate conexi, zelo bono ferventissimoque amore coniuncti… (…We have determined that all should be of one mind in the worship of God, and diligent in spiritual reading … readily obedient to their bishop … as the canonical order requires. They should be united in charity, joined together in eager zeal and fervent love.17) Chrodegang took as his model the apostolic community from Acts. He saw this apostolic community as the ancient model that his clerical reform efforts sought to restore.18 In this way, Chrodegang aimed to promote a regular clergy (that is, under the discipline of his rule), adopt Roman customs, and form canonical communities. After his death (in 766), his clerical program received the support of Charlemagne and subsequent Carolingians.19 In this legacy, Chrodegang paralleled the Benedictine reformer Benedict on Aniane (d. 812) whose monastic reforming project survived him and received royal endorsement under Louis the Pious with the Monastic Capitulary of Aachen in 816–817.20 This capitulary aimed to spread and enforce the monastic reforms, particularly in uniformity and fidelity to the Benedictine Rule. Similarly, the decrees of Aachen served to promote canonical reform. Much of Chrodegang’s Rule was incorporated into a greatly expanded Formation of Canons (Institutio canonicorum), which set out a common life and standards for canons as well as for women religious (Institutio sanctimonialium).21 In the following years, bishops set up many canonical communities in cathedrals and prominent churches, though canonical observance

15 Chrodegang, Regula Sancti Chrodogangi, i; See The Chrodegang Rules: The Rules for the Common Life of the Secular Clergy from the Eighth and Ninth Centuries. Critical Texts with Translations and Commentary, ed. by Jerome Bertram FSA (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 29, 55. 16 Claussen, The Reform of the Frankish Church, pp. 48–57, 66–67. 17 Regula, prologue, in The Chrodegang Rules, ed. by Bertram, pp. 27, 52–53. 18 Châtillon, ‘La spiritualité de l’Ordre Canonial’, p. 133. 19 Claussen, The Reform of the Frankish Church, pp. 226–27; Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 17–18. 20 Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, pp. 73–80. 21 Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 17–25; Châtillon, ‘La crise de l’Église’, pp. 7–9.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

became less uniform and regular as Carolingian rule declined.22 Canons could take on a variety of tasks, including maintaining hospitals for the sick, hospitality for travellers or pilgrims, and (in the tenth and eleventh centuries) holding schools in their chapters, including the famous schools at Rheims, Laon, Chartres, Liège, Cologne, and Paris.23 While canons sprung from reforming origins, the eleventh century saw the emergence and spread of the regular canons (canonicus regularis) as a further, stricter reform that rejected elements of the Carolingian model, especially private property. This higher standard for canonical life gradually began to appear in canons’ texts. The phrases ‘to live communally, to live under a rule, to live religiously (communiter vivere, regulariter vivere, religiose vivere)’ appeared in the canons’ texts to describe their ideal way of life.24 One of the first such regular communities was the Abbey of Saint-Ruf, which began by episcopal permission in 1039.25 The canons of Saint-Ruf set out a vision of the canonical life as distinct from lax and proud ecclesiastics who were given bishoprics ‘not through spiritual gifting but through earthly lucre’ and who were ‘forgetful of the humility and religious grace they ought to keep, [and] are converted to arrogant haughtiness and pride’. The wealth these ‘worldly men unjustly possess’ ought instead to maintain the poor and clerics.26 The canons of Saint-Ruf held to a ‘model of the common life of the clergy without property (sine proprio) [that] went beyond the recommendation of the Carolingian reformers, who left the canons the possibility of owning personal property’.27 Saint-Ruf enjoyed great success in creating a network of federated regular canonical houses.28 Moreover, Saint-Ruf ’s reformed model became the ‘archetype’ of this second wave of clerical reform that

22 See Deriene’s discussion of the implementation and expansion of the canonic rule following Aachen, ‘Chanoines’, pp. 366–75. 23 Derienne, ‘Chanoines’, pp. 368–75, 372; Châtillon, ‘La crise de l’Église’, pp. 10–11. 24 Charles Dereine ‘Vie commune, Règle de saint Augustin et chanoines réguliers au xie siècle’, Revue d’Histoire ecclésiastique, 41 (1946), 388; Châtillon, ‘La crise de l’Église’, p. 13. 25 Châtillon, ‘La crise de l’Église’, pp. 13–15, 28–29; Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 27–28. 26 Codex diplomaticus ordinis sancti Rufi, ed. by Ulysse Chevalier (Valence: Jules Céas et fils, 1891) 1; The unparaphrased text runs: ‘… Ac postquam hujus provincie episcopi, non per donum spirituale, sed per terrenum lucrum in sede episcopali sublimati sunt, per superbam elationem et in tumorem conversi, humiliates et religionis gratie, quam firmiter tenere debuerant, obliti sunt, ac per hoc opes et predia dicte Dei ecclesie, unde pauperes et clerici sustentari debuerant, mundiales homines possident injuste…’. 27 Yannick Veyrenche, ‘Chanoines réguliers et sociétés méridionales: L’abbaye de Saint-Ruf et ses prieurés dans le Sud-Est de la France (xie–xive siècle)’, Bulletin du centre d’études médiévales d’Auxerre, 17.2 (2013), pp. 1–8, here p. 2. See also Chanoines réguliers et sociétés méridionales: L’abbaye de Saint-Ruf et ses prieurés dans le sud-est de la France (xie-xive siècle), BV, 25 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018). 28 Châtillon, ‘La crise de l’Église’, pp. 28–29; Veyrenche, ‘Chanoines réguliers et sociétés méridionales. L’abbaye de Saint-Ruf et ses prieurés dans le Sud-Est de la France (xie–xive siècle)’ (dissertation, Université Lumière-Lyon 2, 2013). Cf: Ursula Vones-Liebenstein, Saint-Ruf und Spanien: Studien zur Verbreitung und zum Wirken der Regularkanoniker von Saint-Ruf in Avignon auf der Iberischen Halbinsel (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996).

17

18

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

was promoted by the eleventh-century papal reform movement.29 In the reforms pressed by the papacies of Leo IX (d. 1054), Nicholas II (d. 1061), Alexander II (d. 1073), Gregory VII (d. 1085) and Urban II (d. 1099), the new canonical model not only became again the ideal for reform but also produced reforming clergy who would enact and maintain those reforms.30 A key figure who articulated and implemented the new, reformist canonical ideal was Peter Damian (d. 1072).31 Initially a hermit, Peter Damian was promoted as a papal recruit for the effort of clerical reform. Working actively to reform the clergy in Italy, Damian penned several works articulating the spirituality and goals of the reformed canons.32 For Damian, the role of the canons was to instruct others in word and deed and to be exemplars of the gospel for all those around them. Such exemplarity was impossible without the bonds of love, but the canonry could only be a school of love through common property. ‘Where there is a division of goods, there is, no doubt, not unanimity. For love produces communion, but greed division’.33 Communal life in or near their church also offered canons a practical remedy against the temptation to concubinage or inchastity. Property and revenues ought not be held and received individually but pooled and shared as communal goods.34 In articulating these two characteristics so forcefully — communal life and communal property — Damian sowed the seed of the movement of the canons regular.35

30 For an account of the regular canons in this earlier phase of papal reform, see Yannick Veyrenche, ‘Quia vos estis qui sanctorum patrum vitam probabilem renovetis… Naissance des chanoines réguliers, jusqu’à Urbain II’, in Les Chanoines réguliers: Émergence et expansion (xie–xiiie siècles): Actes du sixième colloque international du CERCOR, Le Puy en Velay, 29 juin–1er juillet 2006, ed. by Michel Parisse (Saint-Étienne: Université de Saint-Étienne, 2009), pp. 29–69. 31 For an overview of Peter’s life and work, see Anderson, The Great Catholic Reformers,pp. 30–55. 32 Chief among these works might be Damian’s letter to the canons at Fano (Epistle 39, De communi vita canonicorum; MGH I) and letter to Alexander II (Epistle 98, Contra clericos regulares proprietarios). 33 Peter Damian, ‘Ubi vero divisio rerum, ibi proculdubio non est unitas animorum. Charitas quippe communionem facit, avaricia divisionem’, Die Briefe des Petrus Damiani, vol. i, MGH Die Briefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit, (Munich, 1983), p. 377; For Damian’s instructional ideal in charity and analysis of Ep. 39, see Patricia Ranft, The Theology of Peter Damian: ‘Let Your Life Always Serve as a Witness’ (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), pp. 142–46. Ranft here resonated with the work of Caroline Bynum who argued that the canonical spirituality distinguished itself from monastic spirituality in its instructional role. All monks were to be students of each other, humble learners from all. Canons likewise sought to learn from all but also to prepare themselves to instruct others, to be others’ teachers. See Caroline Walker Bynum, ‘The Spirituality of Regular Canons in the Twelfth Century’, in Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 22–58. For a longer account, see Caroline Walker Bynum, ‘Docere verbo et exemplo:’ An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979). 34 Ranft, The Theology of Peter Damian, pp. 141–51, see also The Theology of Work: Peter Damian and the Medieval Religious Renewal Movement (New York: Palgrave, 2006), pp. 99–119. 35 Augustin Fliche wrote: ‘L’initiative de cette institution, conseillée par le concile de 1059, revient à Pierre Damien qui, sans doute, ne l’a pas définie, mais en a jeté la semence’. See Augustin Fliche, La réforme grégorienne I: Formation des idées grégoriennes (Louvain: Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, 1924), i, 337. Others have noticed Damien’s founding role. Cf. Ranft, The Theology of Peter Damian, p. 143; Dickinson also so credited Damian, Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 27, 34–35.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

Through this eleventh-century movement, then, the distinction grew between secular canons, (seculares) who maintained customary practices allowed by the Carolingian reforms, and the regular canons (regulares, for those living under a rule or regula), who adopted, advocated, and spread this emerging new canonical model.36 Damian encountered resistance from secular canons who could defend their custom of individual property as their Carolingian rule allowed (Institutio canonicorum, § 115, 122). The crux of the dispute lay in the conception of the ideal of the common apostolic life. Chrodegang’s Rule pointed back to the ancient ideal of common property under apostolic leadership: ‘None dared to call anything their own property but “all was common for them” and hence they were said to have “one heart and one soul” (Acts 4. 32)’.37 The rule from Aachen (Institutio canonicorum) had allowed more latitude and individual property (§ 115), but it also bore the apostolic ideal quoted in Augustine’s sermon citing the apostolic ideal: Ut ergo non vos diu teneam, praesertim quia ego sedens loquor, vos stando laboratis, nostis autem omnes aut pene omnes sic nos vivere in ea domo, quae dicitur domus episcopii, ut, quantum possumus, imitemur eos sanctos, de quibus loquitur liber actuum apostolorum: ‘Nemo dicebat aliquid proprium, sed errant illis omnia communia’. (…All of you, or almost all, of us who live in this house, which is called the bishop’s house, so we may imitate — as much as we can — those saints about whom it is said in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘No one called anything their own but all was common for them’.)38 For Augustine, this apostolic ideal received the commendation of Paul: ‘Be imitators of me as I am of Christ (I Corinthians 4. 16)’.39 While earlier canonical texts pointed to that ancient ideal, the eleventh-century reformers sought to make the apostolic common life a living reality. To live the apostolic life was not only the remedy to the abuses that had become common in the clergy but was also imitating Christ and the Apostles. The canons saw themselves engaged in an ultimately restorative task: to re-instantiate the community of unanimity exemplified in the primitive apostolic church.40 For this reason, Hildebrand (later Gregory VII) condemned the laxity of canons and sought to have condemned the

36 Châtillon, ‘La crise de l’Église’, pp. 20–23. 37 Chrodegang, Regula Sancti Chrodegangi [Regula canonicorum] § 31, in The Chrodegang Rules, ed. by Bertram, 46; ‘Licet legamus antiquam Ecclesiam sub tempore apostolorum ita unianimem concordemque extetisse et ita omnia reliquisse, ut singuli predia sua vendentes ad pedes apostolorum precia ponerent, ut nullus eorum sibi aliquid proprium dicere auderet, sed erant illis “omnia communia,” unde et habere dicebantur ‘cor unum et animam unam’ [Acts 4]…’. 38 Institutio canonicorum aquisgranesis, 112 MGH Concilia 2.1, p. 385, 18–22; This whole chapter derives from Augustine of Hippo’s Sermons, 355–56, (together titled De vita et moribus clericorum), here the quotation is from Sermon 355, 2. 39 Institutio canonicorum aquisgranesis, p. 385, 10–12. 40 Châtillon, ‘Les traits essentiels de l’idéal des premiers chanoines réguliers et leur signification dans l’Église d’aujourd’hui’, in Le Mouvement Canonial au Moyen Âge: Réforme de l’Église, Spiritualité, et Culture, ed. by Patrice Sicard (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), pp. 47–72, here pp. 48–58.

19

20

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

chapters of the Carolingian Institutio that warranted individual property.41 To evade accusations of innovation, Damian and Hildebrand could respond that the apostolic idea (Acts 4. 32–35) was not an innovation but the ancient and authoritative model for their reforms. The apostolic community, they argued, presented an exemplary and authoritative model for canons by sharing property and having ‘all in common’ (erant illis omnia communia).42 The Lateran synod of 1059 discussed these matters; its fourth canon contains their compromise position. Canons were to be celibate, live communally near their church, and share the revenues from their church, but private property was not forbidden. Yet, the conciliar canon concluded with an authorization of the apostolic ideal of communal property as the ideal to which the canons ought to strive: ‘By way of request, we urge you to strive above all to arrive at the apostolic, that is the communal, life’.43 In this short statement, the Lateran synod under Nicholas II effectively authorized the ideal of the apostolic life (vita apostolica). For this acknowledgement the synod has been called the ‘birth certificate of the new order’ of canons regular.44 To live apostolically in one heart and one soul entailed not only communal living, meals, and goods, but also a regulated way of life. Previously, the Carolingian Formation (Institutio) functioned as a rule, but it was lengthy and unwieldy. In the latter eleventh century, various Rules of Augustine emerged. Unlike the relatively stable Rule of Benedict, the Augustinian Rules varied greatly in their content and in their connection to Augustine. Luc Verheijen’s magisterial research distinguished four rules: the First Rule (Regula prima or Regula consensoria), the Order of the Monastery (Ordo monasterii), the Precept or Third Rule (Praeceptum or Regular tertia), and the Reprimand (Obiurgatio, based on Augustine’s Letter 211 to women religious).45 Though often adapted, combined, and edited in various ways, it was the Precept that eventually gained widest adoption and diffusion, and many regular canons and other orders adopted a version of it.46 An attractive quality of the Augustinian Rule (hereafter referred to as the Praeceptum) was its emphasis on building an evangelical community of fraternal love. From its outset, it makes explicit reference to the Acts model (§ 2–3). Unanimity and communal life are central: ‘First, you have been gathered into one so that you will dwell with unanimity in the house and there will

41 Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 30–32, Veyrenche, ‘Quia vos estis’, pp. 33–34. 42 Acts 4. 32 Biblia Sacra Vulgata. 43 G. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collection (Venice: Welter, 1759–1798), xix, 898; ‘Et praecipientes statuimus, ut ii praedictorum ordinum, qui eidem praedecessori nostro obedientes, castitatem servaverunt, juxta ecclesias quibus ordinati sunt, sicut oportet religiosos clericos, simul manducent, et dormiant; et quidquid eis ab ecclesiis venit, communiter habeant. Et rogantes monemus, ut ad apostolicam, communem scilicet, vitam summopere pervenire studeant’. Emphasis is added. 44 Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons, p. 28. 45 Luc Verheijen, La Règle de saint Augustin, vol. 1: Tradition manuscrite, vol. 2: Recherches historiques. (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1967) On the first, see i, 148–52, on the third, see i, 417–37. A more accessible study, based on Verheijen is: Augustine of Hippo, The Monastic Rules, trans. by Agatha Mary, SPB and Gerald Bonner (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2004). 46 Châtillon, ‘La crise de l’Église’, pp. 25–25, Veyrenche, ‘Quia vos estis’, pp. 36–40.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

be for you one soul and one heart in God’.47 Linked to unanimity is the policy on communal poverty: Et non dicatis aliquid proprium, sed sint vobis omnia communia, et distribuatur unicuique vestrum a praeposito vestro victus et tegumentum, non aequaliter omnibus, quia non aequaliter valetis omnes, sed potius unicuique sicut cuique opus fuerit. Sic enim legitis in Actibus Apostolorum, quia ‘erant illis omnia communia et distribuebatur unicuique sicut cuique opus erat’. (And do not call anything property, but let all be common for you and let your food and dress be distributed to each by your superior, for you cannot all be equal but rather for each according to what each needed. For so you read in Acts of the Apostles that ‘all was common for them and was distributed to each as each needed’.)48 By contrast, the Rule of Benedict began by establishing a very different relationship of an elder to a younger (‘Listen, my son, to the teachings of the master and incline the ear of your heart’).49 While Benedict emphasized humble obedience to the abbot in the complex work of prayer (opus Dei), the Rule of Augustine urged common, apostolic life in evangelical poverty through harmonious fraternal love. It was also more flexible as it left out detailed prescriptions for daily activities and living arrangements. The pursuit of the apostolic life under the Rule of Augustine would spread from its humble beginnings far beyond the horizons of the reformers of the eleventh century, eventually animating the new models of the mendicant orders in the thirteenth.50 Woven into this apostolic life, the life of the regular canon was a pastoral office. Unlike monastic reform movements that tended toward deserted places — particularly the Cistercians, who sought uncultivated wastes — churches with canonries were usually in larger urban centres.51 As an apostolic community in urban centres, regular canons aimed outward, at the pastoral care of souls (cura animarum). Their roles included maintaining churches, ministering sacraments, teaching, and preaching.52 The charismatic St Norbert of Xanten, a wandering preacher, founded the order of canons called Premonstratensians (named for their first community in Prémontré; they

47 Veheijen, La Règle de saint Augustin, i, 417; ‘Primum propter quod in unum estis congregati, ut unianimes habitetis in domo et sit vobis anima et cor unum in deum.’ 48 Veheijen, La Règle de saint Augustin, i, 418. 49 Sancti Benedicti Regula, Prol.; ‘Obsculta, o fili, praecepta magistri et inclina aurem cordis tui…’ 50 M. D. Chenu’s offered two articles that move from these roots to their development in the religious movements of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. ‘Monks, Canons, and Laymen in Search of the Apostolic Life’ and ‘The Evangelical Awakening’ in Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on the New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, ed. & trans. by J. Taylor and L. Little (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 202–38 and pp. 239–69 51 For the Cistercian movement, see Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, pp. 172–89. 52 See Pascal Montaubin, ‘Les Canoines réguliers et le service pastoral (xie–xiiie siècles)’, Les Canoines Réguliers: Émergence et Expansion (xie–xiiie siècles), ed. by Michel Parisse (Saint-Étienne: Université de Saint-Étienne, 2009), pp. 119–57.

21

22

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

were also called Norbertines) in 1121. The communal, apostolic Premonstratensians prized hospitality, poverty, and preaching.53 The spirituality of the canons also differed from that of the monks. In many ways, the regular canons looked to monastic models for imitation and borrowing. Some regular canons, such as the Premonstratensians, borrowed Cistercian customs for their communities.54 Yet, as Caroline Bynum argued, even though monks and canons largely held similar ideals and models, canons differed by conceiveing of themselves not only as learners but also as teachers.55 Monks wrote to one another, exhorting that each learn from the other in humility and mutual obedience, according to Benedict’s Rule. Canons also sought to learn from one another but added something else: a new responsibility to teach and edify their fellows by their deeds and by words (exemplo et verbo, vita et doctrina).56 Bynum wrote: What canons were voicing was something new: a sense of the individual’s responsibility for his fellows, both within and outside the cloister… They felt a commitment to educate others that was no longer attached to the role of the preacher or leader, a commitment that gave new importance to example as well as speech.57 Living communally with one another and in the rising urban centres, the canons’ legacy adds a new direction: their contemplation pours out into teaching one another, their spirituality spills out of the cloister for their neighbours, in edification and invitation to a higher moral and spiritual aim. From its beginning with Saint-Ruf in southern France and in Italy, the movement of regular canons spread north into Germany, and especially flourished in northern France.58 Northern French houses of regular canons included the later order of Prémontré (of St Norbert of Xanten), as well as the federation of Arrouaise, SaintQuentin of Beauvais, and the Order of Saint-Victor.59 Having broadly and rapidly sketched the emergence of the regular canons — pursuing a vision of apostolic life for pastoral care of souls — as part of the wider reforming movements, we turn to focus on the Abbey of Saint-Victor in its Parisian context.

53 For a short account of the St Norbert’s order, see Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, pp. 167–68. François Petit, O. Praem., has produced magisterial treatments of Norbert and the Premonstratensians. See Norbert et l’origine des Prémontrés (Paris: Cerf, 1981); Spirituality of the Premonstratensians: The Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, trans. by Victor Szczurek (Trappist: Cistercian Publications, 2011). 54 Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, p. 167. 55 Caroline Walker Bynum makes this case in ‘Spirituality’, pp. 22–58. For a longer account, see Bynum, ‘Docere verbo et exemplo’. 56 Bynum, ‘Spirituality’, pp. 53–55. 57 Bynum, ‘Spirituality’, pp. 56–57. 58 Veyrenche, ‘Quia vos estis’, pp. 46–51. 59 Châtillon, ‘Le crise de l’Église’, pp. 28–44; Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 83–90.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

Between the Reformers and the Royalists The immediate context of Saint-Victor was Paris, a city then beginning to boom. The Parisian environment was not incidental but set the stage for Saint-Victor’s balance between reformist and royalist parties. The city’s history traces back to Julius Caesar’s conquest of the Gallic Parisii (c. 50 bce), whose town of Lutetia was later named Île de la Cité.60 Afterward, Roman Lutetia was refounded on the left bank of the Seine River (on the hill later named Monte Sainte-Geneviève), on a grid whose central axis became the Rue-St-Jacques. The transport from the Seine and the traffic of its north-south and east-west crossroads made Lutetia prominent first as a Roman then as a Frankish city. While Charlemagne showed the city no special favour, this former Merovingian capital became again the capital of the Capetian dynasty in the late tenth century.61 Just over a century later, we find the Abbey of Saint-Victor, deeply entangled in its historical environment of early twelfth-century Paris. To recognize Saint-Victor’s role in its Parisian context, this section will map the agenda of the Capetian King Louis VI and the tensions with the French reformist network. The Abbey of Saint-Victor succeeded in establishing itself as a centre of reform as well as gaining a valuable mediating role between the parties. The French crown held a tenuous rule in the eleventh century. After the Carolingian collapse in the ninth century, the royal lands or demesne had been reduced to a small territory in the environs of Paris, sandwiched between the powerful counties of Blois to the West, Champagne to the East, and the duchy of Normandy to the North. Philip I (1060–1108) was the fourth Capetian monarch, but he was the first of that line to avoid loss of control or land over any part of his hitherto shrinking royal demesne.62 Instead, Philip engaged in a policy of aggressive defence and annexation. Philip forcefully impressed this expansionist policy onto his son and heir, Louis VI (associated in 1098, crowned in 1108). Louis VI spent much of his reign on campaign against nearby castellans and barons. Despite long odds and much resistance, Louis was quite effective. Not only did he maintain royal holdings, but he also significantly expanded them. He won by conquest the submission of quite a few troublesome neighbours, and he greatly improved the royal administration, strengthening and extending the reach of his prévôts (royal agents in charge of justice and revenue).63

60 Julius Caesar, The Gallic Wars in Caeser I, vii. 4, trans. by H. J. Edwards, Loeb Classical Library, 72 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917), p. 34; p. 57. 61 Among several histories of Paris, an accessible and pithy history of Paris is Maurice Druon’s The History of Paris: From Caesar to Saint Louis (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1969). For an account of high medieval Paris, see Simone Roux, Paris in the Middle Ages, trans. by Jo Ann McNamara (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). 62 Jim Bradbury, The Capetians: Kings of France, 987–1328 (London: Continuum, 2007), p. 123. 63 Bradbury, The Capetians, pp. 129–48; Éric Bournazel, Le Gourvernement Capétien au xiie Siècle (1108–1180): Structures Sociales et Mutations Institutionnelles (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1975); John Baldwin, ‘Crown and Government’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History volume IV,

23

24

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

For these accomplishments, Louis VI has been hailed as the reviver and redeemer of French royal power.64 Louis VI’s reputation was certainly helped by his friend and ecclesiastical ally, Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis. Suger’s Life of Louis the Fat portrayed Louis as a vigorous and pious champion for the poor and churches against the unjust predations of nobles and knights.65 Yet, despite Suger’s image of Louis as defender of the church, the king’s ecclesiastical policies produced tensions with church officials. Frankish realms had not experienced the same tumult resulting from the papal investiture reforms as had the Holy Roman Empire. The Capetian kings generally had not provoked conflict, until Philip I became the first French king to be excommunicated. The cause lay when Philip dismissed his wife Bertha and took as wife Bertrade de Montfort, the spouse of Count Fulk of Anjou. Though it was a scandalous act, two archbishops and eight bishops confirmed the illicit royal marriage in Rheims.66 In this we may see an accommodation between nobles and ecclesiastics that had become customary; however, against this accomodation, a newer party asserted itself. Bishop Ivo of Chartres — the canonist and one-time regular canon at Saint-Quentin at Beauvais — in alliance with papal legate Hugh of Die and other reformist prelates reversed the confirmation and excommunicated Philip. Philip repeatedly received excommunication and reconciliations for a decade (1094–1104) as he struggled against the reformists. After this affair concluded, two parties emerged in a tense relationship but rarely came into open conflict: in one party were the more traditional royalists and ecclesiastics who saw strong Capetian power as the path to order and justice in the realm. The other party was the reformist network, inspired by the papal reform movement and resonating among the religious movements. These movements included the Cluniacs, Cistercians, and houses of the new regular canons, as well as the pope and his episcopal allies. While upholding clerical celibacy and the ban on simony, the reformists also sought to disentangle religious offices from nobles and court officers, who dominated these offices and even collected them for their powers and revenues.67 The reformist could point to the person of Stephen of Garland as an archetype of corruption. The Garland family had been loyal supporters of Philip through his excommunications, and they received royal favour in return. In the early twelfth

ed. by David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 510–16; Achille Luchaire, Louis VI Le Gros: Annales de sa vie et de son règne (1081–1137) (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1890), pp. xlii–lxxxvi. 64 Bradbury collated many of these judgements (The Capetians, p. 132). 65 For example, Suger, The Deeds of Louis the Fat, trans. by R Cusimano & J Moorhead (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1992) § 1, 2, 5, 14, 34. 66 Bradbury, The Capetians, pp. 118–21. 67 Lindy Grant, Abbot Suger of St-Denis: Church and State in Early Twelfth Century France (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 58–60; See also Margot Fassler’s account in Gothic Song: Victorine Sequences and Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century Paris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 187–10.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

century, the four Garland brothers held distinguished court and ecclesial positions: Anselm was seneschal (responsible for the royal military) until his death in 1118, when William of Garland succeeded him. Gilbert of Garland served as royal butler (with responsibilities in the royal household).68 Stephen had the most glittering career. In his person he joined the offices of royal chancellor, seneschal, and private counsellor to the king. His varied offices granted him such power that it prompted the chronicler of the Abbey of Morigny to refer to him bitterly as ‘Stephen … by whose counsel all France was governed’.69 What perturbed the reformists was that Stephen also held many ecclesial positions: he was archdeacon of Notre-Dame, dean of the canonry of Ste-Geneviève, dean of Saint-Samson of Orléans, dean of SainteCroix of Orléans, dean of Saint-Aignan Abbey (Orléans), a canon of Notre-Dame of Étampes, provost of Spedona, and provost of Soissons.70 This multiplication of offices, the concomitant concentration of revenue and powers, and especially the mixture of royal and ecclesiastical offices were repugnant to the reformers. And Stephen had appetite for more: he had sought twice to gain a bishopric. In 1100, under the then-excommunicated Philip, the royally-inclined clergy of Beauvais elected Stephen bishop, but he was blocked from taking that office first by Ivo of Chartres and then by Pope Paschal II.71 In 1114, the see of Beauvais again became vacant. Stephen sought to transfer the current bishop of Paris and reformist opponent, Galon, to Beauvais and then to take the Parisian bishopric for himself. This effort too came to nothing.72 Stephen of Garland, then, was the type of a model of ecclesial and aristocratic ambition whose efforts to strengthen central, royal power now collided with the programmes and protests of the newer reformist party.73 Stephen certainly had nobility and clergy on his side. Abbot Suger’s Benedictine abbey was royalist. The secular

68 Einar Joranson’s unpublished thesis Stephen Garland (at University of Wisconsin, 1914) usefully collated the many scattered references to this central but elusive figure. It is a surprising gap that no more thorough or recent study of Stephen seems to have been done. See Joranson, ‘Stephen Garland’ (unpublished masters thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1914). See also: Grant, Abbot Suger, pp. 109–11. 69 I adopted the translation of Richard Cusimano: A Translation of the Chronicle of the Abbey of Morigny, France, c. 1100–1150, ii. 9, trans. by R Cusimano (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), pp. 64–65; ‘… Stephanus quoque cancellarius… cujus consilio tota Francia regebatur…’ See also A Translation of the Chronicle of the Abbey of Morigny, ii. 7, pp. 54–55; ‘…Stephanus cancellarius… cujus tunc temporis arbitrio regnum Francorum disponebatur.’ 70 Joranson ‘Stephen Garland’, p. 12; Grant, Abbot Suger, pp. 100–01, 124–29; Bradbury, The Capetians, pp. 132–33. 71 Robert-Henri Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, in Abélard en son Temps (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1981), pp. 60–61, Joranson, ‘Stephen Garland’, pp. 9–12; Führer, ‘L’abbaye de Saint-Victor’, pp. 60–63. 72 Joranson, ‘Stephen Garland’, p. 13; Führer, ‘L’abbaye de Saint-Victor’, pp. 60–63. The present narrative need not follow Stephen any further but Lindy Grant examined his fate, including his fall from power, his brief rebellion against the king, and humbler re-instatement (Abbot Suger, pp. 109–11, 124–29, 140–42, 229–32). 73 Constant Mews has correctly cautioned against a too simplistic categorization of parties between royalists and reformists. It is better to recognize that both parties sought reforms though of different kinds. Suger, Abelard, Heloise (etc) were allies or protected by the royalists, but they enacted (or attempted) their own ideas of reform. Likewise, Gilduin of Saint-Victor, Peter the Venerable of Cluny,

25

26

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

canons of Ste-Geneviève, where Abelard taught, resisted the regular canons’ reforms and supported Stephen as their dean. The canonry of Notre Dame, where Stephen was archdeacon, was also secular and a prestigious chapter that attracted wealthy, influential, and connected men.74 Reformists such as Ivo of Chartres, archdeacon and master, and Archdeacon William of Champeaux, Bishop Stephen of Senlis, and Bernard of Clairvaux were bitterly opposed to Stephen and what he represented.75 In 1127, Bernard sought to persuade Abbot Suger to withdraw support from Stephen, whom he denounced as a civil-ecclesiastical monster: [Quod plane credibilius ex eo videtur, quia cum honores non paucos, sed quantos nec canones nisi inviti patiuntur, teneat in Ecclesia;] unius tamen, quem in palatio assecutus est, magis, ut aiunt, gloriatur ex nomine quam ceterorum quolibet appellari. Cumque sit archidiaconus, decanus, praepositusque in diversis ecclesiis, nihil horum tamen tam eum quam regis delectat vocitari dapiferum… Confundit penitus ordines et utroque officio delicate satis abutitur, dum et hinc eum delectat pompa, non militia saecularis, et illinc quaestus, non cultus religionis. (This seems the more probable, because he is prouder (they say) to be called by the name of that one post which he has obtained at the palace [chancellor] than by any of those titles of ecclesiastical dignities which, in defiance of the canons, he has heaped upon himself, and instead of delighting to be called Archdeacon, Dean, or Provost to his various Churches, he prefers to be styled Dapifer… This man mingles the two orders [courtly and ecclesiastical] and cunningly abuses each. Military pomps delight him, but not the risks and labours of warfare; the revenues of religion, but not its duties.)76 In charge of Louis’ army and many churches, Stephen was mixing the orders that the papal reformers sought to disentangle. Moreover, as Bernard objected, Stephen enjoyed the prestige of royal office and lined his pockets by the revenues of many ecclesiastical offices but remained spiritually a pauper. In the context of the tension between royalist and secular canons against reformists and regular canons, then, we return to the origins of Saint-Victor in 1108, with which we started. In 1108, William of Champeaux was a secular canon, archdeacon, and master of Notre Dame, but he renounced his individual revenues and later left that canonry.

and other were reformists but also supported the Capetian crown and received its patronage. See Constant Mews ‘Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard’, in Cambridge Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. by Brian P McGuire (Boston: Brill, 2011), pp. 134–68, especially pp. 134–35. 74 Matthew Doyle’s recent work on the individuals of the Notre Dame canonry in the mid-twelfth century provides a very useful window into its culture, even though a few decades later than William of Champeaux’s time. Stephen of Garland was still a canon when Peter Lombard entered in 1145. See Peter Lombard and His Students (Toronto: PIMS, 2016), pp. 52–80. 75 Bernard of Clairvaux’s Epistle 78 (in 1127, shortly before Stephen’s downfall) intends to turn Suger against Stephen and alluded to the many grievances held against him. 76 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sancti Bernardi Opera Vol. 7: Epistolae, ed. by J. LeClercq, OSB and H. Rochais (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1974), Ep. 78, 11–12. Cf. Ep. 27, 11–12; Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, trans. by Samuel Eales (London: Ballantyne Press, 1904). Emphasis added.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

Peter Abelard, once a student of William, claimed in his History of My Calamities that William retired because he desired ecclesiastical promotion.77 Yet the context shows that by renouncing individual revenue and departing the secular canons, William was aligning himself as a reformer, and his subsequent projects fit that programme. That is how William’s peers understood his move. Beforehand, William had worked closely with reformist bishop of Paris, Galon.78 Afterward, the prominent reforming bishop Hildebert of Lavardin sent William a letter congratulating him for beginning to philosophize truly and for following Christ’s exhortations: ‘You have embraced that evangelical counsel that the youth heard from Christ: “Go, sell all you have and give it to the poor and come follow me” (Mark 10. 21)’.79 Shortly after, William did receive promotion to the bishopric of Châlons-sur-Marne, in which office he worked closely with Cuno of Praeneste, papal legate and regular canon (of Arrouaise). He also helped launch the career of Bernard of Clairvaux by confirming him abbot and giving spiritual guidance to the zealous youth.80 The newly founded Abbey of Saint-Victor needed to navigate these Parisian troubled waters. Though William probably used his pull, Saint-Victor was only founded and chartered after his departure. In 1113, as part of a larger settlement between the parties, Louis VI revised a recent grant he had made for a community of canons regular in Puiseaux (south of Paris, midway to Orléans, in 1112).81 The grant now established the Abbey of Saint-Victor just outside Paris, within a kilometre of Abelard’s school at Ste-Geneviève.82 Louis’ grant was a rich endowment that supported the prosperity and stability of the abbey.83 As Fourier Bonnard pointed out, Saint-Victor’s charter granted the right of free election (a reforming goal and marker). Saint-Victor soon elected Prior Gilduin as its first abbot.84 Gilduin was thought to be one of William’s students and was — as Constant Mews argued — the ‘true founder of Saint-Victor’.85 Written years later, the Necrology of Saint-Victor also emphasized Gilduin’s restorative leadership: he ‘restored the canonical life that had decayed almost completely. During his days, our house held primacy over other houses of our Order and he projected the 77 Peter Abelard, The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, trans. by Betty Radice (New York: Penguin, 2003), pp. 4–5. 78 Constant J. Mews, ‘Memories of William of Champeaux: The Necrology and the Early Years of Saint-Victor’, in Legitur in necrologio victorino. Studien zum Nekrolog der Abtei Saint-Victor zu Paris, ed. by Anette Löffler together with Björn Gebert, CV Instrumenta 7, (Münster: Aschendorff, 2015), pp. 78–79. 79 Hildebert of Lavardin, Epistola 1 (PL 171.142); ‘Praeterea sub evangelico te cohibuisti consilio, quo juvenis a Christo audivit: ‘Vade, vende omnia quae habes, et da pauperibus, et veni sequere me.’ See Bonnard, Histoire de l’Abbaye, pp. 9–10. 80 I. S. Robinson, The Papacy, 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 157–58; G. R. Evans, Bernard of Clairvaux (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 11; Mews, ‘Memories of William’, pp. 86–91. 81 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, pp. 32–33; Mews, ‘Memories of William’, pp. 84–85, 94–95. 82 For a description of the locality, buildings, and their history, see Paul & Marie-Louise Biver, Abbayes, Monastères, et Couvents de Paris: Des Origines (Paris: Éditions d’Histoire et d’Art, 1970), pp. 149–62. 83 Bonnard, Histoire de l’Abbaye, pp. 13–17. 84 Bonnard, Histoire de l’Abbaye, p. 15. 85 Mews, ‘Memories of William’, p. 75.

27

28

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

privileges of religion [of our house] far and wide, like the brightest star’.86 Gilduin’s leadership, as the later Victorines saw, navigated the new house of canons through dangerous waters to become a model for others. Saint-Victor indeed flourished under Gilduin. In a few years it was a recognized intellectual giant. It was both a bulwark of the reformers as well as prestigious in the royal court, and respected more widely. This bridging role allowed Saint-Victor to broker agreements in partisan disputes. In 1126–1127, Abbot Gilduin and a Victorine prior joined a commission to adjudicate a dispute between reformist bishop Stephen of Senlis and his cathedral chapter (of secular canons). Both sides trusted the Victorines for a fair settlement.87 Gilduin held the king’s respect and reverence: Suger recorded that Louis VI on his deathbed called for Gilduin and made intimate confession to him.88 On another occasion, King Louis VII intervened in the abbatial election at the Abbey of Morigny by sending three men to decide the election. The chronicler named the three: an abbot, a bishop, and Hugh, master of Saint-Victor, ‘who surpassed a host of masters in literature’.89 Saint-Victor’s wide respect brought it growth and influence. In addition to Louis VI’s generous charter, Gilbert, bishop of Paris, secured copious funds to continue building Saint-Victor, beginning in 1116.90 Stephen of Senlis, Gilbert’s episcopal successor, was a strong reformer and actively aided Saint-Victor in reforming other houses and abbeys, including the chapter at Ste-Geneviève (in 1148), despite strong resistance from that chapter. He twice attempted to bring Victorines into the Notre Dame chapter to reform it.91 In 1133, the zealous Prior Thomas of Saint-Victor was en route to reform a religious house at Chelles when his party were ambushed by men connected with Stephen of Garland. Prior Thomas was slain. Unable or unwilling to prosecute the culprits, the king attempted to mollify the reformers with further gifts.92 In 1136, Pope Innocent II elevated a Victorine named Ivo of Chartres (not to be confused with the canonist and bishop of the same name) to be a cardinal deacon.93 Yet Saint-Victor, by its royal endowment, its earned prestige, and intellectual 86 I have adopted Mews’ translation of the text from the Necrologium. See Mews, ‘Memories of William’, p. 75; see also Necrologium abbatiae Sancti Victoris Parisiensis, ed. by Ursula Vones-Liebenstein, Monika Seifert, and Rainer Berndt, SJ (Münster: Aschendorff, 2012), p. 148: ‘Hic zelum dei et ordinis habens, canonicum ordinem qui pene totus defecerat reparavit. In diebus eius domus nostra super ceteras nostris ordinis domos primatum tenuit et religionis prerogativa longe lateque velud clarissimum sidus emicuit.’ 87 Grant, Abbot Suger, p. 125. 88 Suger, The Deeds of Louis the Fat, trans. by Richard Cusimano and John Moorhead (Washinton, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1992), § 34; p. 158. 89 I have adopted Cusimano’s translation (A Translation of the Chronicle of the Abbey of Morigny, pp. 142– 43); ‘…magistrum Hugonem de Sancto Victore, in litteratura magistros eciam plurimos excedentem.’ 90 Bautier, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, p. 35. 91 Grant, Abbot Suger, pp. 166–69; Châtillon, ‘Le crise de l’Église’, p. 37. 92 Grant, Abbot Suger, pp. 132–34; Fassler, Gothic Song, pp. 203–06. 93 Anne Duggan connected this elevation with Hugh of Saint-Victor’s view of marriage, which coincided with Gratian’s. Also, for this cardinal deacon, Victorine Ivo of Chartres, see Anne Duggan, ‘Jura sua unicuique tribuat: Innocent II and the Advance of the Learned Laws’, in Pope Innocent II (1130–1143): The World vs the City, ed. by J. Doran and D. Smith (New York: Routledge, 2016), pp. 306–07.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

reputation also held sway with the king and the royal court, taking on a mediatory role between the tensed parties. For all its practical reforming projects, Saint-Victor bequeathed a legacy of a very different sort. It was the intellectual and spiritual life of Saint-Victor that became its last fruit. This spiritual and intellectual culture will receive brief treatment in the next section.

Saint-Victor as Educational and Reforming Centre From its beginning, Saint-Victor was characterized by its school culture. A proper treatment of Victorine school culture exceeds present scope. This brief section will suggest that Victorine teaching and learning took place within its larger programme for reforming the Church. Beginning with the Carolingian reforms, as we have seen, canons were not only the object of reform but also its subjects who would implement and continue those reforms. Roughly two centuries later in the papal-led reform movement, the Acts ideal of communal living and property animated a second wave of reform (leading to the distinction between the secular and regular canons). The regular canons developed a spirituality not only of humble learning, but edification by word and deed of their fellows and their neighbours. The reform movement that included the regular canons not only formed a network in northern France but also encountered resistance with the royalist party, who sought civil reforms by strengthening the Capetian monarchy. For this reformist party, Saint-Victor become both a bulwark and a mediator, maintaining respect and pull with Louis VI’s court. Saint-Victor’s school culture was central to its reform program for cultivating a model abbey with strict discipline (for morals) and a high standard educational and intellectual standard (for contemplation). In this way, Saint-Victor would form its canons for advancement to higher ecclesial office, where they could carry on reforming efforts in the Church. William sowed the seeds of the community with his students from the school of Notre Dame. After William’s departure, a few years may have intervened before Hugh arrived and began teaching at its school (by 1120). By his teaching, he established a vibrant school culture at Saint-Victor alongside the active and multiplying proto-scholastic schools of Paris. The school of Saint-Victor attracted many students and produced remarkable figures. Like many abbeys, Saint-Victor held an internal school for members of the community and an external school for those outside the community. Hugh’s external school remained open throughout Gilduin’s abbacy and became first-rate in Paris, the city that was rapidly becoming a dominant school city.94

94 Godfrey of Saint-Victor, first a student in other Parisian schools, gravitated to Saint-Victor, became a member, and wrote his encomium of its school culture in Fons philosophiae. See The Fountain of Philosophy, trans. by Edward Synan (Toronto: PIMS, 1972).

29

30

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

In the larger context of twelfth-century learning, Paris was witnessing great transitions. In the previous decades, cathedral schools and monasteries were the chief sites of education.95 By the end of the twelfth century, the nascent university of Paris had formed, and a very different scholastic culture had emerged.96 In between was a vital period of transition between these more stable school cultures. In this period of transformation, independent teachers such as Peter Abelard sought to attract students (and their fees) by experimenting with teaching and pedagogies. There was significant latitude for experimentation and innovation, and so masters competed for students and reputation as pedagogical rivals. Alongside these variations taking place in the contemporary Parisian schools, the school of Saint-Victor offered its own experiment in learning and study.97 Saint-Victor’s programme was a pedagogy to form and to restore humanity. While other communities of regular canons focused on preaching, liturgy, or other pastoral practices, the Victorines — especially Hugh and Richard — sought to link studies with contemplation, erudition with ardent love for God.98 The Abbey of Saint-Victor stood within the Parisian sphere, and Hugh, its first master, developed his own pedagogical programme for an experimental school culture as a deliberate alternative to the teaching of the Parisian masters.99 Hugh’s pedagogy had two bases: discipline (disciplina) and teaching (doctrina). Discipline restores morals and eventually love (hence, it is ultimately affective), and teaching educates the

95 For the culture of the eleventh-century cathedral schools, see the prominent study by C. Stephen Jaeger, The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950–1200 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993). 96 A classic study of the emergence of this culture is Stephen Ferruolo, The Origins of the University: The Schools of Paris and Their Critics, 1100–1215 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), see also: R. W. Southern, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, 2 vols (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995–2001). A more recent study is Alex Novikoff ’s The Medieval Culture of Disputation: Pedagogy, Practice, and Performance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), pp. 62–105. 97 A classic and accessible study of these experiments is G. R. Evans’ Old Arts and New Theology: The Beginnings of Theology as an Academic Discipline (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). See also Richard Southern’s Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, 2 vols (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997). 98 For the foci of other canons regular, see also Julian Führer, König Ludwig VI. von Frankreich und die Kanonikerreform, Europäische Hochschulschriften, 3 (Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang, 2008); for a comparative window into the functioning of different canons regular, see Charles Giroud, L’Ordre des Chanoines Réguliers de Saint-Augustin et ses diverses forms de Régime Interne: Essai de synthèse historicojuridique (Martigny: Éditions du Grand-Saint-Bernard, 1961). For the spiritualities of other canons, the Norbertines or Premonstratensians, see the magisterial work of François Petit, O. Praem, Norbert et l’Origine des Prémontrés; Spirituality of the Premonstratensians. For the studies at Saint-Victor as part of a restorative project, Franklin Harkins offered a good overview in Reading and the Work of Restoration: History and Scripture in the Theology of Hugh of St Victor (Toronto: PIMS, 2009). For the movement toward the mystical and contemplative, see Bernard McGinn’s chapter ‘The Victorine Ordering of Mysticism’ in The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism Vol. II The Growth of Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1994), pp. 363–418. 99 For a general view of Hugh’s education programme, see Franklin Harkins, Reading and the Work of Restoration: History and Scripture in the Theology of Hugh of St Victor (Toronto: PIMS, 2009). For a close analysis of Hugh’s practices of reading, see Ivan Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh’s Didascalicon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).

i nt ro d u ct i o n

ignorant intellect (to perceive truth). Together, discipline and teaching lead to virtue.100 Led by Gilduin and Hugh, Saint-Victor’s spiritual and intellectual formation advanced the larger cause of clerical and ecclesial reform. Master Hugh’s programme prepared his novices and canons with discipline and knowledge, which he understood to be dual necessities for ecclesial office. In his Sacraments of the Christian Faith, Hugh described the cleric as ‘God’s messenger to the people’ who required discipline and knowledge: Postquam autem clericus factus est debet deinceps de stipendiis ȩcclesiȩ sustentari et sub tutela et custodia spiritalium magistrorum scientia diuina et ecclesiastica disciplina erudiri. Quatinus ad sacros ordines ministerii diuini cum ratio poposcerit digne possit accedere. (Now after one has been made a cleric, he should be sustained by the stipends of the Church and be taught in the divine science and ecclesiastical discipline under the tutelage and custody of spiritual masters, in order that, when reason demands, he may be able worthily to enter upon the sacred orders of the divine ministry.)101 Saint-Victor, with Master Hugh at the school and Abbot Gilduin overseeing, produced canons that many sought or invited to fill ecclesial or religious offices. Only relatively rarely, though, did Hugh explicitly speak about his fellow canons as future leaders or prelates. In a Victorine sermon attributed to Hugh, the speaker exhorted his brothers not to be like the ecclesial pastors who sought only payment and fled at the approach of the wolf ( John 10. 11–13). Lupi occidunt, quia et visibiles corpora laniant et invisibiles animas necant. Si ergo pastores estis, vigilate super gregem vestrum (Luc. II); nec oves Christi lianiari permittatis in manibus vestris. Ascendite ex adverso, et date vos murum pro domo Domini. (Wolves kill because they both tear visible bodies and slay invisible souls. Therefore, if you are pastors, watch over your flock (Luke 2). Do not let Christ’s sheep be mangled in your hands. Arise from the foe and give yourself as a wall for the house of the Lord.)102

100 For a more complete account of Hugh’s educational programme, see Robert Porwoll, ‘Parisian Pedagogies: The Educational Debates between Peter Abelard, Hugh of Saint-Victor, Peter Lombard, and John of Salisbury’ (unpublished dissertation, University of Chicago, 2019). Hugh’s balance between intellect and affect is echoed throughout his works. For example, see Noah’s Ark (De arca Noë morali) in Hugh of Saint-Victor: Selected Spiritual Writings, i. 1–6, ed. by Aelred Squire, OP (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 45–51. For more on Hugh’s educational program, see also Andrew Salzmann’s article in this volume. 101 Hugh of Saint Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, ii. 3. 1, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Textus historici, 1 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008), p. 344. For the translation, see Hugh of Saint Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, ii. 3. 1, trans. by Roy Deferrari (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2007), p. 260. 102 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Miscellanea, i. 49 (PL 177.499C).

31

32

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

This sermon urged the canons to see themselves as distinct from other mercenary pastors by guarding the flock in imitation of Christ the Good Shepherd. In another rare passage, Hugh clarified for his canons how the pastor should guard his flock, that is, in terms of education: teaching and moral correction. In The Word of God, Hugh examined the duality of the inner word (the divine speaking to one inwardly) and the outer word (spoken through human voices).103 After ranging through the theological anthropology of how divine Word inwardly touches the human mind — topics surely dear to his students — Hugh concluded the outer word through the twofold duties of the prelate. Pastors bear two responsibilities: first, before God pastors owe spiritual devotion and sacrifice on behalf of the people.104 Then, as an envoy of God to the people, the pastor owes instruction to the flock: one must ‘teach the ignorant and correct sinners’.105 Rather than enforcing an overbearing or strict discipline, the pastor must both teach those needing instruction and compassionately and humbly correct those astray: ‘About that office whereby he is God’s envoy to the people, it is said, ‘let him be compassionate with the ignorant and straying, since he himself is set about with weakness’ (Hebrew 5. 2)’.106 Here the pastor’s two roles correspond to the two bases of Victorine education in formal study for knowledge and moral formation for love. Hugh, then, revealed that the educational formation of Saint-Victor aimed to equip canons for pastoral service in higher offices. Victorine formation, indeed, proved attractive to contemporaries. Many sought to give grants to Saint-Victor as a perceived bastion of reform; others affiliated their own houses with Saint-Victor or requested that a Victorine be sent to become their abbot. As a result, Saint-Victor found itself a mother house in a federated order of religious houses that adopted Victorine customs or had a Victorine as abbot.107 By the end of the twelfth century, a Victorine chronicle (Cronica abbreviata) recognized the great success of the order in daughter houses and sending forth its members for high offices: ‘The Order of Saint-Victor is spread through many churches’. The chronicler listed the prominent names: In Bituricensi archiepiscopatu fit abbas Radulfus in ecclesia sancti Satyri; domnus Odo in ecclesia beate Genovese Parisius Rogerus, in ecclesia sancti Euuitii (sic) Aurelianis; alter Rogerus in ecclesia Augensi in Normannia; domnus Garnerius in ecclesia sancti Bartholomei apud Noviomum; Balduinus in ecclesia sancti Vincentii Silvanectensis, Guibertus in ecclesia sancte Marie Alticurtis, Ricardus in ecclesia sancti Augustini de Bristo in Anglia et magister Andreas in ecclesia 103 De verbo Dei, i–ii, in Hugues de Saint-Victor: Six Opuscules spirituels, ed. by Roger Baron (Paris: Cerf, 1969), pp. 60–64. On Hugh’s De verbo Dei, see Paul Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor, Great Medieval Thinkers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 127. 104 Hugh, De verbo Dei, vi. 287–89; ‘In illo officio quo est legatus populi erga Deum, devotionem exhibere debet, ut eum oblationibus et sacrificio spirituali precibusque placatum reddat.’ 105 Hugh, De verbo Dei, vi. 289–91; ‘In eo officio quo est legatus Dei ad populum, ad illum pertinet ignorantes docere, peccantes corrigere.’ 106 Hugh, De verbo Dei, vi. 293–96; ‘De illo officio in quo est legatus Dei ad populum, dictum est ut sciat compati his qui ignorant et errant, quoniam et ipse circumdatus est infirmitate (Hebrews 5 .2).’ 107 See Châtillon, ‘Le crise de l’Église’, pp. 34–39.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

sancti Jacobi de Guiguemora, et in ecclesia Romana Ivo cardinalis et domnus Hugo Tusculanensis episcopus — hii omnes canonici sancti Victoris Parisius et discipuli domini Gilduini abbatis. Radulfus was made abbot in the archiepiscopate of Bourges in the Church of Saint Satyrus, lord Odo in the Church of Blessed Geneviève in Paris, Roger in Orléans in the Church of Saint Equitius, a second Roger in the Church of Eu in Normandy, lord Garnerius in the Church of Saint Bartholomew in Noyon, Baldwin in the Church of Saint Vincent of Senlis, Guibert in the Church of Saint Mary in Eaucourt; in England, Richard in the Church of Augustine in Bristol and master Andrew in the Church of Saint James at Wigmore [England], Cardinal Ivo in the Roman church, and lord Hugh is bishop of Tusculum: All these are canons of Saint-Victor in Paris, students of lord abbot Gilduin.108 After highlighting these ten prominent Victorines, the chronicler recalled the other members who brought prestige to the order: Magister etiam Hugo de Sancto Victore in scientia scripturarum nulli secundus in orbe, magister quoque Achardus Abricensis episcopus, prior Thomas et magister Adam in scripturis divinis adprime eruditi, prior Richardus fuerunt discipuli abbatis Gilduini. (These also were students of Abbot Gilduin: Master Hugh of Saint-Victor second to none in all the world in knowledge of letters, master Achard the bishop of Avranches, prior Thomas and master Adam who were especially learned in sacred scriptures, and prior Richard.)109 The learning and teaching of these latter Victorine luminaries had helped advance Victorine canons to become prelates who, in turn, could promote reform with a good pastor’s care. The Victorines’ legacy, then, was not only their rich theological vision and spirituality glowing with charity, but also their education for reforming leadership in their own time. The Abbey sent out canons to found daughter houses, to take office as abbots, bishops, or cardinals; this Victorines off-shoots spread the thought and discipline of Saint-Victor widely. Godfrey of Saint-Victor testified to this educational potency in his late twelfth century verses, The Fountain of Philosophy. Adopting the imagery of quenching the intellect’s thirst, Godfrey contrasted the Parisian schools’ drinks — now muddy, now intoxicating, now surfeiting, now parching — to the

108 MS Lat. 15009 in Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, as transcribed in Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 284–85. ‘Ordo sancti Victoris Parisius per multas ecclesias propagatur.’ Cf. For the title, see Alexander Andrée, ‘Anselm of Laon Unveiled: Glosae super Iohannem and the Origins of the Glossa Ordinaria on the Bible’, Mediaeval Studies, 73 (2011), p. 224. M. Hauréau found an expanded list by a later chronicler in a XIV c. manuscript (shelfmark MS 475, as he reported, Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris); this expanded list was printed in Prolegomena (PL 175.cxli–cxlii). 109 Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons, pp. 284–85.

33

34

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

wholesome, clear fountain of the canons of Saint-Victor. From this fountain flows the medicinal draught to ease contemporary ills: Hinc effundit rudibus eruditionem, Hinc ignaris penitus dat instructionem, Hinc infirmis animis consolationem, Hinc profitentibus exhortationem. From them he pours out instruction for the unlearned, And provides teaching for those who know nothing; From them he gives consolation to weak souls, And offers exhortation to those advancing.110 Godfrey’s verses still encapsulate the ambition of Saint-Victor: all sorts — the ignorant, the dull, the weary, and the talented — may be refreshed by its instruction and so press on to their restoration.

Three Short Lives Hugh

Hugh (d. 1141) arrived at the young and energetic Abbey of Saint-Victor around 1115.111 On account of his great learning and devotion, Hugh was remembered afterward: ‘A most learned man in sacred scriptures and secular philosophy he was lesser to none of the ancients, who was held as a most renowned doctor in his own time just as a second Augustine’.112 Like many in Paris, he was an émigré. Likely from Saxony, 110 Godfrey of Saint-Victor addressed this work to Stephen upon his elevation to the abbacy of Mont Ste-Geneviève, the site of a prominent Parisian school where Peter Abelard once taught and more recently had affiliated unto the order of Saint-Victor. See Fons philosophiae, ed. by Pierre MichaudQuantin, Analecta Mediaevalia Namurcensia, 8 (Namur: Godenne, 1956), p. 60, 709–12. See Hugh Feiss’ recent translation in Interpretation of Scripture: Theory: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor, and of Robert Melun, ed. by Franklin Harkins, Frans van Liere, VTT, 3 (New York: New City Press, 2013) pp. 373–425; here p. 412, 709–12. 111 Jerome Taylor, The Origin and Early Life of Hugh of St Victor: An Evaluation of the Tradition (Notre Dame: Medieval Institute, 1957), pp. 67–71. See also: Dominique Poirel, ‘Hugh Saxo. Les origines germaniques de la pensée d’Hugues de Saint-Victor’, Francia. Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte, 33.1 (2006), 163–69. Cf. Dale Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia: Theological Method in Richard of St Victor (d. 1173) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 236–37. 112 Johannes Trithemius (d. 1516) wrote of Hugh: ‘Hugo, presbyter et monachus Sancti Victoris Parisiensis, ordinis canonicorum regularium Augustini, et abbas ut ferunt ibidem, natione Saxo, vir in divinis Scripturis eruditissimus, et in saeculari philosophia nulli pricorum inferior, qui velut alter Augustinus doctor celeberrimus suo tempore est habitus, ingenio subtilis, et ornatus eloquio, nec minus conversatione quam eruditione venerandus’ (as quoted in Prolegomena (PL 175.clxvi)). Cf. Dominique Poirel, ‘“Alter Augustinus — Der Zweite Augustinus”: Hugo von Sankt Viktor und die Väter der Kirche’, in Väter der Kirche: Ekklesiales Denken von den Anfängen bis in die Neuzeit: Festgabe für Hermann Josef Sieben SJ zum 700. Geburtstag, ed. by Johannes Arnold, Rainer Berndt, and Ralf Stammberger (Munish: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2004).

i nt ro d u ct i o n

he was educated by regular canons at Hamersleben (just north of Halberstadt). Before coming to Paris, he stayed in Marseilles along with his uncle (Archdeacon Hugh). There they had acquired relics of Saint Victor of Marseilles, and they brought these with them to Paris. The Necrology of Saint-Victor commemorated Hugh’s gift of relics of Saint Victor, the patron saint of their abbey.113 Hugh won the confidence of Gilduin quickly, and he soon began teaching as master at the abbey. As discussed earlier, Hugh’s school at Saint-Victor added to the Parisian proto-scholastic landscape but also distinguished itself from the independent schools springing up within Paris. Hugh’s teaching and writing were respected, his reading was wide, and his spiritual thought deep. The primary concern uniting all his writings was a holistic and rigorous curriculum with a sound pedagogical method. The overall success of Saint-Victor as a reforming house, as a theological force, and as a furnace of spiritual and mystical thought may be attributed in no small way to Hugh as its chief teacher and example. He aimed for reform and corresponded with Bernard of Clairvaux — the young and talented abbot of the Abbey of Clairvaux that he founded as part of the vibrant new Cistercian order.114 Yet despite these connections, he did not seem to take much part himself in projects or political manoeuvring.115 On one occasion, he obliged Louis VI by adjudicating a disputed election at the Abbey of Morigny.116 Among his final works was the monumental Sacraments of the Christian Faith. Richard

Richard of Saint-Victor (d. 1173) not only continued the programme set by Gilduin and Hugh, but he also was keenly original and went beyond Hugh in cultivating mystical, contemplative thought. Attesting to his later popularity, a later biography of Richard comes to us from John of Toulouse (in 1650).117 Richard also was not

113 , The Necrologium of Saint-Victor commemorates Hugh’s gift on 11 February 1141: ‘De quo et illud specialiter memorie tradere volumus, quod beati Victoris reliquias multo labore quesitas, multa difficultate impetratas ab urbe Massilia ad nos detulit et tam desiderabili et incomparabili thesauro ecclesiam nostram locupletavit.’ See Necrologium Abbatiae Sancti Victoris Parisiensis, ed. by Ursula Vones-Liebenstein, Monika Seifert, and Rainer Berndt (Münster: Aschendorff, 2012), p. 105; cf. Bonnard, Histoire de l’Abbaye Royale, p. 95 n. 1. 114 Bernard was himself indebted to Saint-Victor on account of William of Champeaux’s assistance early in Bernard’s career. Bernard later wrote a letter of introduction for Peter Lombard to visit Saint-Victor (in 1136). See Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistola 410, Sancti Bernardi Opera, 8 volumes. ed. by Leclercq, Talbot, and Rochais, viii. 391; ‘…virum venerabilem P Lombardum, rogans ut ei parvo tempore, quo moraretur in Francia causa studii…’ For the latest and persuasive treatment of the circumstances of this letter, see Matthew Doyle, Peter Lombard and His Students (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2016), pp. 26–29, 36–37. 115 Hugh’s letter is no longer extant but Bernard’s reply is (Epistle 77). Cf. Hugh Feiss, ‘Bernardus Scholasticus: The Correspondence of Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of St Victor on Baptism’, in Bernardus Magister, ed. by John Sommerfeldt (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1990), pp. 360–77. 116 Already cited: Richard Cusimano’s A Translation of the Chronicle of the Abbey of Morigny, pp. 142–43. 117 John of Toulouse, Richardi canonici et prioris s. Victoris parisiensis vita (PL 196.ix–xiv).

35

36

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

French but ‘a Scot by origin’.118 John reported that Richard entered as a canon under Gilduin’s abbacy and was a student of Hugh.119 Yet some scholars doubt the latter relationship, since Hugh died in 1141. Richard may have arrived early enough to hear Hugh’s final lessons, but he also may have arrived later in the 1140s.120 One of Richard’s fellow canons at Saint-Victor was Andrew, who had been a student of Hugh. Andrew of Saint-Victor became abbot at the Victorine Wigmore Abbey in England (1149), briefly returned to Saint-Victor (1160s), and then renewed his tenure at Wigmore (where he died in 1175).121 Both Andrew and Richard are not only heirs of Hugh but also rivals. Andrew took up Hugh’s practice of consulting Jewish rabbis and produced extensive commentaries on the Hebrew scriptures that focused on their literal or historical interpretation.122 Richard assumed the historical reading but laid his own emphasis on the allegorical and tropological senses. Richard sharply brought out their methodological divergence when he accused Andrew of excessive literal interpretation. While Andrew was absent, Richard wrote against his followers, condemning Andrew’s ‘judaizing’ historical interpretation of Isaiah’s words that Christians have taken as prophecy of the virgin birth (Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium…; Isaiah 7. 14–15; Matthew 1. 23). Richard did not reject historical expertise. Rather, he saw Andrew’s interpretation of ‘young woman’ for ‘virgo’ as disbelieving a prophetic witness of Scripture.123 Andrew and Richard represent valid trajectories of the Hugonic heritage. Their disagreement testifies to a living and dynamic school of thought rather than a calcified monolith. After Gilduin’s death in 1155, Achard was elected abbot and held the post until 1161, when he received the bishopric of Avranches. Sometime during Gilduin’s 118 John of Toulouse, Richardi canonici et prioris s. Victoris parisiensis vita (PL 196.ix–x); ‘natione Scotus.’ Nico den Bok observed: ‘In the 9th century, “scotus” could also refer to Ireland; yet in the 13th century it referred almost exclusively to Scotland.’ See Nico den Bok, Communicating the Most High: A Systematic Study of Person and Trinity in the Theology of Richard of St Victor (d. 1173) (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), p. 97 n. 9. 119 John of Toulouse, Richardi canonici et prioris s. Victoris parisiensis vita (PL 196.ix–x). 120 Den Bok was open to the possibility that Richard heard Hugh (Communicating the Most High, p. 97), while Jean Grosfillier observed clear ‘intellectual filiation’ but pointed to Robert of Melun as more likely to have been Richard’s teacher ( Jean Grosfillier, ed., L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor 1: De contemplatione (Benjamin maior) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 14–15). Dale Coulter reckoned Richard arrived around 1145, though noting that the only terminus ad quem was Gilduin’s death in 1155. See Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, p. 21. 121 Andrew of Saint-Victor found an early champion in Beryl Smalley but has received the least attention among Victorines. Rainer Berndt’s study of Andrew’s career, commentaries, and exegetical method is magisterial. See Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, [1941]), pp. 112–95; Rainer Berndt, André de Saint-Victor (1175): Exégète et Théologien (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991), pp. 46–50. 122 See Frans van Liere, ‘Andrew of St Victor, Jerome, and the Jews: Biblical Scholarship in the TwelfthCentury Renaissance’, in Scripture and Pluralism: Reading the Bible in the Religiously Plural Worlds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. by Thomas Heffernan and Thomas Burman (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 59–75. 123 Berndt, André de Saint-Victor, pp. 294–97; Smalley, The Study of the Bible, pp. 110–11, pp. 115–17; Walter Cahn, ‘Architecture and Exegesis: Richard of St.-Victor’s Ezekiel Commentary and Its Illustrations’, Art Bulletin, 76.1 (1994), 53–68, 54–56.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

abbacy, Richard became a master at the abbey; afterward he advanced to subprior in 1159 and to prior in 1162.124 Unlike Hugh’s reluctance to dabble in politics, Richard involved Saint-Victor in the dispute between Thomas Beckett and English King Henry II. Thomas Beckett was formerly a royalist and the chancellor to the Angevin court. After his elevation to the archbishopric of Canterbury, he became a zealous champion of ecclesiastical liberties and courts. Becket won the support of Victorines and their friends. Robert of Melun, who was a former pupil of Hugh and then bishop of Hereford in England, however, appeared sympathetic to the royalists. With Abbot Ervisius, Richard wrote a letter to Robert recalling Robert’s past with Saint-Victor, chiding Robert with the reports of his hypocrisy circulating in Paris, and urging him not to take Henry’s side.125 Richard later hosted Thomas Beckett himself, who visited Saint-Victor (September 1170) and preached there in the octave of the feast of St Augustine of Hippo.126 But the greatest tumult was the disastrous abbacy of Ervisius (or Ernis), who was elected in 1162 and lasted until 1172. Ervisius would not or could not maintain the famous discipline of Saint-Victor and grossly mismanaged its properties and finances. Pope Alexander III order an investigation and wrote in correction to Ervisius. Alexander III finally brought the affair to a conclusion in 1172 by sending bishops to remove the wayward abbot. Restoration of Saint-Victor began with Ervisius’ successor, Guérin.127 Richard’s role amidst this tumult is murky, but Dale Coulter argued that Richard’s determination for moral conversion and reform in his writings evinced his leadership through the crisis.128 In any case, the crisis at the abbey did not keep Richard from writing; the last years of his life appear to have been the most fruitful.129 Thomas Gallus

In the years after Richard’s death, some scholars consider that Saint-Victor receded in prestige and even grew cool toward scholastic learning. Under Walter of SaintVictor, prior after Richard, Saint-Victor’s external school closed. He also published a scathing polemic on the schools of Paris: Against the Four Labyrinths of France (Contra quattuor labyrinthos Franciae). He targeted Peter Abelard, Gilbert of Poitiers, Peter Lombard, and Peter of Poitiers, figures united by their dialectical method in

124 John of Toulouse, Richardi canonici et prioris s. Victoris parisiensis vita (PL 196.ix–x). 125 See Richard, Epistle 1 (PL 196:1225–1226); Beryl Smalley, The Becket Conflict and the Schools: A Study of Intellectuals in Politics (Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1973), pp. 55–56; pp. 50–58. 126 John records this event (Richardi canonici et prioris s. Victoris parisiensis vita (PL 196.ix–x)) but Jean Châtillon corrected the mistaken date. The relationship between Thomas and the Victorines, see Châtillon’s ‘Thomas Becket et les Victorins’, pp. 99–119. 127 John of Toulouse, Richardi canonici et prioris s. Victoris parisiensis vita (PL 196.xi–xii); Cf. Grosfillier, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor 1, p. 16; Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, p. 22. 128 Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, pp. 22, 252–55. 129 Den Bok discussed the obscure dating of Richard’s major works (Communicating the Most High, pp. 98–99).

37

38

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

theology.130 However, Saint-Victor was still able to attract first-rate canons. Thomas Gallus (d. 1246; also called Thomas Parisiensis, of Saint-Victor, or Vercellensis) was one of these who came to live a scholar’s life in Saint-Victor. Later, in rare autobiographical comments, he referred back to his time in Paris and Saint-Victor: ‘As twenty years ago in the cloister of Saint-Victor in Paris I diligently discussed the beginning of Isaiah [6. 1]’.131 His moniker ‘Gallus’ seems to indicate French origins. Beyond this, Thomas’ early life is obscure.132 Thomas might have remained working at Saint-Victor, but Cardinal Guala Bicchieri recruited him and three other Victorines to direct a new foundation (c. 1218).133 Guala was a papal legate to France and England and laboured for the cause of clerical reform. His travels to England through France made him familiar with Saint-Victor.134 When he desired to establish an abbey and hospital in his hometown of Vercelli (Piedmont, Italy), he wanted those foundations to be led by ‘canons according to the Rule of Blessed Augustine’ — specifically, he wanted Victorines.135 Guala’s abbey was dedicated to Saint Andrew. Construction began in 1219. Thomas and colleagues arrived in 1224, and Thomas became its first abbot by 1226.136 Thomas evidently continued teaching: in 1228, the nascent Franciscan order moved its formation school (studium generale) from Padua to Vercelli.137 Through the young Franciscans at this studium, Thomas had an enormous influence upon that order: he associated with a young Anthony of Padua. Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, and

130 For Walter and the view of Saint-Victor’s decline, see Stephen Ferruolo, The Origins of the University: The Schools of Paris and Their Critics, 1100–1205 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958), pp. 42–44. 131 Thomas Gallus, Doctoris ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani Opera omnia, vol. 15 (Tornaci [Tournai]: Typis Cartusiae S. M. de Pratis, 1902), p. 199A; ‘Sicut ante annos viginti diligenter tractavi in claustro S. Victoris Parisiensis, super principium Isaiae, Vidi Dominum, etc.’ This quotation, part of an included passage from Gallus, was noticed by Gabriel Théry, OP whose magisterial work founded modern scholarship on Thomas Gallus. See his biographical essay: ‘Thomas Gallus: Aperçu biographique’, Archives d’Histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge, 12 (1939), pp. 141-208, p. 163. 132 Boyd Coolman reckoned that Thomas became a university master between 1210–1218 and that likely he lectured to Saint-Victor’s canons. See ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, Re-Thinking Dionysius the Areopagite, ed. by Sarah Coakley and Charles Stang (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), p. 88. 133 Théry, ‘Thomas Gallus: Aperçu biographique’, p. 168. 134 Théry, ‘Thomas Gallus: Aperçu biographique’, pp. 146, 143–52. 135 Quoted in Théry, ‘Thomas Gallus: Aperçu biographique’, p. 161; ‘…Le nécrologe de Saint-André de Verceil nous dit, en effet, explicitement, que le cardinal Guala Bicchieri établit à l’abbaye de SaintAndré des chanoines de Saint-Augustin: canonicos secundum Regulam beati Augustini.’ 136 For a description of the church, including Thomas’ extant and beautifully-wrought tomb, see Martina Schilling, ‘Celebrating the Scholar and Teacher: The Tomb of Thomas Gallus at Sant’Andrea in Vercelli (mid 14th century)’, in A Wider Trecento: Studies in 13th- and 14th-century European Art, Presented to Julian Gardner, ed. by Louise Bourdua and Robert Gibbs (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 117–43. Boyd Coolman connected the Gothic style of Saint-Andrew to the Dionysian thought spreading in Paris from Hugh of St Victor and others. See Boyd Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 5–9. 137 Martina Schilling pointed out that although no documentary evidence linked Thomas to that studium, circumstantial evidence strongly points to his relevance and involvement. See Schilling, ‘Celebrating the Scholar’, pp. 141–42.

i nt ro d u ct i o n

many other Franciscans cited him. Though Thomas was largely forgotten in modernity, Gabriel Théry declared that scholastic theologians ‘everywhere invoke his witness’.138 Beside a journey to England, Thomas’ years in Vercelli were only interrupted by political exile in his last years. In the strife between the Ghibellines (who favoured the Holy Roman Empire) and Guelphs (who favoured the papacy), the commune of Vercelli inclined toward the Guelphs. Unfortunately, Cardinal Bicchieri and Thomas — by ties of patronage or by conviction — were Ghibellines. In 1243, Guelphs gained control of Vercelli and declared war on Ghibelline town Ivrea, whence Thomas went in exile.139 The abbot continued writing during exile but probably returned to Vercelli before his death (1246).140 On Hugh

Andrew Salzmann’s article approaches a much-discussed and studied topic in a refreshing and insightful way. Salzmann argues that Hugh’s hermeneutical delight in triads is not merely superficial and decorative but substantively and conceptually Trinitarian in structure. By that Trinitarian foundation, Salzmann then proceeds through the Hugonic method of education for the threefold exegesis of sacred scripture. Salzmann here also highlights the often referenced but rarely studied practice of the Victorines to learn from and study with the Northern French rabbis of Rashi’s school for greater philological and historical understanding of scripture. In addition to this Trinitarian model and Jewish background, Salzmann offers two useful appendices: first, a short catalogue of Hugh’s exegetical writings with scholarly notes, and a new translation of a student-account of Hugh’s educational programme. Rainer Berndt, SJ, offers a broad-sweeping analysis of Hugh’s thought according to a fundamental structure, that is, the sacramental movement between God’s two works: creation and restoration. While Salzmann treats the process, in complement Berndt pieces together this crucial Hugonic notion from various facets of that master’s thought. Rooted in a Christological understanding, Berndt argues that Hugh grounded his sacramental treatment in a prior ur-sacrament, the ecclesiological character of which frames that ‘irruption’ of the eternal into the temporal and into history. Recognizing, then, the historicity of sacraments, Berndt leads us back to Hugh’s educational programme with fresh eyes: by learning history, Hugh’s canons were studying sacraments and studying sacramentally. By deepening their understanding of faith, they might progressively participate in the ur-sacrament of the divine. Conrad Rudolph examines the puzzles presented by Hugh’s short work, Little Book of the Formation of the Ark (Libellus de formatione arche) or The Mystical Ark. Contrary to other views that this Hugh’s ark image was a mnemonic device for

138 Théry, ‘Thomas Gallus: Aperçu biographique’, pp. 169–70, 141; Schiller’s analysis of Thomas’ tomb, depicting his lessons for canons, Franciscans, and possibly Cistercians highlights this legacy. See Schilling, ‘Celebrating the Scholar’, pp. 123–28. 139 Théry, ‘Thomas Gallus: Aperçu biographique’, pp. 190–95. 140 Théry, ‘Thomas Gallus: Aperçu biographique’, p. 208.

39

40

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

mental visualization and retention, Rudolph argues that The Mystical Ark refers to a lost painting at Saint-Victor that summarized (or was a summa of) Hugh’s larger sacramental understanding of creation and history (as Berndt analyzed) through his multi-layered method of reading scripture (as Salzmann laid out). Rudolph’s careful reconstructions and vivid illustrations present a compelling case to reconsider and imagine how Hugh taught his sacramental understanding with a concrete yet dynamic pedagogical method. In contrast to well-known and oft-studied texts such as Didascalicon and Sacraments of the Christian Faith, Hugh’s Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy is among the most difficult and least known but most promising for new insights. Dominique Poirel offers a magisterial and accessible study of Hugh’s Super Ierarchiam Dionisii that begins by carefully situating that Commentary within Hugh’s career. The article opens up this difficult text by revealing the inner tensions in Hugh’s thought produced by his Dionysian studies as well as presenting the reader with an interpretative overview of Hugh’s own strategies to resolve these new tensions. Poirel’s study serves to connect Hugh to the next two Victorines: to Richard, by showing the Dionysian undertones in Hugh’s contemplative thought, and to Thomas Gallus, by the argument that Hugh’s Commentary was a fountainhead for interest in and study of the Dionysian corpus. On Richard

The transition from Hugh to Richard requires recognizing not only how the character of Richard’s thought was both deeply indebted to Hugh but also how he established his own distinctive themes and foci. Ineke van ’t Spijker provides an excellent guide, first situating Richard in relation to Hugh, then launching into a treatment of fully Richardian notions. After first commenting on the historiography, Van ’t Spijker’s reading of On Contemplation serves two ends: first, it introduces a triadic view of contemplation (roughly imagination, reason, insight), which correlates to metaphysical reality and so animates Richard’s thought — particularly in contemplating the Trinity (as Den Bok’s article discusses). Secondly, with this contemplative trajectory mapped out, Van ’t Spijker addressed the larger interpretative question of whether Richard should be seen as ultimately affective (like Thomas Gallus, as Németh and Wrisley Shelby explore) or as an intellectualizing reaction to such affective tendencies. Her compelling answer is to underline the tension between these poles that Richard maintained in his thought, making it impossible to characterize him ultimately as either. Following Van ’t Spijker’s treatment of Contemplation or Benjamin major, David Orsbon’s piece gives a careful reading to an easily neglected piece among Richard’s works, Benjamin minor. Benjamin minor set out the contemplative ascent through the allegorical images of Jacob’s wives and their children. Richard’s Benjamin minor is a deceptively simple text that has not excited much attention nor has appeared to possess originality or contemplative theory. Yet, as Orsbon’s article shows, such a low view of this text is a misreading. Orsbon argues that Benjamin minor represents a case-study of Richard’s ‘experiential exegesis’ that invites the individual who is already embedded in community to make progress in the spiritual and moral life by entering into one’s own experiential reading of sacred scripture. In this way, Orsbon makes

i nt ro d u ct i o n

Richardian exegesis — seemingly abstract and metaphysical — more tangible. One can better imagine how a canon of Saint-Victor might have read or heard Prior Richard. The next two articles approach Richardian theology with an eye toward contemporary discourses. In the first, Nico den Bok examines the heights of contemplative study in Richard’s famous Trinitarian thought. While Richard’s Trinity is often treated in isolation, Den Bok provides a masterful contextualization within the twelfth-century discourses as responding to three main frames: the Augustinian-Anselmian background, the thought of Hugh and Abelard, and finally the immediate context of Gilbert of Poitiers and Peter Lombard. Den Bok’s careful analysis reveals a central, creative insight that animated Richard’s whole trinitarian thought: Richard moved past the triadic characterization (permeating Hugh’s thought, as Salzmann argued) to a Trinity composed of personal relations. Den Bok concluded by tying Richard’s insight to the debate regarding social trinitarianism in twentieth-century systematic theology, for which Richard may provide resources for promising re-formulations. Picking up where Den Bok leaves off, Kyle Rader offers an original and creative path for Richard’s Four Degrees of Violent Love into contemporary constructive theology. After setting out the provenance and thrust of Four Degrees, Rader brings out its application to contemporary constructive thinking on love and the subject. Four Degrees represents — Rader argues — Richard’s further development of his notion of charity, following upon his Trinity. In the former work, Richard was unable to free himself from a relation of reciprocal debts of love among the Divine Persons. Yet working through the third and fourth ‘degrees of love’, an utterly gratuitous love-relation comes into view and, by analogy, may offer Richard’s own solution to his own problem. Rader thickens this application by drawing upon contemporary theologians’ understanding of divine love and by dwelling on the molten imagery that Richard formulated. By this discussion, Rader gives substance to his suggestion that, despite the great contemporary attention to Richard’s Trinity, it is Four Degrees that offers untapped theological resources. In this way, Den Bok’s and Rader’s articles produce an admirable partnership, giving two perspectives on the Trinitarian personal relations that shed light on each other. On Thomas Gallus

Csaba Németh introduces us to Thomas Gallus, whose thought is lesser known and difficult but is probably the most fertile for future work. Thomas’ life, works, historiography, and his medieval reception all receive helpful discussion. But Németh’s article primarily represents a careful and critical synthesis of Thomas’ voluminous and unsystematic writings. Crucial to Thomas’ thought are conceptual structures of intellectual and affective cognition that utilize the scaffolding of the Dionysian angelic orders in an ascent that relies upon the analogy of graduated creation with levels of the human soul. Németh’s article complements the prior discussions of Victorine contemplative and Dionysian topics, particularly Poirel on Hugh’s Commentary, and Van ’t Spijker and Den Bok on Richard’s contemplative thought. Along with Wrisley Shelby’s article, these articles form a vibrant thematic thread within the volume by

41

42

ro be rt j p o rwo l l

which one may trace three distinct characters of Victorine reception and adaptation in Hugh, Richard, and Thomas. While Németh ambitiously synthesized broad structural themes in Thomas Gallus’ thought, the second article on Thomas Gallus presents a lucid analysis of his last and most mature work, the commentary on the Dionysian texts: Explanatio in libros Dionysii. Katherine Wrisley Shelby offers a complementary perspective by linking Thomas to Hugh and Richard. Furthermore, Wrisley Shelby complements Németh’s pursuit of Gallusian ideas into scholastic discourses by instead highlighting possible influence to mystical and Franciscan authors. Several articles, including Poirel, Van ’t Spijker, and Németh, have examined contemplative ascents. Wrisley Shelby includes the insight that the graduated angelic ascent in Thomas is placed within the soul, where the incarnation of Christ is operative in the ascent as the deifying principle. In this way, Wrisley Shelby’s article returns Thomas’ mature answer to the Hugonic question that Salzmann posed: How may the blinded reader be restored? The theme of restoration through contemplation that winds through each article of the volume thus comes to its Christological finale.

Hugh

Andrew Benjamin Salzmann

A Trinitarian Introduction to Hugh of St Victor’s Exegesis Texts, Purpose, Reception

Introduction As late as 1952, British historian Beryl Smalley could famously lament the general scholarly neglect of Victorine exegesis: ‘We have seen an entire school of exegesis fall into an oblivion so profound that its successors remind us of men building on the site of a buried city, unaware of the civilization lying beneath their feet’.1 The past seventy-five years, however, have seen an explosion of research not only on the Abbey of St Victor, but on its reading of the Bible in particular. This chapter will draw upon that scholarship to introduce Hugh of St Victor’s exegetical method. This introduction to Hugonian exegesis is divided into three parts. First, I begin with a brief discussion of the Trinitarian assumptions that structure all of Hugh’s thought. Second, I examine the larger spiritual programme in which the reading and exegesis of scripture plays such a central role. Third, after briefly explaining the assumptions of patristic and medieval Biblical interpretation more broadly, I give a detailed account of how Hugh himself interpreted the literal and spiritual senses of Scripture. I conclude with a short comment on how this new attention to the Trinitarian shape of Hugh’s thought resolves some critiques of Hugh’s exegetical theory. In the appendices, I offer what I believe to be two helpful resources for the student of Hugonian exegesis: first, an overview of his authentic exegetical works (Appendix 1), and, second, the translation of a letter written by one of Hugh’s students which offers the contemporary reader the same brief introduction to his method of interpreting scripture which a twelfth-century cleric might have had (Appendix 2).



1 Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1952), p. 357. Andrew Benjamin Salzmann  •  is Associate Professor of Theology at Benedictine College (Kansas). He is interested in pneumatology, anthropology, and sacramental theology within the Augustinian tradition. Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus, ed. by Robert J. Porwoll and David Allison Orsbon, CURSOR 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 45–97 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.122082

46

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

The Trinitarian Character of Hugh’s Thought This is no place for a biographical introduction to Hugh of St Victor.2 Yet Bonaventure’s well-known praise of Hugh for his integration of doctrinal reasoning, moral preaching, and spiritual contemplation, all of them grounded in a deep reading of Scripture, grasps the heart of Hugh’s Trinitarian exegesis, concerned as it is with the memory of the historical events recorded in the literal sense of the Biblical narrative, with the intellect’s understanding of their significance for Christian faith, and finally with the will’s consequent reformation through the moral and contemplative life.3 A theological introduction to Hugh of St Victor and to his exegesis must, then, begin with a brief overview of the organizing principle of his thought: The Trinity. Any reader of Hugh quickly notices his tendency to structure his thoughts in groups of three.4 These triads are seldom randomly chosen, and when read through a Trinitarian lens one can see and even anticipate the pattern of thinking that so frequently led Hugh to express himself as he did. Unsurprisingly for a thinker dubbed alter Augustinus, ‘a second Augustine’, Hugh’s Trinitarian thought is grounded in Augustine’s psychological analogy, in which the mysterious unity of the three divine persons of Father, Son, and Spirit in one God, and their mutual relationships, is understood by analogy to one soul’s three faculties of mind, intellect, and will.5 Just as, in the Western doctrine of the Trinity, the first person of the Father generates the second person of the Son, and the third person of the Holy Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son together, so too in the human soul the memory generates the intellect, and the will proceeds from both. Hugh explains: Considera ergo tria haec: mentem, intellectum, amorem. De mente intellectus nascitur, de mente pariter et intellectu amor oritur. De sola mente intellectus,



2 For a very helpful overview and analysis of the literature on Hugh’s biography, especially the insoluble debates over Hugh’s origins, see Rebecca Moore, Jews and Christians in the Life and Thought of Hugh of St Victor, South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism, 138 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), pp. 15–21. See also this volume’s Introduction, § 4. 3 Bonaventure, De reductione artium ad theologiam, 5: ‘Anselmus sequitur Augustinum, Bernardus sequitur Gregorium, Richardus sequitur Dionysium, quia Anselmus in ratiocinatione, Bernardus in praedicatione, Richardus in contemplatione - Hugo vero omnia haec.’ ‘Anselm follows Augustine, Bernard [of Clairvaux] follows Gregory [the Great], Richard follows Dionysius. For Anselm is excels in reasoning; Bernard, in preaching; Richard, in contemplation. But Hugh excels in all three.’ Bonaventure, On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology, trans. by Zachary Hayes, OFM (St Bonaventure: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1996), p. 45. 4 Of this tendency, Smalley observed, ‘A Victorine was firmly persuaded that all good things go in threes,’ though she does not suggest that this threeness may have Trinitarian form (The Study of the Bible, p. 86). 5 The origins of this title (and of his related titles, Secundus Augustinus or Lingua Augustini) are obscure, and even studies which set out to describe Hugh’s reliance on and use of Augustine do not attempt to trace them. For one such study, cf. Dominique Poirel, ‘“Alter Augustinus — Der Zweite Augustinus”: Hugo von Sankt Viktor und die Väter der Kirche,’ in Väter der Kirche. Ekklesiales Denken von den Anfängen bis in die Neuzeit, ed. by Johannes Arnold, Rainer Berndt, and Rolf M. W. Stammberger together with Christine Feld (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2004), pp. 643–68.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

quia mens de se intellectum genuit. Amor vero, nec de sola mente, nec de solo intellectu, quia ab utrisque procedit. Prius mens, deinde mens et intellectus, postea mens, intellectus et amor. Consider these three: the mind (mentem), understanding (intellectum), and love (amorem). From the mind is born understanding; from the mind and understanding together, love arises. Understanding arises from the mind alone, because the mind generates understanding from itself. But love arises neither from the mind alone nor from understanding alone, for it proceeds from both. First there is mind, then mind and understanding, and afterwards mind, understanding and love.6 For Hugh, this psychological analogy quickly extends beyond the purely psychological to take on cosmological significance. Since the mind is the source of the intellect and will, Hugh associates the Father with that power (potentia) which creates the world; the Son, already called the Word of God by Christian theology and now analogous to the human intellect, Hugh associates with wisdom (sapientia); the Holy Spirit, already called ‘the bond’ between Father and Son by Augustine and analogous to that human will which loves, Hugh associates with loving-kindness (benignitas).7 This triad of power, wisdom, and loving-kindness, while grounded in the psychological analogy of mind, intellect, and will, now extends outward as a summary of the characteristics of creation itself; it becomes the organizing principle for Hugh’s On the Three Days (De tribus deibus), a short work in which he describes how every aspect of creation testifies to its triune Creator. We see the Father when we see the immensity that God’s power creates, in either number or size, of things; we see the Son when we see how well-formed are the things which God’s wisdom has designed, in their composition, order, movement, form, or qualities; we see the Spirit when we see how useful, attractive, beneficial, or necessary the Creation wrought by God’s loving-kindness is. The Trinitarian, triadic structure of Hugh’s thought can be read in a number of ways. Some of his triads are clearly grounded in the psychological analogy of memory, intellect, and will, while other triads depend upon the cosmological triad of the power, wisdom, and loving-kindness behind God’s creative act. Still other 6 De tribus diebus, 21. 3. De tribus diebus, in Hugonis de Sancto Victore De tribus diebus, ed. by Dominique Poirel, CCCM, 177 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002). Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, De tribus diebus (PL 176.831C). Translation by Hugh Feiss, O.S.B., ‘Hugh of St Victor: On the Three Days’, Trinity and Creation, ed. by Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter, VTT, 1 (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2011), pp. 61–102; here, p. 85. Cf. also The Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 1. 3. 21 and 1. 3. 27. Cf. On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis), trans. by Roy J. Deferrari (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2007). Cf. Augustine, De trinintate (On the Trinity), 9. 2.2–9. 4.7. 7 The distinctive triad of potentia, sapientia, and benignitas has often been attributed to Abelard, but this attribution is unlikely. See Dominique Poirel. Livre de la Nature et Débat Trinitaire au xiie Siècle, BV, 14 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 346–66. Cf. Matthew Knell, The Immanent Person of the Holy Spirit from Anselm to Lombard: Divine Communion in the Spirit (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2009), pp. 79–95.

47

48

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

triads might blend these two sets together, with one term referring to the acts of God’s power, a second term to the proper intellectual understanding of these acts, and a remaining term connected to the human will or the love of the Holy Spirit. At times, it is evident how all three terms relate to each Trinitarian person, while at other times, two terms will be obvious while the third must be identified with the remaining Trinitarian person by default; even at these times, however, it is necessary to read each term through its associated Trinitarian moment to understood the triad fully. This Trinitarian correlation is evident even in a triad apparently far-removed from theological discussion. For example, Hugh explains that three sorts of obstacles might prevent the reader from studying well: first, lack of opportunity, due to problems of money, health, talent, or teacher, which are faults of circumstances or history; second, carelessness, which is a fault of the uninstructed intellect; and finally, imprudence, a kind of failure of the unadmonished will.8 The first obstacle correlates to the Father, for these historical, material circumstances (lack of money, health, talent, teacher) as failings of power are negative reflections of the Father’s work as creator; the second term of this triad, intellectual faults, relates to the second person of the Trinity, the Son; the third term, faults of will, relates to the third person, the Spirit. Still other triads may rely less on the content of the power-wisdom-loving-kindness triad and instead recreate among themselves the relationships between the Trinitarian persons: the first term generates the second term; these two terms possess or cause some common third term.9 However distant from Biblical studies the doctrine of the Trinity may seem to the modern reader of sacred scripture, attention to this threefold, and frequently Trinitarian, structure of Hugh’s thought is indispensable to understanding his works, including his writings on exegesis. As we will see, this Trinitarian structure motivates some of Hugh’s most characteristic exegetical moves, from his reducing the traditional four senses of Scripture into three to his stretching the standard definitions of the New Testament, adding to the Gospels and the writings of the Apostles the voluminous writings of the Church fathers as well.

Hugh’s Exegesis in His Broader Spiritual Programme An introduction to Scriptural reading and its importance in the thought of Hugh of St Victor must begin with the Didascalicon, his famous introductory guide for readers. Boyd Taylor Coolman has insisted that a proper reading of the Didascalicon must attend to the ‘post-lapsarian context’ of the reader and the need for salvation.10 8 Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, The Didascalicon of Hugh of Saint Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, 5. 5, trans. by Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 126. 9 For more explanation of this Trinitarian reading of Hugh’s corpus, cf. A. B. Salzmann, ‘The Holy Spirit and the Life of the Christian according to Hugh of St Victor: Dator et Donum, Cordis Omne Bonum’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Boston College, 2015), pp. 67–78. 10 Boyd Taylor Coolman, The Theology of Hugh of St Victor: An Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 144.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

It is both as good and as evil, Hugh explains, that the reader opens the book — good in nature, but evil in the defects that have made this reading necessary in the first place. But Scripture is as much a gift as it is a ‘pricking reminder’ of human sinfulness, because the reader opens the book with a single, all-encompassing task, ‘the restoration of our nature and the removal of our deficiency’.11 For Hugh, reading is therefore a redemptive project for an afflicted humanity. He invokes a variety of images to describe this affliction. Some are cosmological: of the five levels of existence — heaven, paradise, earth, purgatory, hell — humanity has ‘fallen’ from paradise to earth.12 Others are forensic: though humanity was justly held in bondage, it was unjust that the devil should hold humanity in bondage, so that an advocate able to make the case before God should free humanity.13 But the celebrated image of the blinded reader is perhaps the best way to introduce the problem of sin as a preface to a discussion of his exegetical writings. The Blinded Reader

To read, one needs light by which to see. The great utility of the metaphor of the blinded reader is that this image emphasizes the disappearance of that divine Light by which prelapsarian humanity would have ‘read’. Hugh subscribed (as had Augustine) to a doctrine of illumination. Augustine described his theory of illumination by analogy with the process by which the physical eye sees: Just as physical light allows the body’s eyes to grasp the existence of physical objects, reason casts rays of light upon the human mind (acies mentis), allowing the soul to ‘see’ and to grasp rational truths.14 This Augustinian doctrine of illumination does not deny that the human mind learns some facts about the material world directly through the senses: the colour of the sea, perhaps, or the shape of Adeodatus’s face.15 However, it would be impossible know from physical things themselves what reason is; reason and the things of reason cannot be abstracted from the experience of any physical thing, but can only be known by participating in the illuminating light of reason itself. What the doctrine of illumination does insist upon, however, is that human reason is a participation in the divine Logos identified with the second person of

11 ‘Hoc est omnino quod agendum est, ut natura reparetur et excludatur vitum.’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 1. 5, trans. by Taylor, p. 52. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon: Hugonis de Sancto Victore Didascalicon de studio legendi, ed. by Charles H. Buttimer, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin, 10 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1939), p. 12. 12 Hugh of Saint-Victor, The Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 1. 8. 2. 13 Hugh of Saint-Victor, The Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 1. 8. 4. 14 For example, see Augustine’s Soliloquia, i. 8. 15, cf. Soliloquies: Augustine’s Inner Dialogue, trans. by Kim Paffenroth (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2000). Cf. Lydia Schumacher, Divine Illumination: The History and Future of Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), pp. 7–13, pp. 58–65. 15 See Augustine, De magistro, 9. 36. Cf. ‘Augustine: De Magistro. A New Translation’, trans. by T. Brian Mooney, in Understanding Teaching and Learning: Classic Texts on Education by Augustine, Aquinas, Newman and Mill, ed. by T. Brian Mooney and Mark Nowacki (Charlottsville: Imprint Academic, 2011), pp. 67–103.

49

50

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

the Trinity, and for this reason Augustine names Christ, as the human incarnation of that divine Logos, the ‘only Teacher’.16 One experiences God in the very act of knowing, and by that experience itself sees something of higher truths. Words and other signs may be necessary to point the mind’s eye at a particular idea, but the intellect grasps these ideas directly, by the light of reason which God sheds upon the human intellect; thus the proper understanding of words is necessary, but not sufficient, for apprehension. It is in the context of this Augustinian doctrine of illumination that we must construe the opening passage of the first book of Hugh’s Didascalicon: Humanity differs from the animals in that the immortal human mind, ‘illuminated by Wisdom, beholds its own principle and recognizes how unfitting it is for it to seek anything outside itself when what it is in itself can be enough for it’.17 For Hugh, Wisdom is the truth that ought to guide all deliberate human action; as known by human beings, it is also divided into understanding (intelligentia) and knowledge (scientia). While knowledge relates to ‘merely human works’ — agriculture, industry, commerce, entertainment of all sorts — and is derived ‘from below’ or through the senses, understanding ‘derives from above’ through illumination and pursues ‘the investigation of truth and the delineation of morals’, that is, the speculative truth that perfects the intellect and the moral truth that perfects the will.18 In appropriating the Augustinian doctrine of illumination and ‘the eye of the mind’, Hugh further distinguishes between the ‘rational eye’ and the ‘eye of contemplation’ (oculus rationalis and oculus contemplationis).19 This distinction is grounded in 1 Corinthians 2. 9, ‘What eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has it entered in the heart of man’. God cannot be grasped through the senses (‘what eye has not seen’), and thus there must be an eye of mind capable of grasping God; but the ability of the eye of the mind to grasp God cannot be strictly coterminous with the capacity of reasoning (‘neither has it entered into the heart of man’ by thought), and so there must be some further division within the eye of the mind.20 If the bodily eye sees things in this world and the eye of the mind grasps invisible realities, then the eye of the mind turned inward upon the self grasps both reason and the truth about the rational person (oculus rationis) and the eye of mind

16 See Augustine, De magistro, 14. 45–46; cf. Matthew 23. 10. 17 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 1. 1, ed. by Buttimer, trans. by Taylor, p. 46. ‘Sapientia illuminat hominem ut seipsum agnoscat, qui ceteris similis fuit cum se prae ceteris factum esse non intellexit’, ed. by Buttimer, p. 4. Taylor also points us to Hugh’s De sapientia animae Christi, in which Hugh writes that ‘Wisdom itself is Light, and God is Light, for God is Wisdom. And when God illuminates, he illuminates with Wisdom and Light. Nor does he illuminate with any other light but that Light which he himself is…’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, ed. by Taylor, p. 176 n. 2; cf. PL 176.845–56). 18 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 2. 2–27; Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 1. 8, ed. by Taylor, p. 54. 19 Hugh of Saint-Victor, In hierarchiam Coelestem S Dionysii Areopagitae, 3. 2, col. 976A-B (PL 175.923A–1154C). 20 Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 1. 10. 2, ed. by Deferrari, p. 167.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

turned upward grasps God present within the human soul and the truth about God (oculus contemplationis).21 Illumination by divine Wisdom, however, is not the only manner in which the soul, already created in the image of a Trinitarian God, participates in the Trinity. Hugh writes, Sapientia enim te ad agnitionem veritatis illuminat, charitas te ad desiderium bonitatis inflammat, paternitas in te custodit quod creavit, ne perat. Per illuminantem ergo sapientiam tibi collucentem, rectum discernis; per inflammantem charitatem, tibi coardentem, misereris; per providentem paternitatem, tibi contuentem, temetipsum custodis. Wisdom illumines [illuminat] you to the knowledge of truth, Charity inflames [inflammat] you to the desire for God, and Paternity maintains [custodit] in you what it creates [creavit], lest it be lost. Through illuminating Wisdom sharing with you its light [collucentem], you discern rightly; through inflaming Charity sharing with you its fire [coardentem], you have mercy; through provident Paternity sharing with you its hold [contuentem], you keep your own self.22 Being held in existence by God the creator, the soul must move first to knowledge of God through illumination by divine Wisdom and to love of God through the movement of the fire of divine love. Thus, Hugh writes in the Didascalicon, ‘Integritas vero naturae humanae duobus perficitur, scientia et virtute, quae nobis cum supernis et divinis substantiis similitudo sola est’ (The integrity of human nature… is attained in two things — in knowledge and in virtue, and in these lies our sole likeness to the supernal and divine substances).23 Note that the pairing of knowledge and virtue constitutes a triad whose implicit first term, the existing mind itself, is associated with God the Father, as knowledge is with the Son and virtue with the Spirit. Contemplation, then, is — as Ivan Illich has described it — a ‘study of creatures teach[ing] us to search for their creator’, a creator who will then ‘furnish the soul with knowledge, and drench it in joy, making meditation a supreme delight’.24 What does the eye of contemplation read, and what does it see? Fascinatingly, 21 Hugh grounds a distinction intelligentia and scientia in his view of the knowledge process. When human reason considers the corporeal world of sense impressions, knowledge (scientia); but when human reason ascends upward to the contemplation of spiritual beings, such as God, illuminating reason yields understanding (intelligentia). While intellect technically refers to the contemplation of higher things, Hugh also uses it generally to refer to human reason generally. Cf. John P. Kleinz, The Theory of Knowledge of Hugh of Saint Victor (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1944), p. 63. 22 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Miscellanea, i. 99, col. 532A-B (PL 177.469–900), my translation. While Van den Eynde does not list Misc. 99 in his various categories of authenticated material, Baron considers this item authentic on the basis of manuscript evidence. Cf. Roger Baron, Science et Sagesse chez Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris: Lethielleux, 1957), p. xxv. 23 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 1. 5, ed. by Buttimer, p. 12, trans. by Taylor, p. 52; cf. Hugh of SaintVictor, Didascalicon, 1. 8. 24 Ivan Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh’s Didascalicon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 63; cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 3. 10.

51

52

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

the human person was to have been a reader even in a world without sin. While Adam and Eve, created fully grown and in loving relation to God, knew all that was needful, their children, had these been born without sin, would have lacked all properly human knowledge at birth — including knowledge of God as their final human end and God’s invitation to love.25 As these prelapsarian infants would have matured and ‘arrived at the years of discretion’, they would easily have learned that truth which ‘pertains to salvation’: the nature of God, the world, and the human person’s proper relationship with each. While the ignorance of God into which postlapsarian children are born is sinful, it is sinful only because we fail to easily discover the call to love God through contemplation.26 Hugh is explicit: God’s plan for human history included a movement from a human existence that was perfect but not yet in relation to God (Hugh’s notion of pulchrum esse) to a new and final state of beatitude (beatum esse), which the soul would achieve by learning of the things of God and opening itself ‘to the very affection of love in order to obtain [the final form which] it was destined to receive’.27 This call to turn to God in love was written across the cosmos and in the soul, ready to be read there easily by the eye of contemplation.28 That work of reading creation’s call to return, however, has become immeasurably more difficult, now that the reader is blind. ‘From a world of radiance’, Ivan Illich writes, ‘they were banished to a world of fog, and their eyes’ — at least, their eyes of contemplation — ‘lost the transparency and radiating power in which they had been created’.29 Hugh explains, Hos ergo oculos quamdiu anima apertos et revelatos habebat, clare videbat, et recte discernebat. Postquam autem tenebre peccati in illam intraverunt, oculus quidem contemplationis extinctus est, ut nichil videret. Oculus vero rationis lippus effectus est ut dubie videret. Solus ille oculus qui exstinctus non fuit, in sua claritate permansit, qui quamdiu lumen clarum habet, iudicium dubium non habet. … Quia vero oculum contemplationis non habet, deum et que in deo sunt videre non valet. As long, therefore, as [the soul] kept these eyes [of the flesh, of reason, of contemplation] open and uncovered, it saw clearly and discerned rightly, but, after the shades of sin had entered upon it, the eye of contemplation indeed was extinguished so that it saw nothing, but the eye of reason was made bleared so that it saw doubtfully. That eye alone which was not extinguished remained in its clarity and as long as this [bodily eye] has clear light it has undoubting

25 cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments, 1. 6. 26. 26 cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments, 1. 6. 26 and 2. 2. 1. 27 ‘Et in id quod acceptura erat obtinendum in ipsum affectum dilectionis dilataret.’ Hugh of SaintVictor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Textus historici, 1 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008), p. 38. Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments, 1. 1. 3; trans. by Deferrari, p. 9. 28 cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments, 1. 6. 5. 29 Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text, pp. 20–21.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

judgment… [Fallen humanity] has not the eye of contemplation, [and so it] is not able to see God and the things that are in God.30 And so, faith is necessary so that human beings can assent to that which they can no longer see, for through faith ‘in some manner the things which are to come and the proof of things which are not apparent subsist in us’.31 Faith supplies the healing truths which fallen humanity can no longer see for itself. A Programme of Restoration through Reading

As we have seen, then, Hugh, following Genesis, believes that human nature was created in the ‘image and likeness of God’ (Genesis 1. 26–27), a belief which he interprets in line with his Trinitarian view of the human person: humanity remains in the image of God according to the intellect, as the eye of reason though bleared remains; humanity has lost, however, the image of God, in the respect that the will no longer participates in the love of God. The restored human being, therefore, ‘resembles God in being wise and just’, in the restoration of Christological Wisdom and of the Spirit of Love which proceeds from Wisdom.32 To assist the soul in its Trinitarian restoration by advancing in knowledge through the practice of reading, Hugh offers the Didascalicon as a reader’s guide ‘that there may first come to its knowledge those things which moral earnestness will thereafter transform’ — through the help of grace — ‘into action’ and the acquisition of virtue.33 And indeed, a guide is needed: the works of secular literature are vast and of uneven quality; the Scriptures are a great forest, so that someone who studies without a proper method and order to their reading ‘wanders as it were into the very thick of the forest and loses the path of the direct route’.34 The wounded reader seeking a cure under such conditions is certainly lost without a good guide, and for want of such a guide, few — ‘easily counted’ — of the great throng of talented students who attempt it manage to reach the knowledge sought.35 Hugh can therefore assure the reader that the pursuit of Wisdom is the ‘highest curative (solamen) in life’, and he offers a path to pursue it.36 Thus, the terrifying premise of the Didascalicon is that this restoring Wisdom is to be pursued through reading, even

30 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis, 1. 10. 2; ed. by Berndt, p. 225, Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments, trans. by Deferrari, p. 167. 31 Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments, 1. 10. 2, trans. by Deferrari, p. 168. 32 ‘Quia in hoc homo Deo similis est, quod sapiens et iustus est…’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 1. 8, ed. by Buttimer, p. 15, trans. by Taylor, p. 55. 33 ‘…Ut ad scientiam prius veniat, quod post gravitas moralis exerceat.’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 1. 3, ed. by Buttimer, p. 10, trans. by Taylor, p. 50. 34 ‘Quid autem scripturam dixerim nisi silvam, cuius sententias quasi fructus quosdam dulcissimos legendo carpimus, tractando reuminamus?’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 5, ed. by Buttimer, p. 103, trans. by Taylor, p. 127. 35 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 5, trans. by Taylor, p. 126. 36 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 1.1, trans. by Taylor, p. 47. On the healing power of Wisdom, cf. Tribus Diebus, 24. 3.

53

54

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

though ‘study customarily fills the mind with loathing and afflicts the spirit’.37 His most famous and widely read work, the Didascalicon is, therefore, Hugh’s effort to give the reader a roadmap of the reader’s path at the outset.38 The work is structured in a threefold way. It first discusses the material which one ought to read, then the order, and finally the manner. However, because the Didascalicon treats first ‘secular’ literature and then of ‘divine’, it is composed not of three but rather six parts.39 The separate treatment of secular and sacred literature, and the placement of secular before sacred, has given rise to significant debate about the relationship between secular and sacred learning, even of reason and faith. More than a guide of what and how to read, however, the Didascalicon is — because of the ultimately spiritual goal of reading itself — a veritable spiritual programme by which the reader’s eye of contemplation is to be restored through four stages: study, meditation, prayer, and performance.40 These four steps recall Hugh’s belief that the human psyche is made in the image of the Triune God, and that therefore acts of the will (such as virtue) are rooted in and proceed from the formation of the intellect (by study), though in a manner that also emphasizes the necessity of God’s grace in the process of this restorative transformation. Through the first step of study, one comes to understand what the soul must become. One must then meditate ‘on how you may be able to fulfill what you have learned must be done’.41 Because meditation on the demands of the Christian life and the weakness of human reality will instil in the soul a recognition of the need for divine aid, this meditation gives rise to the desire for prayer, asking the help …sine quo nullum potes facere bonum, ut videlicet ipsius gratia, quae praeveniendo te illuminavit, subsequendo etiam pedes tuos dirigat in viam pacis, et quod in sola adhuc voluntate est ad effectum perducat bonae operationis. of him without whom you can accomplish no good thing, so that by his grace, which going before you has enlightened you, [God] may guide your feet… onto the road of peace, and so may he bring that which as yet is in your will alone, to concrete effect in good performance.42 Through the gracious assistance bidden by prayer, the soul is able to do good work; such ‘good performance is the road by which one travels toward life’ (Via est operatio

37 ‘Considerandum praeterea est, quod lectio duobus modis animo fastidium ingerere solet et affligere spiritum…’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 7, ed. by Buttimer, p. 107, trans. by Taylor, p. 130. 38 Jerome Taylor, its first English translator, reports that the work comes down to the present in ‘almost a hundred manuscripts of the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries, preserved in some forty-five libraries stretching… from Ireland to Italy, from Poland to Portugal’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, trans. by Taylor, p. 4). 39 While this division as presented in the prologue seems very straightforward, in practice, its application across the six parts of the work is not so clear. 40 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 9, ed. by Buttimer. 41 ‘…Et meditare qualiter implere valeas quod faciendum esse didicisti.’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 9, ed. by Buttimer, pp. 109–10, trans. by Taylor, p. 132. 42 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 9, ed. by Buttimer, p. 110, trans. by Taylor, p. 132.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

bona qua itur ad vitam).43 Theoretically, the reader who treads this path beyond reading, living out the message read, progresses seamlessly from the first to the latter stages; in fact, however, ‘because the instability of our life is such that we are not able to hold fast in one place, we are forced often to review the things we have done… and again repeat what we have been over before’ (quoniam tanta est mutabilitas vitae nostrae, ut in eodem stare non possimus, cogimur saepe ad transacta respicere, et… repetimus quandoque quod transivimus).44 Ultimately, however, this path leads the reader to a fifth stage, that of contemplation, ‘in which, as by a sort of fruit of the proceeding studies, one has a foretaste, even in this life, of what the future reward of good works is’ (in qua, quasi quodam praecedentium fructu, in hac vita etiam quae sit boni operis merces futura praegustatur).45 In this way, the reader achieves the contemplation necessary to read the things of God, no longer with the eyes that read the page, but in spirit. But first, one must read the page.

Hugh’s Exegetical Practice While Hugonian exegesis has its own characteristic features, it falls firmly within the broader tradition of patristic and medieval exegesis. This section, therefore, begins with a brief introduction to the tradition of Christian exegesis to which Hugh belonged. After explaining the difference which Hugh saw between Scriptural and non-Scriptural texts and reviewing his novel definition of what constitutes the canon of Scriptural texts, I explain the three primary senses of Scripture in which Hugh is interested, and the practice of each.

43 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 9, ed. by Buttimer, p. 110, trans. by Taylor p. 132. Hugh attempts to describe the nature of God’s assistance of human activity, though he does so somewhat awkwardly (both in this instance and more broadly), as he lacks the philosophical precision of the Aristotelian language of secondary causality: ‘If you are alone, you accomplish nothing; if God works alone, you have no merit. Therefore, may God work in order that you may be able to work; and do you also work in order that you may have some merit’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 9, trans. by Taylor, p. 132). 44 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 9, ed. by Buttimer, p. 110, trans. by Taylor, p. 133. At the time when Hugh writes the Didascalicon, he describes this need to alternate between tasks simply as a human weakness. In his later Sacraments of the Christian Faith, however, Hugh explains that, while before the Fall humanity had clung to God with unwearying constancy and had had no need for multiplicity of exterior works, with the Fall, in which humanity turned from God to the many created things, human concentration is shattered, ‘divided in relation to these multiple and transitory things’ and no longer able to focus on the simple contemplation of God. Condemned to Cain’s punishment of forever wandering the earth, humanity has become a perpetual fugitive forever seeking a fleeting consolation in the many things of this world. In merciful consideration of the human condition, however, God allows this subjection to change to produce spiritual progress by nourishing spiritual growth through a variety of spiritual practices, so that, ‘the human mind in multiplicity might find exercise, in variety delight, and in intermission recreation’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments, 1. 9. 3, trans. by Deferrari, pp. 157–58). 45 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 9, ed. by Buttimer, p. 109, trans. by Taylor, p. 132.

55

56

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

Situating Hugh: The Assumptions of Early Medieval Exegesis

Before discussing Hugh’s approach to exegesis, I would like to summarize Mary Mayeski’s description of the basic presumptions of patristic and early medieval exegesis, so as to provide context for Hugh’s own Biblical interpretation.46 First, the Bible was assumed to tell the ‘on-going story’ of salvation history, which extended from Genesis through the establishment and growth of the Church to the end of time; in the view of medieval exegetes, Biblical history was therefore intrinsically connected to ‘the concrete history of their own peoples’. Second, early medieval exegetes assumed ‘that sacred Scripture is a sophisticated literary text’, requiring careful analysis using ‘the methods of literary criticism inherited from secular classical authors’.47 Exegetical work thus required significant preparation, and the medieval scholar was to be equipped with two great tools: the liberal arts (artes liberales, including Latin grammar, the study of logic and argumentation known as dialectic, and the literary analysis enabled by knowledge of rhetoric) and the writings of the Church fathers (particularly Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose, though also Gregory the Great, Ambrosiaster, and Bede).48 Third, while medieval interpreters recognized the differences among the Scriptural books and their various genres or human authors, these readers also assumed that ‘the many books of Scripture constituted, in reality, one book’, in that the one God had inspired and moved its many human authors; the Bible, therefore, was marked by an ‘essential and integral unity’. Fourth, as a result of this essential unity, Christian exegetes also assumed that Scripture had more than one level of meaning, of which the meaning intended by the human author was only the first: on account of its divine authorship, a Scriptural passage bore additional significance in its relationship to other passages and later readers. As de Lubac noted about Origen’s hermeneutics, ‘To say that the Bible has a spiritual sense is equivalent to saying that it is inspired’ by the Holy Spirit.49 More about these ‘spiritual senses’ later. Fifth, as a result of this authorship by the Holy Spirit, the help of the Spirit was understood as necessary for the adequate understanding of the Bible’s spiritual senses. Scripture ‘was first and foremost a living word’: just as by the power of the Holy Spirit, ‘the resurrected Christ lived on in the community, present in the word proclaimed and enacted in ritual’, so too

46 Mary A. Mayeski, ‘Early Medieval Exegesis: Gregory to the Twelfth Century’, in A History of Bible Interpretation, ed. Alan Hauser and Duane Watson, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 86–112, at pp. 87–89. For an introduction to Christian biblical exegesis in the twelfth century, see G. R. Evans, Old Arts and New Theology: The Beginnings of Theology as an Academic Discipline (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). 47 Mayeski notes that while, Christian exegesis prior to the Reformation may be described as ‘prescientific,’ but certainly not ‘pre-critical.’ Mayeski, ‘Early Medieval Exegesis’, p. 86. 48 Mayeski, ‘Early Medieval Exegesis’, pp. 93–95. For a helpful bibliography of English editions of these Patristic resources and contemporary studies of these Patristic authors, see Mayeski, ‘Early Medieval Exegesis’, pp. 106–12. 49 Henri de Lubac, History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture according to Origen, trans. by Anne Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007), p. 338.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

‘did the scriptural word live on’, again through the active presence of the Spirit on the reading and interpreting community.50 While scholars no longer try to divide twelfth-century theologians rigidly into the two camps of ‘monastic’ or ‘scholastic’, these categories point to the different contexts in which theologians reflected on the Scriptures.51 Exegesis within the context of monastic life was connected to the practice of lectio divina, ‘the slow, vocalized reading of a biblical text, often repeated until memorized and meditated on until it culminates in prayer’, and therefore such exegesis served the development of interiority and the construction of monastic forms of subjectivity.52 Exegesis within the milieu of the schools, on the other hand, sought to integrate Biblical knowledge with the liberal arts and with the dialectical style of the classroom, and so such scholastic exegesis took on an analytical style.53 In addition to the commonly recognized milieus of cloister and school, Mary Mayeski would also draw our attention to a third, under-appreciated context: the liturgy. By its nature, the liturgy juxtaposes different individual texts, inviting the interpretation of one through the lens of the other; this typological exegesis in the context of liturgy is particularly evident in patristic and medieval homilies.54 Hugh’s Exegetical Works and His Lifelong Commitment to Exegesis

A catalogue of Hugh’s authentic exegetical works, with short descriptions and approximate years of composition, is appended to this chapter (Appendix 1). Except for his expositions of the Magnificat and of the Lord’s Prayer (In canticum beatae Mariae, De oratione dominica), Hugh’s exegetical works focus on the Old Testament. Here Hugh is unusual; among his contemporaries, commentaries on the New Testament’s Gospel of John and the Epistles of Paul are frequent.55 Poirel suggests that, as Hugh’s writings quote the New Testament so frequently, it would have been almost unnecessary to dedicate a specific work of exegesis to its books.56

50 De Lubac, History and Spirit, pp. 337–38. 51 Jean Leclercq, ‘Renewal of Theology’, in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. by Robert Benson, Giles Constable, and Carol Lanham (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), pp. 68–87, esp. pp. 80–84. 52 Mayeski, ‘Early Medieval Exegesis’, p. 91; cf. Leclercq, pp. 89–90. 53 Mayeski, ‘Early Medieval Exegesis’, p. 92. Regarding the influence of scholastic disputation on biblical exegesis, see G. R. Evans, The Language and Logic of the Bible: The Earlier Middle Ages (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 125–63. 54 Mayeski, ‘Early Medieval Exegesis’, pp. 90–92. Note, however, that sermons are not always liturgical; evening collationes were also preached. 55 The Didascalicon prescribes reading Genesis/Exodus, Josua-Judges-Kings, and then the Gospels and the book of Acts, which has caused Rorem to suggest that Hugh composed lecture notes on the literal sense of these New Tesatment books and that they have simply been lost (Rorem, Hugh of St Victor, p. 52). 56 In Poirel’s judgement, Hugh cites the Book of Psalms most frequently, followed by the Gospels of Matthew and John, the Epistles of Paul (particularly 1 Corinthians), followed by Genesis, Isaiah, and the Gospel of Luke. Dominique Poirel, Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris: Cerf, 1998), pp. 78–79.

57

58

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

Hugh’s interest in exegesis extended across his entire career, a point which is important for understanding its significance to his thought. Mid-twentieth-century scholars debated whether Hugh had begun his career composing doctrinal and theological works, only to sink into mysticism toward the end of his career (Hauréau), or whether he had written his mystical works in the first half of his career and his doctrinal ones in the second half (Zöckler).57 Roger Baron denied such a dichotomy, arguing that, rather than shifting away from education and factually-rooted knowledge (la science) and into mystical wisdom (sagesse), or vice versa, Hugh’s project sought to harmonize knowledge and wisdom into a complete education, a project he maintained throughout his life.58 The debate was resolved simply and gracefully by Van den Eynde, who compiled a chronological list of Hugh’s authentic works demonstrating that Hugh had written exegetical, doctrinal, and mystical works consistently across the span of his career — a timeline which, despite challenges and controversies, overall supports Baron’s basic thesis.59 Distinguishing Sacred and Secular Literature

The aforementioned reader’s guide, the Didascalicon, begins by distinguishing between sacred and secular literature and defining which works were to be considered sacred Scripture. Hugh explains that while, in pagan literature, one may find ‘many things argued quite plausibly about the eternity of God and the immortality of souls, about eternal rewards owing to the virtues, and about eternal punishments owing to evils’, and while in both Old and New Testaments ‘we see that the collection is devoted almost entirely to the state of this present life and to deeds done in time’ (totam paene de praesentis vitae statu et rebus in tempore gestis contextam cernimus), still it is only these two Testaments which are called ‘sacred’. This is because, though they may lack — as Augustine had famously complained — the ‘attractive shining surface all shining with eloquence’ (luteus paries dealbatus, nitore eloquii foris pollent) found in some Greek or Roman literature, pagan writings were compromised by the ‘clay of error’ (lutum erroris), whereas the Testaments, like a honeycomb hiding sweetness beneath an apparent dryness, ‘alone are found so free from the infection of falsehood that they are proved to contain nothing contrary to the truth’ (sola sic a falsitatis contagione aliena inveniuntur, ut nihil veritati contrarium continere

57 Damien van den Eynde, Essai sur la succession et la date des éscrits de Hugues de Saint-Victor, Spicilegium Pontificii Athenaei Antoniani, 13 (Rome: Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum, 1960), pp. 207–09. Cf. Barthelemy Hauréau, Histoire de la philosophie scolastique, I (Paris : Durand et PedoneLauriel, 1872) i, 424–29, esp. 424; cf. Otto Zöckler, ‘Hugo von St Viktor’, Realenzyklopädie für protest. Theologie und Kirche, 8 (1900), 436–45 (p. 439). 58 Baron, Science et Sagesse, pp. 221–29. 59 While Van den Eynde remarks that his timeline reveals the ‘astonishing consistency’ of Hugh’s thought across his career, Van den Eynde offers a slight correction to Baron: Over time, Hugh did write fewer works on secular sciences, focusing more on religious projects. See Van den Eynde, Essai, pp. 208–09. Van den Eynde and Baron are not particularly accurate in these chronologies.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

probentur).60 Thus, for Hugh, the first thing which distinguishes the Bible from secular literature is its inerrancy. Elsewhere, Hugh identifies a second unique characteristic of the Scriptures. While in other writings it is the words themselves that the reader studies in order to discern the author’s intended meaning, in the case of the Scriptures the reader must consider not only the words but also the circumstances surrounding the events described by the words: the things, persons, numbers, places, times, and deeds of the narrative. While human authors choose words that require interpretation, the divine author of the Scriptures is able to arrange not only words but the all these circumstances of the Biblical narrative so as to convey additional meaning.61 That the circumstances narrated by the Biblical word could themselves require interpretation vastly expands the exegete’s task, necessitating resources such as Hugh’s Diligent Examiner, the short treatise on the exegetical significance of numbers, proportions, dimensions, and times.62 For example, if we say that Christ is the ‘Lion of Judah’, we cannot simply replace the word ‘lion’ with ‘Christ’, so that the actions narrated about lions in the Scriptures could somehow be taken of Christ; rather, proper exegesis of this phrase requires that one identify the specific way in which Christ is like a lion, a task which requires knowledge of lions. Thus, Christ is the ‘Lion of Judah’ in the sense that, if lions sleep with their eyes open, the lion is ‘according to a certain similitude’ an allegory of Christ who ‘slept the sleep of death, but according to His divinity was awake and had His eyes open’.63

60 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 4. 1, ed. by Buttimer, p. 70, trans. by Taylor, p. 102; cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, On Sacred Scripture, 1. Cf. Augustine, The Confessions, vi. 5–8, trans. by Maria Boulding, OSB, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, i. 1 (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1997). 61 As Hugh writes, ‘the divine word has this characteristic that distinguishes it from other writings, namely, that the words that are set forth in it first refer to certain things and these things themselves, in turn, refer to other things’ (‘On Sacred Scripture and its Authors’, 3, trans. by Frans van Liere, in Interpretation of Scripture: Theory: A Selection of the Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor, and of Richard Melun, ed. by Franklin Harkins and Frans van Liere, VTT, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), pp. 214–15). For a further explanation of the importance Hugh’s belief that things signify in the Bible and the Bible alone, see Christopher Ocker, ‘Scholastic Interpretation of the Bible’ in A History of Bible Interpretation, ed. by Alan Hauser and Duane Watson, 2 vols (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 254–79; here, pp. 263–64. 62 Diligent Examiner or Diligens scrutator circulated with texts on units of measurement, secular events, and apparent chronological inconsistencies in the books of Judith, Daniel, and Maccabees, which are apparently unrelated. However, Van Liere notes that while these may seem to be a rather disparate collection, understood within Hugh’s exegetical project, it is found to contain a clear, unifying theme: ‘an admonition to the study of the “circumstances” that signify or produce meaning in the Scripture’ (Frans van Liere, ‘Introduction to On Sacred Scripture’, in Interpretation of Scripture: Theory: A Selection of the Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor, and of Richard Melun, ed. by Franklin Harkins and Frans van Liere, VTT, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), p. 209). 63 ‘Hoc enim est quod, ut dicitur, apertis oculis dormit, secundum quod aliqua similitudine illum figurat, qui in somno mortis susceptae dormivit humanitate, sed oculos habuit apertos vigilans divinitate.’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris, col. 13D (PL 175.9–28); ‘On Sacred Scripture’, 5, trans. by Van Liere, p. 217.

59

60

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

Hugh’s Triadic Approach to the Biblical Canon

While the books of the Old Testament are commonly classified into three groups (the Law or Torah, the Prophets or Nevi’im, and the Writings or Ketuvim), the New Testament is typically divided into only two parts, the Gospels and the other writings. Hugh famously divides both Testaments into three categories (ordines).64 He lists the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament familiar to the contemporary reader, not including the eight deuterocanonical works, as twenty-two books grouped into the five books of the Law (or Pentateuch), the eight books of the Prophets, and the nine hagiographia (or ‘sacred writings’) which are rooted in and ‘flow from’ the Law and the Prophets.65 More novel is his placement of the familiar twenty-seven books of the New Testament, which are categorized into the three ordines of the four Gospels, the four books of the Apostles (the book of Acts, the fourteen epistles traditionally associated with Paul, the seven catholic epistles, and the Apocalypse), and the ‘limitless’ (infinita) hagiographia or sacred writings of the Church Fathers ( Jerome, Augustine, Gregory, Origen, Bede, and many others) which, like the sacred writings of the Old Testament, are rooted in and ‘flow from’ the first two ordines (the Gospels and the books of the Apostles).66 64 Hugh twice enumerates all the books of Scripture, not only in the Didascalicon (iv. 2) but also in On Sacred Scripture(6). The basic differences occur in the listings of the twenty-two books of the Old Testament; fundamentally, the Didascalicon’s listing includes superior renditions of the Hebrew into Latin. Thus the five books of the ‘Thorath’ (Beresith, Hellesmoth, Vagethram Vagedaber, and Eleaddaberim) become the five books of the Torah (Bresith, Hellesmoth, Vaiecra, Vaiedaber, Adabarim); the eight books of the Prophets Joshua (Bennum), Judges (Sothim), 1 and 2 Kings (Samuel), 3 and 4 Kings (Malachim), Isaiah, Jeremiah Ezechial, and the 12 Minor Prophets (Thereasra) become Joshua/Jesus (Josue ben Nun), Judges — with Ruth — (Sophtim), 1 and 2 Kings (Samuel), 3 and 4 Kings (Malachim), Isaiah, Jeremiah — with Lamentations — (Cynoth), Ezechial, and the Thareasra. The nine Hagiographia or books of sacred writings, Job, David, Proverbs of Solomon (the Masloth), Ecclesiastes (Coeleth), the Song of Songs (Sirasirim), Daniel, Paralipomenon (Dabreiamin), Esdras (which includes Nehemiah), and Esther become Job, David or the Book of Psalms (Nabla), Proverbs of Solomon (the Masloth), Ecclesiastes (Coeleth), the Song of Songs (Sira syrin), Daniel, Paralipomenon (Dabrehiamin), Esdras (again with Nehemiah), and Esther. While the order of composition for Hugh’s exegetical works is a matter of debate, the improved rendition of Hebrew into Latin may indicate that Hugh learned Hebrew between the composition of these works (cf. Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 103). Cf. Gover Zinn Jr, ‘Hugh of St Victor’s “De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris” as an “Accessus” Treatis for the Study of the Bible’, Traditio, 52 (1997), 111–34. 65 The five ‘non-canonical but read’ books of the Wisdom of Solomon, the book of Jesus son of Sirach (Panaretus), Judith, Tobias, and the Books of the Machabees (or, in the On Sacred Scripture, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Book of Jesus son of Sirach (Panaretus), Judith, Tobias, and Books of the Machabees) were not definitively considered ‘canonical’ in the West until the Council of Trent, hence the name ‘deuterocanonical,’ indicating that they belong to a later listing of canonical works. For background, see Éric Junod’s ‘Apocrypha’, in Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, ed. by Jean-Yves Lacoste (New York: Routledge, 2005), I, pp. 69–71. 66 In On Sacred Scripture, however, Hugh specifies that the writings of the Church Fathers ‘are not included in the text of the Sacred Scriptures’, in a manner parallel to the apocrypha of the Old Testament — leaving the New Testament without a true analogue to the canonical hagiographa (‘On Sacred Scripture’, 6). In the Didascalicon, however, the ‘exceedingly large number of short works

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

Because the Law and the Gospels stand as the font of their respective testaments, the entire Old Testament can be called, ‘broadly speaking’, the Law, and the entire New, the Gospel.67 Mirroring each other in their structure, the two Testaments constitute a single set of Scriptures in which all truth is perfectly contained, with nothing superfluous in it.68 No reader of Hugh familiar with his tendency to think in threes, particularly in triads which have Trinitarian resonances in their content or in the relationships between their constituent parts, can be too surprised that Hugh invents a third category of New Testament works which proceeds from the first two.69 Nonetheless, the inclusion of the Church fathers in the Biblical canon has a wider significance, suggesting a more open understanding of the doctrine of inspiration than previous Christian authors. Rainer Berndt suggests a parallel with the Jewish doctrine of the oral Torah, according to which the Law revealed in the Pentateuch can be internalized and elaborated upon by later authors in such a way that their works can be said to have the authority of the Torah itself, as in the Talmud.70 Such

67

68

69

70

which holy and wise men have written’, though not approved by the authority of the universal church, ‘nevertheless pass for Sacred Scriptures, both because they do not depart from the Catholic faith and because they teach many useful matters’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 4. 1–2, trans. by Taylor, pp. 102–03). On the originality of Hugh’s grouping, see Ludwig Ott, ‘Hugo von St Viktor und die Kirchenväter’, Divus Thomas, ser. 3, XXVII (1949), and Baron, Science et sagesse, p. 104. See Hugh of St Victor, ‘Prologue for Sentences on Divinity’, trans. by Christopher P. Evans, in Trinity and Creation: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Richard, and Adam of St Victor, ed. by Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter, VTT, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), p. 115. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 4. 9. In applying the name of the Bible’s first five books (Torah) to the other books of the Hebrew Bible because they flow from those books, and in adopting a definition of ‘scripture’ broad enough to include the later works of the Church Fathers in that third category of hagiographia, Hugh strikingly evokes a Jewish understanding of revelation — evocative given his collaboration with the rabbinical school of Rashi (Smalley, The Study of the Bible, pp. 102– 03). This broad definition of Scripture is more qualified in On Sacred Scripture, which makes a parallel between the works of the Fathers and the ‘non-canonical, but read’ books of the Old Testament (Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobias, and Maccabees). A number of authors take this difference to be evidence that On Sacred Scripture is a revision of the Didascalicon. (See Grover Zinn, ‘Hugh of Saint Victor’s ‘De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris’, pp. 115–21). See Hugh of Saint-Victor, On Sacred Scripture, 6; By the writing of the Didascalicon, Hugh’s parallel line claims, not only that the whole set of scriptures contains all truth, but that ‘the truth stands full and perfect in each of the books,’ perhaps reflecting a growing confidence in the ability of the allegorical sense of each work to contain the entire Christian faith (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 4. 2, trans. by Taylor, p. 104). Rainer Berndt explains Hugh’s threefold division of the New Testament in terms of a ‘medieval numeric symbolism’ which valued both the number three and ‘a general need to harmonize’ across Testaments, but he does so without attending to the manner in which Hugh in particular structures his thought in a Trinitarian way. See Rainer Berndt’s ‘Gehören die Kirchenväter zur Heiligen Schrift? Zur Kanontheorie des Hugo von Sankt Viktor’, in Zum Problem des biblischen Kanons, ed. by Ingo Baldermann, Jahrbuch für biblische Theologie, 3 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1988), pp. 191–99, (p. 198). Berndt, ‘Gehören die Kirchenväter’, p. 199. On the doctrine of the oral Talmud and the resultant ‘open canon’ in Judaism, see Jacob Neusner, The Classics of Judaism: A Textbook and Reader (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), pp. x–xiii.

61

62

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

a claim has ecclesiological implications: If the synagogue is the community which, bearing the Torah, can produce the hagiographia, then the Church is the community which, bearing the Spirit, can produce the patristic writings. However, the place of the patristic writings as somehow less than the Gospels and Epistles reflects how the Church ‘recognizes itself as being under the authority of the Word of God delivered in the Holy Scriptures by subjecting the scripta patrum to the fixed canon’.71 The three ordines of Old and New Testaments, then, take on a Trinitarian resonance: the foundational historical events of the Pentateuch and the Gospels as a paternal term, the instructional, even doctrinal, nature of the prophets and the apostolic epistles as a Christological term, and the spiritual nature of the hagiographia and Patristic writings, composed under the continuing ‘inspiration’ of the Spirit-bearing community as a pneumatic term. While Hugh’s threefold division of the New Testament was reproduced in the years that followed, it was opposed by Peter Aureoli (c. 1280–1322) and ultimately was not particularly influential on later thought.72 Hugh sorts the Scriptures into two sets of threefold orders, each with a Trinitarian resonance; reading the senses of Scripture would also carry a threefold signification, to which we now turn. The Three Senses of Scripture and Hugh’s Primary Introductions to Each

Hugh’s first word in the treatment of the Scriptures, beginning with the Didascalicon’s fifth book, is his explanation that Scripture bears multiple senses. While his distinction between the literal and spiritual senses of Scripture follows in the long tradition of Christian exegesis, it is rooted in his general approach to exposition, by which any reading — sacred or secular — is understood to have a text (the words themselves), a sense or obvious meaning, and an inner meaning ‘which can be found only through interpretation and commentary’ (nisi expositione vel interpretatione non invenitur).73 Already by Hugh’s time, authors often spoke of four senses in the Biblical text: literal, allegorical, anagogical, and tropological. Hugh, however, speaks of three: the literal or historical, the allegorical, and the tropological.74

71 Berndt, ‘Gehören die Kirchenväter’, 199. 72 Ocker, ‘Scholastic Interpretation of the Bible’, pp. 267–69. 73 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 3. 8, ed. by Buttimer, p. 58, trans. by Taylor, p. 92. Cf. Hugh of SaintVictor, Didascalicon, 6. 8–11, in which Hugh aligns ‘the letter’ with the literal sense, ‘the sense’ and ‘deeper meanings’ with the spiritual senses. 74 Hugh explains his decision to subsume anagogy into the general category of allegory by distinguishing between ‘simple allegory,’ in which ‘a visible fact signifies another invisible fact,’ and anagogy, in which ‘an invisible fact is indicated by another invisible fact’ (‘On Sacred Scripture’, 3, trans. by Van Liere, p. 215). For useful background on different exegetical schemas, see G. W. H. Lampe’s ‘The Exposition and Exegesis of Scripture: to Gregory the Great’ and Jean Leclercq’s ‘From Gregory the Great to St Bernard’, in The Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. by G. W. H. Lampe, vol. ii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 155–83, at pp. 183–97.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

Hugh explains the relationship between these senses in an analogy with the construction of a building.75 Knowledge of the literal or historical sense of Scripture must be perfected with the care that goes into laying the foundation of a building; ‘next, by pursuing the “typical” [i.e., allegorical] meaning, build up a structure in your mind to be a fortress of faith’, but last of all, ‘through the loveliness of morality, paint the structure over as with the most beautiful colors’, effectively rendering the structure within the soul worthy of divine habitation (deinde per significationem typicam in arcem fidei fabricam mentis erige. Ad extremum vero, per moralitatis gratiam quasi pulcherrimo superducto colore aedificium pinge).76 This spiritual structure by which the soul is reformed through the works of restoration echoes the Trinitarian ‘structure’ in which the soul was originally created: first, the study of the historical sense of Scripture for the restoration of memory, then the toil over the allegorical sense to increase the intellect’s understanding of what is to be sought in the spiritual life, and finally the pursuit of the tropological sense to adorn the will with virtues.77 Hugh’s choice of three senses, rather than four, therefore echoes his Trinitarian commitments. The literal/historical, allegorical/ doctrinal, and tropological/moral senses map well onto the three faculties of the human person listed in Hugh’s account of the psychological analogy (mind, intellect, and love) as well as the three qualities of the cosmological triad (power, wisdom, and loving-kindness). Furthermore, the order in which the three exegetical arts are to be studied reflects the logical priority of the Trinitarian relations. The literal sense is the memory of God’s powerful works, which then generates the allegorical sense, which is the proper mode of understanding the wisdom behind these works. Finally, the tropological sense, which instructs the will to live according to God’s loving-kindness, proceeds from the literal and allegorical senses. In contrast to his predecessors, contemporaries, and even his immediate successors at St Victor who wrote commentaries on New Testament books (e.g., Richard of St Victor), Hugh’s commentaries on Scripture are almost entirely dedicated to the literal sense, as mentioned above. This preference for beginning exegesis with Old Testament passages coheres with the Trinitarian structure of his exegesis, in which one begins with the account of God’s deeds in history (literal sense) before attending to their understanding in light of Christ’s gospel (allegorical sense) and to how this understanding ought to move the will to act (tropological sense). 75 Also, cf. De archa Noë morali, 1. 1. Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Moral Ark: De archa Noe. Libellus de formatione arche, ed. by Patrice Sicard, CCCM, 176 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), pp. 1–117. As Taylor has observed, Hugh derives this analogy from Gregory the Great (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, ed. by Taylor, p. 223, n. 9). Boyd Taylor Coolman has found Hugh’s construction analogy so architectonic to Hugh that it largely organizes his own summary of Hugh’s theology. See Boyd Taylor Coolman, The Theology of Hugh of St Victor. See also: Franklin Harkins, Reading and the Work of Restoration: History and Scripture in the Theology of Hugh of St Victor, Medieval Law and Theology, 2 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2009), pp. 171–87. 76 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3, ed. by Buttimer, p. 116, trans. by Taylor, p. 138. On the divine indwelling which follows the soul’s adornment with virtue, see Ford Lewis Battles, ‘Hugo of SaintVictor as a Moral Allegorist’, Church History, 18.4 (December 1949),  220–40 (p. 239). 77 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 2.

63

64

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

This division of the senses of Scripture shapes Hugh’s entire corpus of writings and his basic theological programme, which in this way is deeply rooted in the interpretation of Scripture. Hugh saw his great summa of theology, The Sacraments of the Christian Faith, as a summary of the allegorical sense of Scripture, and claims in the prologue of its first book to have also written a compendium on the literal or historical reading of Scripture.78 His The Ark of Noah and its companion pieces, collectively known as the ‘ark treatises’, constitute his summary work on morals or tropology.79 The identity of the compendium which Hugh claims to have written of the literal/historical sense of Scripture is debated. No obvious candidate exists among his extant works. Classically, scholars have identified the historical compendium as the Chronicon, a collection of tables and diagrams to be memorized which summarize the fundamentals of sacred and secular history.80 The Chronicon, as a work focused on the formation of memoria, is a satisfying companion to The Sacraments of the Christian Faith with its focus on the intellectual apprehension of doctrine and the ark treatises with their focus on the formation virtues in the will, recalling Hugh’s appropriation of the psychological analogy to the Trinity (memoria, intelligentia, voluntas).81 As a compendium of the literal sense of Scripture, however, the Chronicon is an unsatisfying candidate. A more recent proposal suggests that the compendium of the literal sense of Scripture may have come down to us in piecemeal form, so that a number of works which subsequently circulated separately actually formed, as a composite, the lost compendium: the Notes on the Pentateuch (Adnotationes elucidatoariae in Pentateuchon), Notes on Judges (…in librum Judicum), and Notes on Kings (…in librum Regum), introduced by the On Sacred Scripture and its Authors (De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris).82 Taken together, this collection is termed the

78 Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, prologue, trans. by Deferrari, p. 3. 79 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De acra Noë morali; De vanitate mundi. These two treatises have been translated in Hugh of Saint-Victor: Selected Spiritual Writings, ed. by Aelred Squire (New York: Harper & Row, 1962). 80 Van den Ende, Essai sur la succession, p. 92. See William M. Green, ‘Hugo of St Victor: De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, Speculum, 18.4 (October 1943), 484–93 (p. 485): ‘There can be no doubt that this [the Chronicon] is the work on history to which Hugo refers in the prologue of his De Sacramentis’. 81 As Mary Carruthers explains, for Hugh the process of the soul’s reformation begins with the construction of the ‘arca sapientiae’ in the memory through meditation. The construction of the ark of wisdom in the heart, so that the basic facts of the Bible would be known by heart, was the beginning of Hugh’s spiritual programme as described in the ark treatises. Cf. Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 53. Indeed, the restoration of the soul in the image of God is the restoration of memory, intellect, and will (cf. On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 1. 10. 6; note the defective translation of Deferrari at p. 174). 82 While sharing material with the Didascalicon, that work is introduction to the whole programme of study of St Victor; ‘On Sacred Scripture’ is an introduction to the reading of the literal sense of Scripture (Van Liere, ‘Introduction to On Sacred Scripture’, p. 206).

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

Notes on the Octateuch (the first eight Biblical books).83 That these works may have circulated separately yet had been intended by Hugh as a single introduction to the historical sense of Scripture is made plausible by Hugh’s own regret that various sections of his compendium on the allegorical sense, the The Sacraments of the Christian Faith, were circulating independently prior to its completion.84 Perhaps the most compelling reason to view the On Sacred Scripture and the commentaries on the first eight books of Scripture as the true companion piece to The Sacraments of the Christian Faith are the structural parallels they share; the themes treated in the first book of The Sacraments of the Christian Faith appear to mirror the structure of these commentaries.85 If this is true, it would only further underscore the close relationship between Hugh’s practice of reading Scripture and expounding doctrine. Precisely because Hugh defines the three senses of Scripture broadly enough to exhaust his theological topoi, many of his works can be categorized according to whether they are literal/historical, allegorical/doctrinal, or tropological works.86 Jewish Influence on the Methods of Victorine Exegesis

Since Hugh saw the interpretation of the literal sense of Scripture as the pursuit of the meaning intended by its human authors, and because much of the Bible was

83 If the Octateuch did circulate as a single work and was what Hugh intended to serve as his compendium to the literal sense of Scripture, then the re-constructed Octateuch would likely have looked like this: Hugh’s ‘Exposition of Jerome’s Prologue’ served as the preface, followed by ‘On Sacred Scripture and its Authors’ (De scripturis) as a general accessus; note that the ‘On Sacred Scripture’ is itself a revision of ‘The Diligent Examiner’ (Diligens scrutator). Next would have followed Hugh’s notes (Notulae) themselves, first those on the literal sense of the Pentateuch, and then those on Judges and Ruth (Adnot. in Iud. et Ruth) and those on Kings (Adnot. in librum Regum). Please note that there are two parallel recensions of Hugh’s literal notes on the Pentateuch, the Adnot. in Pent. (covering Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus) and the Adnot. in Num.-Dt. (covering Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy); these parallel recensions are because Hugh first glossed or lectured on the entire Octateuch, but then revisited the Pentateuch. See Van Liere, ‘Introduction to On Sacred Scripture’, pp. 205–11 and Hugonis de Sancto Victore operum editio auspiciis Gilduini abbatis procurata et IV voluminibus digessa, ed. by Rainer Berndt and José Luis Narvaja, CV. Textus historici, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2017). See also: H. Pollitt, ‘Some considerations on the Structure and Sources of Hugh of St Victor’s Notes on the Octateuch’, RTAM, 33 (1966), 5–38. Also, Damien Van den Eynde, ‘Les commentaires sur Joël, Abdias et Nahum attribués à Hugues de Saint-Victor’, Franciscan Studies, 19 (1959), 317–24. Also, Jan W. M. van Zwieten, ‘The Place and Significance of Literal Exegesis in Hugh of St Victor: An Analysis of His Notes on the Penteteuch, the Book of Judges, and the Four Books of Kings’ (PhD dissertation, Amsterdam, 1992). Also, Smalley, The Study of the Bible, pp. 98–105. 84 Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, prologue. Smalley suggests that the commentaries on Numbers and Deuteronomy, existing in a divergent tradition, may be student notes taken from course on the literal sense of the Octateuch (Smalley, The Study of the Bible, pp. 98–99). 85 J. W. M. Zwieten, ‘The Preparation to Allegory: Hugh of Saint Victor’s ‘De Sacramentis’ and his Notes on the Octateuch’, Nederlands archief voor kerkgeschiedenis, 68 (1988), 17–22. 86 See Paul Rorem’s Hugh of Saint Victor (New York: Oxford, 2009), which divides all of Hugh’s works into foundational, allegorical or doctrinal, and tropological or spiritual works. This schema, however, requires placing the literal commentaries of Scripture in the same general category as his works on the liberal arts and his book on the formation of novices.

65

66

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

composed by Jewish authors, Hugh (as well as later Victorines) turned to Jewish rabbis in northern France for assistance. He sought help on a number of levels. In the first place, Hugh faced problems establishing the authoritative version of Old Testament texts; in the second place, he was working with these texts in Latin translation. Thus, Hugh turned to the rabbis in search of better access to the text itself. In doing this, Hugh was following the explicit recommendation of Jerome (c. 345–429 ce), the Church father who had produced the Vulgate, the definitive Latin translation of the Scriptures. In his Prologue to the Pentateuch, Jerome had advised, ‘Sicubi in translatione tibi videor errare, interroga Hebraeos, diversarum urbium magistros consule’ (If I seem to err in my translation in any way, go and ask the Hebrews; consult the rabbis in various cities).87 Warning his contemporaries that translation defects in Old Testament books have ‘neither authority nor truth’, Hugh encourages the reader to run to ‘the authentic books, that is, the Hebrew ones, in which authority and truth primarily rest’ (authenticis, id est, hebraicis, in quibus et auctoritas et veritas prima est).88 The authoritative Old Testament texts for Hugh were the Biblical texts possessed by the rabbis. But Hugh’s collaboration with the rabbis went beyond the mere establishment of the correct text and its appropriate translation, extending into the exegesis of the literal sense itself. As Rebecca Moore observed, Hugh ‘appears to respect the Jewish interpretation of the Pentateuch and some of the histories, noting Hebrew words and idioms, and deferring to Jewish historical explanations when appropriate’.89 This deference included a willingness by Hugh ‘to depart from the customary Christian interpretation of the Octateuch in ways which reflect an understanding of historicity and a knowledge of Jewish intepretation’.90 The exact extent of Jewish influence on Victorine exegesis, and whether this influence was mutual, is debated. Some authors, such as Beryl Smalley, have argued that the influence on Hugh’s literal exegesis was extensive; others, such as Henri de

87 See Jerome, Prologus in Pentateucho; Biblia sacra iuxta vulgata versionem, i. 4, ed. by Robert Weber (Stuttgart: Württemburgische Bibelanstalt, 1969). See Hugh’s comments in On Sacred Scripture, 9. See also Frans van Liere and Franklin T. Harkins, ‘General Introduction’, in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. by Frans van Liere and Franklin T. Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), p. 39 and Hugh of Saint-Victor, ‘Notes on Genesis’, trans. by Jan van Zwieten, in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. by Frans van Liere and Franklin T. Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 55. On Jerome’s own consultation practice, see Cornelia Linde, How to Correct the Sacra Scriptura? Textual Criticism of the Latin Bible Between the Twelfth and Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, 2011), pp. 106–08. 88 ‘Quia igitur in Septuaginta non inveniuntur, ad Hebraicam veritatem curramus, ubi inveniuntur’. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Adnotationes elucidatoriae in Pentateuchon, cols 30D–31A (PL 175. 29–61B). 89 Moore, Jews and Christians, p. 89. 90 Moore, Jews and Christians, p. 92. For a discussion of Hugh’s reliance on Rashi to interpret a number of specific verses, cf. Moore, Jews and Christians, pp. 81–86.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

Lubac, have characterized it as technical, rather than substantive.91 Scholarly consensus recognizes Jewish influence on Christian exegesis.92 Many scholars, including Moore, argue for mutual influence between Christian and Jewish exegesis, at least between the Victorines and the Northern French School and at least during the twelfth century.93 Medieval Jewish scholars exegeted the Scriptures according to a fourfold interpretation: peshat (literal meaning), remez (allegorical sense), derash (tropological sense or midrashic interpretation), and sod (mystical sense).94 This distinction in senses is important for, as Rebecca Moore warns, Hugh tended to conflate the Jewish interpretation of Scripture with a literal interpretation, unmindful of the extent to which Jewish interpretation may be influenced by midrash.95 At the same time, however, the particular rabbis to whom Hugh ran, the rabbis of northern France in the eleventh and twelfth century, under the influence of Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, or Rashi (1040–1105), had began de-emphasizing both the rationalizing exegesis of remez and the midrashic exegesis of derash in favour of giving primary attention to the literal sense.96 His successors, who could be called the Northern French Exegetical School, continued Rashi’s trajectory of emphasizing the literal

91 Smalley, The Study of the Bible, pp. 97–106. On the contrast between Hugh’s, Richard’s, and Andrew’s use of Hebrew studies, see Henri De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, trans. by E. M. Macierowski, vol. iii (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 269–71. 92 See Moore, Jews and Christians, p. 57 n. 1. The developing opinion of Herman Hailperin over the course of his career is interesting here. Initially (1942), Hailperin was slow even to speak of Jewish influence on Christian exegesis, preferring instead to emphasize the common heritage of Jewish and Christian exegetes; by 1963, Hailperin could speak of contemporaneous Jewish influence on Christian exegesis. See Herman Hailperin, ‘Jewish “Influence” on Christian Biblical Scholars in the Middle Ages’, Historia Judaica, 4 (1942), 163–74. Cf. Herman Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963). 93 Rebecca Moore, Jews and Christians, pp. 57–76. Hailperin argues that non-Jewish sources did influence Jewish exegesis (‘Jewish ‘“Influence”’, p. 169). Also, see Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars; Aryeh Grabois, ‘The Hebrew Text of the Old Testament and Christian Scholarship: A Chapter in XIIth Century Jewish-Christian Relations’, in Studies in the History of the Jewish People and Land of Israel: In Memory of Zvi Avneri, ed. by A Gilboa and others (Tel-Aviv: University of Haifa, 1970), pp. 97–116. Aryeh Graboïs, ‘The Hebraica Veritas and Jewish-Christian Intellectual Relations in the Twelfth Century’, Speculum, 50 (1975), 613–34. Sarah Kamin, ‘Affinities between Jewish and Christian Exegesis in Twelfth Century France’, in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, ed. by Moshe Goshen-Gottstein ( Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1985), pp. 141–55. 94 Obviously, Jewish allegorical exegesis differed significantly from Christian allegory, which emphasized finding Christological references in Hebrew texts. For a description of the Jewish senses of Scripture and a short history of the shifting emphases given to different senses in the history of Jewish exegesis, see Moore, Jews and Christians, pp. 63–67. 95 Moore, Jews and Christians, pp. 67–68. Moore includes de Lubac in this critique; see Jews and Christians, p. 73 n. 93. See Raphael Loewe, ‘Hebraists, Christian (1100–1890)’, in Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. viii (New York: Macmillan, 1971–1972), cols 9–71. 96 For a discussion of why Jewish exegesis became more attentive to the literal sense in the twelfth century, see Moore, Jews and Christians, pp. 63–65. Among other factors, Moore cites Menahem Banitt’s thesis that the translation of the Bible into Old French vernacular ‘necessitated literal interpretation’; see Menahem Banitt, Rashi Interpreter of the Biblical Letter (Tel-Aviv: The Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 1985) and ‘Le commentaire biblique de Raschi: L’ouvre d’un humaniste’, Comptes rendus des séances, 3 (1990), 590–96.

67

68

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

sense, so that when the Victorines, following Jerome’s advice, approached their local rabbis, they encountered a school of Jewish exegesis particularly attentive to peshat.97 What the scholarly consensus that eleventh- and twelfth-century exegesis placed a new emphasis on the literal sense means in practice is that exegetes paid greater attention ‘to the nature of language in Scripture, and greater effort to explain a single passage within the larger context of other passages in the Bible’.98 Thus, in the debates over Jewish influence on Christian exegesis, scholars like Michael Signer locate that influence rather precisely as the Christian appropriation of the Northern French Rabbinical School’s emphasis on the sensus litteralis (in Hebrew, peshaṭ) and the Christian use of exegetical methods similar to that school. In the judgement of Michael Signer, the Victorines and rabbis employed three methods in particular to find the plain meaning of Scripture by moving the Biblical text ‘toward the contemporary reader’: the study of the Biblical languages, the use of accessus to focus on the circumstances of the books’ human authorship, and the careful situation of individual events within the broader Scriptural narrative.99 The first method, the study of Hebrew, was accomplished by providing readers with tools by which to immerse themselves in the biblical language. Both the Jewish exegetes of northern France and the Victorines produced glosses (in Old French or Latin), both attended to the particularities of biblical grammar, and the Victorines sought basic instruction in Hebrew from Jewish exegetes.100 The second, the study of the ‘auctorial role in the composition of the biblical book’, was accomplished by means of an introduction or accessus to the Biblical books. While Hugh valued the project of composing these introductions to the authors of Scripture, Signer notes that there was ‘no sustained effort throughout the Hebrew commentaries to focus on the auctorial role’.101 Nonetheless, French rabbinical exegesis engaged in critical consideration of Biblical authorship and was able to postulate that ‘someone other than the traditionally ascribed author 97 The subsequent leaders of the Rashi school of exegesis during the period of Victorine engagement were Sahmuel ben Meir (or Rashbam), Joseph ben Simeon Kara, and Eliezer of Beaugency. The recent translation of Eliezer from Hebrew into English represents a new resource for students of Victorine exegesis. Robert Harris, Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency, Commentaries on Amos and Jonah (With Selections from Isaiah and Ezekiel) (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2018). Rebecca Moore reminds us that Hugh had his own motives for a deeper engagement with the literal sense, as his emphasis on history concords with an emphasis on the literal sense that describes salvation history; Moore, Jews and Christians, p. 69. 98 Michael Signer, ‘Peshat, Sensus Litteralis, and Sequential Narrative: Jewish Exegesis and the School of St Victor in the Twelfth-Century’ in The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume, ed. by Barry Walfish, 2 vols (Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1993), i, 203–16, at 203. 99 Signer, ‘Peshat, Sensus Litteralis’, pp. 205–10. Signer makes the suggestive claim that the effects of increased attention to the literal sense were also similar for both Jews and Christians: ‘It loosened the strands which bound the traditionally accepted explanations to the biblical text, and increased the possibilities for new interpretations’ (Signer, ‘Peshat, Sensus Litteralis’, p. 211). 100 Signer, ‘Peshat, Sensus Litteralis’, pp. 205, 213 n14–16. For a discussion of the extent to which Hugh knew Hebrew, see Moore, Jews and Christians, pp. 79–80. 101 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3–12 and On Sacred Scripture, 7; see also: Signer, ‘Peshat, Sensus Litteralis’, p. 207.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

may have written the biblical book’.102 This practice encouraged greater attention to the human characteristics or context of the author in one’s interpretation of the text.103 For the third method, Christians and Jews at this time collaborated in grounding the proper lexical meaning of a passage in the sequence of the biblical narrative itself, rather than in typological or theological contexts (for Christians) or extra-biblical midrashic details (for Jews). Both Victorines and rabbis turned to paraphrasing the literal sense so as to keep a better hold on the flow of the Bible’s broader narrative, and to the division of the text into literary units or chapters to emphasize the narrative and its sequence of events. To this end, Hugh composed succinct summaries of the entire narrative of salvation.104 These practices are also clear in his ‘Notes on Genesis’.105 In Signer’s judgement, this last collaboration was necessarily limited to the analysis of small textual units. While Jewish and Christian exegetes were willing to differ with the received wisdom of their respective tradition in their analysis of smaller textual units, in the vital work of weaving these smaller textual units into sequential narratives of salvation history, Jews and Christians still differed with each other in the larger narrative by which they contextualized a passage. Such contextualization affected not only the interpretation of the spiritual senses of the narrative, but even the literal sense of the narrative which, for both the Victorines and the Rashi school, served as the foundation of the spiritual senses.106 After all, while both yielded a certain priority to the literal sense, neither Jews nor Christians ‘considered the plain meaning to be the exclusive meaning of the biblical words’.107 Preparing for Literal Exegesis: The Exercise of Memory

If consulting with rabbinic scholars and Jewish texts to establish the literal sense constitutes one aspect of the reader’s training to engage Scripture, then a clear understanding of the entire narrative of world history is a second necessary preparation. To this end, Hugh composed the Chronicon, a 70-folio overview of Biblical and secular history, with tables of important names, places, and dates.108 The entire work is prefaced by On the Three Most Important Circumstances of Deeds

102 Signer, ‘Peshat, Sensus Litteralis’, p. 207. 103 Signer offers the specific example of how Rashi considers the life of David as the context for the Psalms’ composition (‘Peshat, Sensus Litteralis’, p. 207). 104 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3. 105 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Adnotationes elucidatoriae in Pentateuchon, in Genesim (PL 175.29–61B). Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, ‘Notes on Genesis’, trans. by van Zwieten, pp. 53–117. 106 The movement to the larger narrative and its spiritual significance could occasion polemical debates, Signer, ‘Peshat, Sensus Litteralis’, p. 210. 107 Signer, ‘Peshat, Sensus Litteralis’, p. 204. 108 In addition to the resource which Chronicon itself is, Hugh elsewhere recommends the use of Gospel tables (Didascalicon, 4. 10). See Green, ‘Hugh of St Victor: De tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, pp. 484–93; cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, The Three Best Memory Aids for Learning History, trans. by Mary Carruthers, in The Medieval Craft of Memory, ed. by Mary Carruthers and Jan Ziolkowski (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 32–40.

69

70

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

(De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum), which defends the memorization of these facts, and which called upon students to thoroughly memorize the work’s entire contents at the beginning of their studies.109 The Chronicon thus serves the purpose of helping students of Biblical exegesis place a given passage within its larger historical narrative, so as to account for its world-historical significance and to see its allegorical significance. The assistance of a clear timeline such as the Chronicon was necessitated by one of the most challenging characteristics of Scripture: It does not always narrate its events in a continuous, chronological order, meaning that anyone attempting to construct a coherent narrative must learn the chronological order of Scriptural events independently, before attempting the text.110 As Grover Zinn notes, by educating the exegete to read Scripture through the lens of history, Hugh reflected a particular characteristic of the twelfth century as opposed to later years: ‘History had no place in the liberal arts and consequently in the later university curriculum’.111 Indeed, for Hugh history (including Biblical history) takes on a sort of ‘sacramental’ role; as Zinn argues, it becomes ‘the new mode of divine presence’, a ‘series of events in time with historical reality which also, because of their transcendent reference, offer a point of mediation with the divine’.112 As Hugh was an educator, one should not be surprised that he sees the importance of a well-trained memory. In the preface to the Chronicon, he explains to the reader, In sola enim memoria omnis utilitas, doctrinae consistit, quia sicut audisse non profuit ei qui non pituit intelligere, ita nec intellexisse valuit ei qui vel noluit ven non potuit retinere. The whole usefulness of education consists only in the memory of it, for just as having heard something does not profit one who cannot understand,

109 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Three Most Important Circumstances of Deeds, that is, Persons, Places, and Times’, trans. by Grover Zinn, in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. by Frans van Liere and Franklin T. Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 135–45. See Rorem, Hugh of St Victor, pp. 15–17. 110 Scripture, Hugh warns, ‘often places later things before early ones’, or it ‘connects things which are separated from each other by an interval of time, as if one followed right on the heels of the other’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon 6. 7, trans. by Taylor p. 147). For quick synopses of salvation history, cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3 and ‘On Sacred Scripture’, 17. 111 Grover Zinn, ‘Historia fundamentum est: The Role of History in the Contemplative Life According to Hugh of St Victor’, in Contemporary Reflections on the Medieval Christian Tradition: Essays in Honor of Ray C. Petry, ed. by G. H. Shriver (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1974), pp. 135–58, at p. 143. 112 Zinn, ‘Historia fundamentum est’, p. 158. See also: Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 95 and de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 212–14 and esp. pp. 235–36. Smalley contrasts this priority which Hugh gives to the literal sense with the exegetical tradition of Gregory the Great (c. 540–604): Gregorian exegesis held that if ‘the literal or fleshly sense’ of a passage seemed absurd, then that passage ‘has no meaning except as a series of phrases which can be explained allegorically and morally,’ lacking a literal-historical sense (Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 92). Gregory was not alone in this exegetical approach; the great Eastern Christian exegete, Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–c. 254) had made similar arguments in his De principiis (e.g., iv. 19 of the Latin text). Cf. Susan K. Wood, Spiritual Exegesis and the Church in the Theology of Henri de Lubac (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2010), p. 32.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

likewise having understood is not valuable to one who either will not or cannot remember.113 Drawing from a line of literature dating back to Quintillian and Cicero, Hugh gives the training of memory a fundamental place in his pedagogical programme, offering practical guidance to his young students in remembering what they need to learn for the exegetical task.114 Just as a money-changer organizes coins ‘into several compartments’, Hugh tells us, so too the reader of Scripture is to sort out the diverse historical facts it contains ‘by number, location, and occasion’ (numerus, locus, tempus).115 Just as one could memorize the entire Psalter by constructing a numerical outline of the entire book, and then filling in ‘the same sort of scheme for each separate Psalm’, the exegete should implant the important names, dates, and places of history ‘in your soul through memory’ (animo tuo per memoriam inseri); this knowledge of history will be the ‘foundation of all knowledge’ (quaedam fundamentae scientiae) going forward (e.g., of the allegorical and tropological senses).116 While scholarly literature on the Chronicon has clearly established its relationship to a long tradition of mnemonic practices, attention must also be paid to how, by assisting in the restoration of memory, these practices therefore constitute, for Hugh, not merely a preparation for, but in fact a central tenant of, his programme for overcoming the effects of sin through the practice of reading Scripture.117 According 113 Hugh’s Chronicon has been edited by William Green under a different title: Green. ‘Hugo of St Victor: De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, p. 490; see also De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum, trans. by Mary Carruthers, in The Medieval Craft of Memory, ed. by Mary Carruthers and Jan Ziolkowski (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 32–40. Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, 2nd edn (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 339–44; cf. pp. 100–06, 210. See also Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘Hugh of St Victor on Secular History: A Preliminary Edition of Chapters from his Chronica’, Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyenage Grec et Latin, 62 (1992), 3–30. 114 Cf. Grover A. Zinn, ‘Hugh of Saint Victor and the Art of Memory’, Viator, 5 (1974), 211–34 (pp. 211–14). 115 Green, ‘Hugo of St Victor: De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum’, p. 489. By number, Hugh means, for example, the construction of a number line, so that someone memorizing the psalms would envision their opening lines placed in order, side by side. Hugh promises that this practice will enable the reader to recite the whole psalter forward, backward, in alternating orders — and Mary Carruthers reports that, having tried Hugh’s advice, she ‘once began a lecture by interleaving the verses of Psalm 1 in reverse order with those of psalm 23 in forward order’ (Carruthers, The Book of Memory, p. xiii). By location, Hugh means both the location — distinguished by its decoration — of information on a page and the location in which a page was read, both details which he believes can assist us in organizing and recalling knowledge. By ‘occasion,’ he means the temporal sequence or historical context of the information involved. 116 Green, ‘Hugh of St Victor: De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum’, pp. 490–91. 117 The opening passage of the Didascalicon emphasizes that the problem of forgetfulness is, in fact, an effect of sin, explaining, ‘The mind, stupefied by bodily sensations and enticed out of itself by sensuous forms, has forgotten what it was, and, because it does not remember that it was anything different, believes that it is nothing except what is seen.’ Hugh goes on to connect instruction with the overcoming of this forgetfulness: ‘But we are restored through instruction, so that we may recognize our nature and learn not to seek outside ourselves what we can find within’ (1. 1, trans. by Taylor, p. 47).

71

72

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

to the Augustinian psychological analogy with the Trinity, the act of remembering occurs through the interplay of memory, intellect, and will, so that specific memories are brought to conscious attention from the storehouse of the memory through the unifying effort and intention of the will.118 For Augustine, the problem of forgetfulness was deeply entwined with the reality of sin, which damaged and weakened the will.119 The reader who seeks to build a dwelling place for God within the soul must, therefore, grapple with the forgetfulness wrought by sin before the attempt to build. Precisely because Hugh believed that one must begin with the historical narrative of Scripture, he considered the facts of history to be ‘the foundation of all knowledge, the first to be laid out together in memory’ (quasi fundamentum omnis doctrinae primum in memoria collocandum).120 Before one could go on to the ‘allegorical sense’ of drawing meaning from one’s subject matter or the ‘tropological/moral sense’ of recognizing how that meaning should change the way we live our lives today, memory had to do its work. Memory had to lay the foundation, and thus the restoration of memory through discipline is the beginning of the restoration of the soul through the reading of Scripture and its historical sense. Preparing for Literal Exegesis: Mastering the Doctrinal Content of the New Testament

This emphasis on the importance of establishing the correct overarching narrative through which to interpret the individual units of Scripture in its literal and spiritual senses helps to explain an aspect of Hugonian exegesis which might otherwise seem counterintuitive. While the order of study among the senses themselves — first the literal, then the allegorical and tropological — might seem natural enough, Hugh instructs the reader to begin the exegesis of the literal sense not chronologically (beginning first with the events of the Old Testament) but rather to begin by studying the plain meaning of the New Testament. Hugh justifies this prescription to read the Testaments in reverse chronological order by his basic pedagogical principle that students are to move from known material to unknown and from

118 Augustine, De Trinitate, 11. 2. 7; The storehouse of memory upon which all thought depends or from which all thought proceeds (to use the appropriate term from Trinitarian theology) is analogous to God the Father; the conscious eye of the mind which seeks to recall and engage with these images in the form of an inner dialogue or word is analogous to God the Word; the effort of will by which the memory is united to the inner word of thought, by which referent is united to consciousness, is analogous to God the Holy Spirit. 119 Hugh’s reception of this interplay is evident in this line from the De tribus maximis: ‘Dispose (your memories) in such an order that when your reason asks for it, you are easily able to find it.’ See Hugh of Saint-Victor, ‘The Three Best Memory Aids for Learning History’, p. 36. Here, Carruthers glosses that reason ‘refers to the rational, investigative procedures of recollection’ (Carruthers, The Book of Memory, p. 103). 120 Green, ‘Hugh of St Victor: De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum’, pp. 490–91. For translation, see Chronicon; Carruthers, The Book of Memory, p. 434. De Lubac notes Rabanus Maurus’ similar association of the literal sense with memory in his discussion of Hugh (Medieval Exegesis, iii, 225).

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

clear and certain material to the less clear or certain.121 By beginning with the New Testament, ‘in which the evident truth is preached’ (manifesta praedicatur veritas), the reader is prepared to search the Old, in which ‘the same truth is announced in a hidden manner’ (eadem veritas figuris adumbrata occulte praenuntiatur), for, after considering the Old Testament’s literal sense, it is ultimately the exegete’s task to unmask New Testament truths hidden in those events of the Old Testament narrative which anticipate Christian doctrine.122 Thus, for example, the reader who encounters Isaiah 7. 14 (‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son: and his name shall be called Emmanuel’, Isaiah 7. 14) might not see the prophecy of a virgin conception, just as the reader of Psalms 109/110. 1 (‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand’, Psalms 109/110. 1) might not anticipate its New Testament use as a testimony to Christ’s pre-existence (cf. Matthew 22. 44). As Hugh writes, … Nisi prius nativitatem Christi, praedicationem, passionem, resurrectionem atque ascensionem, et cetera quae in carne et per carnem gessit, agnoveris, veterum figurarum mysteria penetrare non valebis. Unless you know beforehand the nativity of Christ, his teaching his suffering, his resurrection and ascension, and all the other things which he did in the flesh and through the flesh, you will not be able to penetrate the mysteries of the old figures.123 Although the New Testament is to be read prior to the Old for the sake of easing the work of allegorical exegesis, this order should not lead to an exclusive identification of the allegorical sense with the New or the Old Testament. Preparing for Literal Exegesis: A Liberal Education & the Rules of Tyconius

If the fourth book of the Didascalicon addresses the definition of Scripture and the enumeration of its books, and the fifth book begins with a description of the three senses of Scripture and the order in which they should be pursued which is further elaborated upon in Book Six, then the bulk of the remainder of the Didascalicon’s fifth book can be said to represent Hugh’s appropriation of Augustine’s exegetical principles. Hugh’s Didascalicon as a guide for readers is frequently compared to Augustine’s

121 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 3. 9; De Lubac demonstrates similar concern for the order of reading by Rupert of Deutz, whose influence on Hugh deserves more study (Medieval Exegesis, iii, 222–23). 122 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 6, ed. by Buttimer, p. 123, trans. by Taylor p. 145. Hugh, who wrote no exhaustive commentaries on the literal sense of a New Testament book to rival his adnotationes on the Old, can give the impression of conflating the literal/historical sense of Scripture with the Old Testament, as when (quoting Gregory the Great) he speaks of learning the Old Testament before engaging in ‘typical’ (significationem typicam) exegesis (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3); however, the combined assertions that the reader begins with both the literal sense and the New Testament militate against such impressions, and there can be no doubt that the Gospels, as narratives, have a historical sense. 123 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 6, ed. by Buttimer, p. 125, trans. by Taylor, p. 146.

73

74

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

Teaching Christianity (De doctrina christiana), his guide for preachers.124 Indeed, after introducing his typically Hugonian three senses of Scripture, Hugh directly appeals to Augustine’s belief that the exegete’s work of Scriptural interpretation enhances our appreciation of the Scripture’s spiritual truth,125 employs Augustine’s treatment of the meaning of signs,126 and quotes, at length, the seven exegetical Rules of Tyconius.127 On the one hand, the Didascalicon represents a much larger project that the De doctrina christiana. Both serve as a sort of Christian charter for the use and study of the liberal arts, but the vision of each is distinct. Augustine’s work does not attempt to preserve the study of the liberal arts for their own sake, or to attribute to the study of the works of nature the ability to produce wisdom in the reader; the study of creation is an exegetical necessity.128 Precisely because, in Scripture, things can signify, one must study the characteristics of things. On the other hand, the Didascalicon proposes a broader agenda on for the liberal arts: Saving wisdom can be found through the contemplation of the created world, or at least could, the eye of contemplation not being blinded.129 But while Hugh gives the liberal arts a broader agenda than does Augustine, at least within its fifth book, he appropriates the roles Augustine had given them. 124 cf. Poirel, Hugues de Saint-Victor, pp. 55–56, and Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible, pp. 88–103 and p. 86. This account of the Didascalicon fits with Smalley’s general thesis that the that the Abbey of St Victor, particularly in the writings of Andrew of St Victor, Hugh’s student, represents a new emphasis on the literal sense of Scripture and therefore break from the general medieval preference for perhaps unwarranted allegorical interpretations of Scripture. 125 The idea that the honey of Scripture is more pleasing because enclosed in the comb, and ‘whatever is sought with greater effort is also found with greater desire’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 2, trans. by Taylor, p. 121; see Augustine, De doctrina christiana, 2. 6. 8). 126 Specifically, Hugh invokes Augustine’s belief that, while the words of any text are signs which refer to things and thus have meaning, ‘in the divine utterance, not only words but even things have a meaning’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 3, trans. by Tayor, p. 121; see Augustine, De doctrina christiana, 2. 1. 2, 2. 2. 1, 2. 3. 5). 127 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 4. While Augustine preserved this Donatist text for a medieval audience in his De doctrina christiana (3. 30. 42–3. 37. 56), Jerome Taylor notes that Hugh takes his version of the Rules directly from Isidore’s Libri sententiarum, i. 19. 1–19 (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, trans. by Taylor, p. 220 n. 21). For a commentary on and translation of the rules, see Tyconius of Carthage, Tyconius: The Book of Rules, Latin and English, Introduction, Notes, and Translation, ed. by William S. Babcock, Society of Biblical Literature: Texts and Translations, 31 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989). 128 Kevin L. Hughes. ‘The “Arts Reputed Liberal”’ in Augustine and Liberal Education, ed. by Kim Paffenroth and Kevin L. Hughes (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 95–107, esp. pp. 98–99. Cf. Harkins, Reading and the Work of Restoration, p. 35. 129 Jerome Taylor suggests that the liberal arts do, in fact, succeed in conveying such wisdom to the reader, so that ‘the pursuit of the arts becomes, in effect, convertible with religion’ (Hugh of SaintVictor, Didascalicon, trans. by Taylor, pp. 18–19 and 15; cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, trans. by Taylor, p. 14). Franklin Harkins, taking a middle position, argues that the liberal arts initiate the restorative process which is then carried to completion by Scriptural revelation (Reading and the Work of Restoration, p. 115). Elsewhere, I have suggested that for Hugh the liberal arts potentially convey the entire content of saving wisdom, but now the blinded eye of contemplation must rely on a third copy of the ‘book’ of wisdom — the sacraments scriptural and liturgical — until it is healed to the point of

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

Literal Exegesis

Hugh distinguishes between the ‘letter’ (littera) of Scripture and its ‘literal sense’ (sensus): the Biblical ‘letter’ refers to what is on the page, while the ‘literal sense’ refers to the attempt to understand the meaning which the author intended to convey through those letters. Unfortunately for the reader, when working with possibly corrupted texts far-removed from the place and time of their composition and translated out of their original languages, grasping intended meaning is not always easy and may in fact be impossible: ‘You find many things… said according to the idiom of [their original] language and which, although they are clear in that tongue, seem to mean noting in our own’ (multa huiusmodi invenis in scripturis, … secundum idioma illius linguae dicta, qua, cum ibi aperta sint, nihil apud nos significare videntur).130 Thus the reader quickly discovers that many Biblical passages ‘seem to be of no utility at all’ (quae nullius videntur esse utilitatis).131 While the Scriptures always have a littera, they may not always have a sensus, a meaningful literal interpretation.132 Precisely because Hugh believes that salvation history is primarily a history or series of events, and that the Bible — particularly the Old Testament — is the primary source for our knowledge of those events, Hugh views Biblical reading as grounded in the literal or historical sense of scripture, calling it the ‘foundation and principle of sacred learning’ (fundamentum autem et principium doctrinae sacrae).133 Because the works of God narrated by history are the foundation of Christian doctrine and morals, Hugh is especially interested in the Old Testament as a source of history, granting that some books — he names eleven — are more clearly historical than others and, therefore, more obviously useful. However, Hugh also uses ‘historical sense’ in an expanded way, conflating it with ‘literal sense’: the historical sense goes beyond the ‘recounting of actual deeds’ (non tantum rerum gestarum narrationem) to include the literal or ‘first’ meaning ‘of any narrative which uses words according to their proper nature’, (secundum proprietatem verbrorum exprimitur) so that every book has a ‘historical’ sense.134 Indeed, Beryl Smalley specifically criticizes Hugh’s

130 131 132 133 134

contemplating God once again in the cosmos and the self. See Andrew Benjamin Salzmann, ‘Hugh of St Victor’, in A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism, ed. by John P. Bequette (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 142–67. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 10, ed. by Buttimer, p. 128, trans. by Taylor, p. 149. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3, ed. by Buttimer, p. 115, trans. by Taylor, p. 137. Hugh of Saint-Victor, On Sacred Scripture, 5. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3, ed. by Buttimer, p. 116, trans. by Taylor, p. 138. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3, ed. by Buttimer, pp. 115–16, trans. by Taylor, p. 137. Through an exegesis of the Greek historeo, which Hugh defines as seeing and narrating, he actually reduces the meaning of ‘historical’ to ‘literal,’ so that the historical sense ‘considers the first meaning of words, when they refer to things’ (‘On Sacred Scripture’, 3, trans. by Van Liere, p. 214). Or again, ‘if we take the meaning of the word more broadly, it is not unfitting that we call by the name “history” not only the recounting of actual deeds but also the first meaning of any narrative which uses words according to their proper nature’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3, Taylor, p. 137). Thus, Hugh does not so much confuse ‘historical’ and ‘literal’ as he reduces the historical sense to the literal sense (cf. Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 88).

75

76

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

use of ‘historical sense’ for the ambiguity with which it might mean ‘either historical events or the primary meaning of the words’.135 Thus, Hugh believes that any part of Scripture in which the reader can grasp the human author’s original intention has a historical sense, even if the things to which that sense refers — for example, the river of fire going out from beneath the throne of God — do (or did) not necessarily exist in history.136 Thus, for Hugh to say that ‘certain places in the divine page… cannot be read literally’ is not a judgement that the basic sense of a passage is not ‘literally true’, but rather a judgement that the basic sense of a passage cannot be construed, so that the Scriptural words convey little meaning or lack an evident referent.137 However, these most difficult passages are still worth study, for even when not significant in themselves these passages can take on important allegorical or tropological meanings that only become evident later in time. Thus, Hugh encourages the reader to read even the most apparently senseless passage, offering a moving story of his own struggle to master the smallest detail of his boyhood lessons — and the maxim, ‘Parvis imbutus tentabis grandia tutus’ (Once grounded in things small, you may safely strive for all).138 Hugonian exegesis therefore begins with reading the letter (littera) to establish its obvious meaning (sensus) before going on to perceive additional allegorical or moral meanings (sententiae).139 Exegeting the literal or historical sensus of Scripture, attempting to understand the original narrative conveyed by the littera, began — for medieval readers with no access to the critically edited texts of the modern period — with the important work of lexical analysis and textual criticism. This struggle to draw an intelligible meaning from the written letters of a page Hugh calls ‘expositio’ (exposition).140 The first work of literal exegesis is resolving apparent contradictions in the text, ‘smoothing out the narrative and its historical sequence’: In general, then, literal exegesis aimed to make the text ‘plain’ in its meaning, and it involved textual interpretation at several levels: establishing the correct

135 Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 88. 136 Hugh of Saint-Victor, On Sacred Scripture, 5; cf. Daniel 7. 10. He quotes Augustine, ‘When, therefore, we read the Divine Books, in such a great multitude of true concepts elicited from a few words and fortified by the sound rule of the catholic faith, let us prefer above all what it seems certain that the man we are reading thought’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 11, trans. by Taylor, p. 150). For further confirmation that Hugh views literal sense as that which the human author intended, cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, ‘Notes on Genesis’, trans. by van Zwieten, p. 58 (VTT 6). 137 ‘Sunt quaedam loca in divina pagina, quae secundum litteram legi non possunt…’. Hugh of SaintVictor, Didascalicon, 6. 2, ed. by Buttimer, p. 116, trans. by Taylor, p. 138; cf. ‘On Sacred Scripture’, 5. It should be noted that, while Hugh asserts that every verse was composed with a ‘historical-literal’ sense insofar as it was composed with a meaning intended by its human author, Hugh does not believe that every verse must refer to factual, historical events. See Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 2. 138 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3, ed. by Buttimer, p. 114, trans. by Taylor, p. 136. This advice parallels his earlier advice that all secular knowledge is worth mastering and every book is worth reading (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 3. 13). 139 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 8. 140 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 8, 9–10, ed. by Buttimer, pp. 125–28.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

reading of the text, uncovering the historical referent(s) of the text, and, finally, reconstructing the historical narrative to which the text referred.141 A literal commentary would consider the Biblical text passage by passage, beginning with a short citation of the passage to be considered (often underlined) known as a lemma. When necessary, the consideration began with textual criticism aimed at establishing the original text as accurately as possible, both by comparing variant codices and by comparing the same text in different languages, from its different Latin variations to its Hebrew version (accessed either through Jerome’s commentaries or through the texts possessed by local rabbis) and, more rarely, to the Greek.142 Having established the text, lexical analysis follows: special treatment of any instances of unusual grammar; appeal to the etymology of unusual words (with particular assistance from Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies or Jerome’s On Hebrew Names); rhetorical analysis of Hebraisms, parallelism, or intertextual allusions. In order to situate particular passages in the broader context of history, Eusebius or Jerome would be consulted, or the Chronicon, which was composed for this purpose. Finally, it must be recalled that Hugh extended the general practice of introducing students to new books through an accessus, or short work which described its author, purpose, and content (among other things), to the study of the Bible, composing these documents not only for books of the Old Testament, but even for the Bible as a whole.143 The application of accessus methodology to the Scriptures is one interesting way that the medieval practice of liberal education affected Biblical studies, with the effect that students became more conscious of the circumstances of the human authors of the Scriptural books. Completing the Literal Sense: Memory and Meditatio

In the work of exegesis, memory plays two roles. As discussed above, the memorization of fundamental facts is necessary to understand the literal or historical sense of the biblical text; once the student has read, retained, and understood it, the reader must

141 Franklin Harkins and Frans van Liere, ‘General Introduction’, in Interpretation of Scripture: Theory: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), p.35. See also: Dale Coulter, ‘Historia and Sensus litteralis: An Investigation into the Approach to Literal Interpretation at the TwelfthCentury School of St Victor’, in Transforming Relations: Essays on Jews and Christians throughout History in Honor of Michael A. Signer, ed. by Franklin T. Harkins (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), pp. 101–24. 142 Harkins and Van Liere, ‘General Introduction’, p. 33. 143 For a translation of Hugh’s accessus to the Book of Genesis, explaining the meaning of its name, its authorship by Moses, the content to which the reader must attend, and the author’s intention in composing Genesis, see Hugh of Saint-Victor, ‘Notes on Genesis’, trans. by van Zwieten, pp. 61–63. Grover Zinn has argued that Hugh’s ‘On Sacred Scripture’ functioned as a general accessus to Scripture; see Grover A. Zinn, Jr. ‘Hugh of St Victor’s ‘De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris’ as an Accessus Treatise for the Study of the Bible’, Traditio, 52 (1997), 111–34 (p. 116). For an overview of the accessus genre in medieval scholarship and its various types, see A. J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 2nd edn (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), pp. 9–39.

77

78

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

then return to the hard work of memory, only now to gather that understanding up in order to retain and, in meditation, to profit from what has been learned. Hugh says plainly, ‘Memoria colligendo custodit’ (Memory retains through gathering).144 In the first half of the Didascalicon and his discussion of secular learning, Hugh had explained that after meditation must follow reading as its ‘consummatio’ (consummation).145 The first step of this meditatio is to ‘gather’ a ‘brief and compendious outline [of the] things which have been written or discussed’ so that the information can be gathered together (colligere), summarized in a verbal outline, and laid into the ‘ark of memory’.146 Hugh tended to fix these outlines in his memory by mapping them on to images visualized in the mind; by scanning this mental image in meditation — which should be done frequently — one remembers all that one has read. Hugh offered his students various images based on the Noahic ark which meditatively recapitulate vast swathes of learning (as in his Mystical Ark) as well as answering the pressing spiritual questions of his students.147 Not only Hugh, but Richard of St Victor as well frequently depict entire treatises in the form of an exegesis of a single mental picture. While his treatment of meditation in the Didascalicon is only a sketch, he there promises a separate treatise on the topic.148 The Study of the Spiritual Senses and the Work of the Holy Spirit

For Hugh of St Victor, the work of reading and Scriptural exegesis is not only the work of the reader; it requires the necessary aid of the Holy Spirit. Precisely because the human mind is so distant from God, divine revelation must assist human reason in the quest to understand God.149 This assistance by divine revelation comes in two ways: external instruction, that is, by the explicit teaching or miraculous deeds attested by Scripture, and interior instruction, in which God is manifested ‘by

144 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 3. 11, ed. by Buttimer, p. 60, trans. by Taylor, p. 93; cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, On Sacred Scripture, 5. 145 cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 3. 10, ed. by Buttimer, p. 59. 146 ‘Colligere est ea de quibus prolixius vel scriptum vel disputatum est ad brevem quandam et compendiosam summam redigere… …quod in arcula memoriae recondatur…’ cf. Hugh of SaintVictor, Didascalicon, 3. 11, ed. by Buttimer, p. 60. 147 Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 3. 10. Hugh’s De archa Noë morali (or Sicard, De archa Noe) answers his students’ concerns about maintaining spiritual progress by providing a layered, multidimensional ark. See Noah’s Ark in Hugh of Saint-Victor: Selected Spiritual Writings, ed. by Aelred Squire (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 45–153; cf.  Sicard, De archa Noe. Libellus de formatione arche, ed. by Sicard, pp. 1–117. Perhaps the most famous example of his mnemonic image is his famous booklet De archa Noë, which describes the drawing of a picture of the ark of Noah; it is called mystical because the picture is a sign with a hidden significance that must be learned (e.g., Carruthers, The Book of Memory, pp. 53–54, 202–03, 294–98, 447 n. 40). While Conrad Rudolph disputes Carruther’s interpretation of the function of the De archa Noë, he can grant a mnemonic function for the ark. See Conrad Rudolph, ‘First I Find the Center Point’: Reading the Text of Hugh of Saint Victor’s The Mystic Ark (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2004), p. 77. 148 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 13. 149 Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 1. 3. 5, ed. by Berndt, p. 75, trans. by Deferrari, p. 43.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

illuminating within by aspiration’ (abintus per aspirationem illuminans).150 According to Hugh, that which the Holy Spirit teaches us by aspiration is precisely that which the first human beings would have learned about the soul’s proper relationship to God by ‘reading’ creation, but which — since the extinguishing of the eye of contemplation — historical or postlapsarian humanity no longer knows.151 This aspiratio, as the particular movement of the Spirit at particular times for particular people for a better understanding of the works of restoration, is the Spirit’s gift to those who are truly good, those to whom God has given saving grace; as a result, there is a strong connection between moral goodness, divine aid, and penetrating Scriptural exegesis.152 Learning as a spiritual programme requires the virtues which Hugh quoted from Bernard of Chartres: ‘Mens… humilis, studium quaerendi, vita quieta, scrutinium tacitum, paupertas, terra aliena, haec reserare solent multis obscura legendi’ (A humble mind, eagerness to inquire, a quiet life, silent scrutiny, poverty, a foreign soil. These, for many, unlock the hidden places of learning).153 As Hugh observes later in the Didascalicon, ‘Mores ornant scientiam’ (Morals equip learning), and so rules of study must be joined with rules of life and the practice of prayer.154 Allegorical Exegesis

If Hugh felt the need to exhort his students to the study of the historical sense, he saw the allegorical sense as self-evidently good, though he urges care, restraint, and responsibility to the literal-historical sense of Scripture in the pursuit of allegorical

150 Taken together, this means that ‘the invisible God comes to the knowledge of man by four modes, two within, two without’: the interior working of reason illuminating the mind with its exterior attestation by the orderliness of Creation, and the interior working of grace moving the mind through aspiration with its exterior attestation by the words of Scripture. Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 1. 3. 3, trans. by Deferrari, p. 42. For a study of aspiratio as the presence of the Holy Spirit to the individual hearts of the faithful, guiding them in the appropriate interpretation of the Scriptures, see Heinz Robert Schlette, ‘Aspiratio: Präreformatorisch Akzente in Abälards Erklärung der vierten Vaterunser-Bitte’, in Petrus Abaelardus (1079–1142): Person, Werk und Wirkung, ed. by Rudolf Thomas, Jean Jolivet and David Edward Luscombe (Trier: Paulinus, 1980), pp. 211–15, at p. 213. 151 Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 1. 10. 6, trans. by Deferrari, p. 177. 152 Hugh explains that the truly good ‘are breathed upon by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost’, being thereby ‘illumined to recognize the good which must be done, and are inflamed as they love and strengthened to accomplish good’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 1. 8. 11, trans. by Deferrari, p. 149). 153 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 3. 12, ed. by Buttimer, p. 61, trans. by Taylor, p. 94. On the origin of the quote, cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, trans. by Taylor, p. 214 n. 61. 154 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 3. 12, ed. by Buttimer, p. 61, trans. by Taylor, p. 94. See also de Lubac’s discussion of the two kinds of scrutinizing in Hugh’s thought, scrutiny with the Spirit and without the Spirit, and the corresponding need for virtue in life of the exegete so as to be led by the Spirit. To the exegetes who rely on their own powers to plumb the depths of Scripture’s meaning, ‘Hugh recalls them to prudence, to the humility of reason, to respect for the supernatural mystery’ (De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 226–31).

79

80

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

readings.155 While some have read this restraint as an implicit criticism of allegory, it must be said that Hugh had not only a deep enthusiasm, but even a ‘genius’ for it.156 Returning to the analogy of reading with construction, Hugh describes the care with which a mason raises a structure in carefully fixed courses of stone, taking stones that look hopelessly mismatched and drawing from them a spiritual interpretation which, admitting of no contradictions, rises smoothly upwards.157 The analogy demands respect for the details of the historical sense; one must not try to force exegetical ‘stones’ into an allegory which they do not fit. He identifies eight specific courses of stone (or allegorical topics) which constitute ‘the whole of divinity’ (tota divinitas): the Trinity, finding in the historical sense its testimony to the God who is both three and one; theological anthropology, understanding the human person with intellect and will, poised to receive divine grace; the fall of the human person into sin; the human condition both before and under Mosaic law; the incarnation of the divine Word in Christ; the New Testament sacraments; and the final resurrection. The attention to the literal sense which Hugh demands in crafting allegory meant that he did not attempt Christological allegories when his discussions with the rabbis of the Northern French School suggested otherwise.158 A student who is well versed in the basics of each of these areas is thus prepared to read the Scriptures and, in the process, find allegories which express those doctrines — which requires that one ‘first learn briefly and clearly’ what Christians ‘ought unquestionably to profess and truthfully to believe’ about each of these eight courses.159 For example, a reader familiar with Christology would recognize in Job, ‘whose name means “mourning”, (interpretatur dolens)’ a type of Christ, ‘who descended to our misery and sat humbled on the dung heap of this world, sharing all of the defects that we have on account of sin’ (condescendit nostrae miseriae, et sedit humiliatus in sterquilinio huius mundi, omnibus nostris defectibus, praeter peccatum, communicans).160 In fact, these eight

155 cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 4. 156 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 244. 157 Hugh embraced the image of the mason’s craft to illustrate allegorical reading; see Hugh of SaintVictor, Didascalicon, 6. 4. 158 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 4, ed. by Buttimer, p. 119, trans. by Taylor, p. 141. For concrete examples of Hugh’s cautious deference to his Jewish interlocutors, see Moore, Jews and Christians, pp. 89–93. 159 ‘Disce prius breviter et dilucide, quid tenendum sit de fide Trinitatis, quid sane profiteri et veraciter credere debeas.’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 4, ed. by Buttimer, p. 120, trans. by Taylor, p. 142. This clear and firm expression of Christian doctrine is to be sought ‘from learned teachers’ who draw upon the ‘authorities of the holy fathers.’ In extolling this communal hermeneutic, Hugh explicitly warns against autodidacts, possibly Abelard (cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 4). Elsewhere, Hugh recommends four ecumenical councils — Nicaea, which taught the equality and consubstantiality of the Father and Son; Constantinople, which taught the equality and consubstantiality of the Spirit; Ephesus, which declared the one person and two natures of Jesus Christ; and Chalcedon, which reasserted of the two natures of Jesus Christ — as sources of this doctrine (cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 4. 12). 160 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris, col. 12C (PL 175.9–28); ‘On Sacred Scripture’, 3, trans. by Van Liere, p. 215.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

basic courses of allegory form the structure of Hugh’s great allegorical work, The Sacraments of the Christian Faith.161 The work of allegory is the discovery of known truths hidden, as a second meaning, within the words of Scripture, a meaning other than that intended by the human author.162 In introducing the distinction between the literal and spiritual senses of Scripture, Hugh uses both honeycombs and zithers as illustrations. The structure of honeycomb contains honey, and the effort of extracting the sweet honey contained by the comb only increases one’s enjoyment of the honey; similarly, the historical structure of the Scriptures contains the spiritual sweetness of doctrinal and moral teaching. Again, the curving wood frame of the zither (like the historical narrative or the literal substance of Scripture) not only binds together the strings which sound forth the sweetness of music, but that music (like the doctrinal and moral senses of Scripture) resonates all the more sweetly precisely because it reverberates back through that wood frame.163 However, not every passage of Scripture is significant in the allegorical or moral senses.164 As a result, the challenge of allegory is to discipline the search for the ‘other’ meaning according to a dual responsibility to the historical sense of the passage and the content of Christian doctrine, while also recognizing where no allegory can be found.165 Thus, the ‘stones’ of the literal sense which easily fit into a specific course of allegorical doctrine should be added; the ‘stones’ which do not fit easily into a course should be harmonized if possible — bent ‘into fitting interpretations’ (congruas interpretationes) according to ‘sound faith’ (fide sana) — or passed over them rather than ‘presuming to attempt what you are not equal to doing’ (praesumere conaris quod non sufficis).166 The temptation of those dialecticians 161 Cf. Gérard Paré, Adrien Brunet, and Pierre Tremblay. La Renaissance du xiie siècle. Les écoles et l’enseignement (Paris: Vrin, 1909), pp. 140–48. While Hugh’s use of sacramenta for Biblical accounts with hidden meanings may seem initially surprising, the usage continues prominently in Roman Catholic practice, though with the Greek mysteria rather than the Latin sacramenta (e.g., the ‘mystery’ of the Annunciation, the Visitation, etc.). For example, cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, ‘On Sacred Scripture’, 2, trans. by Van Liere, p. 214. 162 ‘Allegory is, as it were, “other-speech,” because one thing is said and another is meant’ (‘On Sacred Scripture’, 3, trans. by Van Liere, p. 215). 163 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 2, Hugh of Saint-Victor, ‘On Sacred Scripture’, 4. 164 Hugh warns, however, that not every line of Scripture is significant in every sense. Thus, we must ‘not try to find history everywhere, nor allegory everywhere, nor tropology [i.e., morals] everywhere, but rather that we assign individual things fittingly in their own places, as reason demands’; at the same time, all three senses may ‘often’ be found together, ‘as when a truth of history both hints at some mystical meaning by way of allegory, and equally shows by way of tropology how we ought to behave’ (Didascalicon, 5. 2, trans. by Taylor, pp. 120–21; cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, ‘On Sacred Scripture’, 4). 165 In Hugh’s prologue to his Homilies on Ecclesiastes, he blames ‘those who strive superstitiously to find a mystical sense and a deep allegory where none is’ for obscuring the beauty of Scripture (Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 100). Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, In Salomonis Ecclesiasten Homiliae XIX (PL 175.114–115C); ‘Mihi vero simili culpae subjacere videntur, vel qui in sacra Scriptura mysticam intelligentiam et allegoriarum profunditatem, vel inquirendam pertinaciter negant, ubi est; vel apponendam superstitiose contendunt, ubi non est.’ 166 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 4, ed. by Buttimer, pp. 120–21, trans. by Taylor, pp. 142–43. Thus, Hugh continues, the reader ‘who follows the letter alone’ cannot do so long ‘without error’ (Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 4, trans. by Taylor, pp. 143–44). While Hugh defended the importance of

81

82

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

(presumably the students of Peter Abelard) who wish to find innovative meanings in Scripture must be avoided.167 Medieval exegetes inherited from Bede the Venerable two lists of the senses of Scripture, a list of three senses (literal, allegorical, tropological) and one of four (which included the anagogical sense).168 In most instances, Hugh mentions only three senses; in his Sententiae de divinitate, however, he notes that the allegorical sense is twofold, including ‘simple allegory’ (simplex allegoria), when ‘visible things signify other visible things’ (per res visibiles significantur alie res visibiles), and anagogy, ‘when visible things signify invisible things’ (per res visibiles significantur res invisibiles).169 While admitting that Hugh almost never employs the term ‘anagogy’, de Lubac argues forcefully that in practice Hugh’s allegorical discussions include both the simple allegory of doctrine and the contemplative, eschatological anagogy, in which both the doctrinal and the moral discussions ‘cooperate toward the reparation’ of the entire human person.170 Tropological Exegesis

The fruit or goal of sacred reading is twofold, the instruction of the mind by allegorical doctrine and the adornment of the will with morals through the tropological sense.171 These two ends are parallel: their relationship mirrors the Trinitarian relations of Father, Son, and Spirit, so that as Father and Son give rise to the Spirit, the literal and allegorical senses give rise to the tropological. The instruction of allegory is a cause of the will’s restoration, and thus Hugh’s system, for all its pneumatic emphasis, cannot be considered merely voluntaristic.172 Knowledge is at the service of virtue, for, in Hugh’s words, ‘contemplando quid fecerit Deus, quid nobis faciendum sit agnoscimus’ (By contemplating what God has made, we realize what we ourselves ought to do).173 Exegesis is critical to the moral life. Thus, to return to our image of Job, Job ‘quemlibet justum vel animam poenitentem potest significare, quae componit

167 168 169

170 171 172 173

attending to the letter of the historical sense, he refuses to allow a grammatical analysis of the text to challenge Christian doctrine, adopting 1 Corinthians 2. 15 — ‘the spiritual person judges all things’ — to that end. Cf. De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 215. See Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3; de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 221–22. Franklin Harkins argued that Hugh had the dialectical masters, particularly Abelard and Gilbert of Poitiers, in mind. See Harkins, Reading and the Work of Restoration, pp. 175–84. De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, i, 90–105. Hugh of Saint-Victor, ‘Sentences on Divinity’, trans. by Christopher Evans, in Trinity and Creation: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Richard, and Adam of St Victor, ed. by Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter, VTT, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), p. 118. Sententiae de divinitate, ed. by Ambrogio Piazzoni, ‘Ugo di San Vittore, “auctor” delle ‘Sententie de divinitate’, Studi Medievali, 23 (1982), 861–55, here 918. De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 246–47. Cf.  Wood, Spiritual Exegesis and the Church in the Theology of Henri de Lubac, pp. 44–47. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 6, trans. by Taylor, p. 127; cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, On Sacred Scripture, 13. cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 6, trans. by Taylor, pp. 127–28; cf. Matthew 6. 33. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 5, ed. by Buttimer, p. 123, trans. by Taylor, p. 145.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

in memoria sua sterquilinium ex omnibus peccatis quae fecit…’ ( Job can signify any just or penitent soul who in his memory makes a dung heap of all the sins he has committed).174 Hugh implies a distinction between Scriptural books that are more or less helpful in urging ‘contempt for this world’ and inflaming ‘the mind with love for its creator’ and which ‘show how virtues may be acquired and vices turned aside’. Spiritual writings (the hagiographia), and particularly Gregory’s lives of the saints, seek to inspire the soul to act well by giving examples of the deeds the saints.175 Conclusion: Hugonian Exegesis in Context

Contrasting the above summary of the assumptions of patristic and medieval exegesis with the description of Hugh’s exegesis which followed, it is clear that Hugh ‘did not radically alter the interpretative tradition which he received’ but rather ‘worked within a framework developed over a thousand years’.176 If, as Mayeski observed, patristic and medieval Biblical exegesis assumed that the Bible told the ‘on-going story’ of salvation history, it is clear that Hugh’s exegesis, is also concerned and then interpret Biblical events within the larger, single arc which folded together salvation history and secular history. If early medieval exegetes assumed that the sophistication of Scripture required significant preparation in the liberal arts, Hugh literally ‘wrote the book’ on this scholastic preparation, while at the same time expanding the content of that preparation to include both an emphasis on the memory and — in his concern to form the will of the reader — morality. Indeed, while Hugh ‘deplored the growing separation between theological questiones and the biblical text’ in the schools and sought instead a ‘return to the Augustinian ideal of the De doctrina christiana’, he did so while striving ‘to maintain the higher level of critical thought that had developed’ in the schools and even went beyond the schools to engage Jewish exegetical techniques.177 If medieval interpreters recognized both the unity of Scripture and, at the same time, the heterogeneity of its individual books, Hugh again emphasized the oneness of Scripture while privileging the accessus model of study so as to understand best the particular circumstances of each book’s human composition. If, again, Christian exegetes assumed that there were many levels of meaning witnessed on the Scriptural page, Hugh made the pursuit of the historical, allegorical, and tropological senses of Scripture into an organizing principle of his intellectual work — articulating three levels of meaning, rather than the more typical four, and seeking to tame ‘the often exuberant use of the extended or “higher” sense of the text’.178 And, finally, if the ancient and medieval Christians had acknowledged a central role of the Holy Spirit in the reader’s work of interpretation, 174 Hugh of Saint-Victor, ‘On Sacred Scripture’, 3, trans. by Van Liere, p. 215, Hugh of Saint-Victor, De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris, col. 12C (PL 175.9–28). 175 ‘…Qui huius mundi contemptum suadent, et animum ad amorem conditoris sui accendunt…’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5. 7, ed. by Buttimer, p. 105, trans. by Taylor, p. 128. 176 Moore, Jews and Christians, p. 58. 177 Mayeski, ‘Early Medieval Exegesis’, p. 103. 178 Mayeski, ‘Early Medieval Exegesis’, p. 103.

83

84

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

Hugh, in his emphasis on the aspiratio of the Holy Spirit, saw this clearly, as well. A monastery on the edge of Paris engaged with the student population of that city, St Victor ‘promoted neither the meditative harmony of the monastic lectio divina nor the analytic categories which were popular in the Cathedral schools’, but rather ‘sought a balance between both methods of study’.179 Hugh stands firmly within the broader exegetical tradition, remarkable most of all, perhaps, for the clarity and voluminousness with which he articulates his own appropriations of these major threads in that tradition.

The Reception of Hugh’s Exegesis180 In her re-introduction of the Victorine school of exegesis to the English-speaking world, Beryl Smalley cast Hugh as an important step in a growing medieval capacity to read the Bible critically, with an emphasis on a reading of the literal sense which was unprejudiced by doctrinal commitments.181 For Smalley, ‘in order to be a scholar at all [the interpreter] must wish to use and to improve upon existing techniques with the aim of entering into the mind of his author’; this naturalistic openness to the literal existed, in her opinion, in a perpetual tension with mysticism’s tendency towards subjective, spiritual interpretations of the Bible.182 Hugh’s twelfth-century school at St Victor, with its emphasis on the priority of the literal sense for the determination of subsequent spiritual exegesis and its understanding of the literal sense precisely as the intent of the human author, represents — along with fifth-century Antioch — one of the two great movements in Christian history ‘for deepening and improving the literal interpretation’ of Scripture.183 While Hugh mocks those who jump to spiritual interpretations of the Bible without concern for its literal sense, his attention to the literal sense is still in the service of the spiritual senses, and Smalley faults Hugh for being willing to follow less probable literal interpretations which serve as better foundation for allegory.184 While Hugh’s exegetical approach ‘teaches him to value

179 Signer, ‘Pashat, Sensus Literalis and Sequential Narrative’, p. 204. 180 Space does not permit a substantial overview of the influence of Hugh’s exegetical works prior to the twentieth century. See Dominique Poirel and others, L’école de Saint-Victor de Paris: influence et rayonnement du Moyen Age à l’Epoque moderne, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010). 181 While Smalley played an important role in introducing the Victorine school to English-reading audiences, the famous historian of dogma Adolf von Harnack had already, in the fourth edition of his great history of dogma, recognized Hugh as ‘objectively one of the most influential theologians’ of his time; however, it was Harnack’s third edition, which lacks the considerable treatment of the Victorines found in the fourth, which was translated into English. Adolf von Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 4th edn (Tübingen: J. C. B. Morh, 1910), p. 376 (my translation). 182 Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 356; my emphasis. 183 Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 357, see also pp. 106–11. 184 For Smalley’s appreciation of Hugh’s emphasis on the intent of the author, see Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 95. For Hugh’s mockery of those who skip too eagerly to the spiritual senses, see Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, 1. 8. 6 & Hugh of Saint-Victor, On Sacred Scripture, 5. For Smalley’s judgement that Hugh fell short of his own standard in preferring less likely

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

the letter’, it ‘does not teach him to regard the letter as a good in itself ’.185 Smalley considered this programme of marrying literal, allegorical, moral, and contemplative meaning into a single reading to be inherently unstable in that Hugh’s demand for technical specialization in the literal sense and his commitment to synthesis with a traditional and mystical (and thus ultimately unscholarly) interpretative approach was ‘both too conservative and too modern’ and thus ‘destined to failure’.186 While after Hugh’s death St Victor would give rise to Richard of St Victor’s continued emphasis on the spiritual senses, the trajectory toward a sufficiently literal reading of the Bible would, Smalley continues, culminate in the work of Andrew of St Victor.187 Smalley had composed her Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages as a defence of the naturalistic, historical-critical exegesis of the Bible which emerged in the nineteenth century. In the 1952 edition of her work, Smalley notes that the spiritual exegesis found in patristic and medieval authors ‘had few defenders ten years ago’, and she expressed concern that ‘the revived interest in mysticism has led certain students to reverse their judgment’ about the value of rigorous scholarship in favour of contemporary ‘allegorists’ and their reactionary mysticism.188 Henri de Lubac, SJ, already an established theologian, embarked upon his massive, four-volume study of medieval exegesis partially in response to Smalley’s work.189 Repeating Hugh’s critique against rushing to allegory without concern for the literal sense, de Lubac also repeats Hugh’s warning against hanging only to ‘the letter which killeth’: ‘It is not the grammarian but the spiritual person that judges all things’, for the spiritual person has the guidance of the Holy Spirit.190 In de Lubac’s reading, Hugh does not represent a break with the allegorizing mysticism of the patristic and medieval tradition, but rather the attempt to consolidate the best of that tradition against the allegorizing novelties of emerging Scholasticism, with its grammatical

interpretations, see Smalley, The Study of the Bible, pp. 101–02. However, note that this discussion is predicated on the authenticity of Hugh’s commentary on Lamentations (In threnos Ieremiae); Smalley’s argument may need to be revised in light of that work’s questionable authenticity. See Rebecca Moore, ‘Hugh of St Victor and the Authorship of In Threnos Ieremiae’, Journal of Religions History, 22.3 (October 1998), 255–69. See also Lucy Gabrielle McGuinness, ‘A Study and Edition of Hugh of St Victor’s Commentary on Lamentations’ (PhD thesis, King’s College University of London, 1997). 185 Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 102. 186 Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 105. 187 Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 119. 188 Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 360. For an example of the ‘allegorists’ who concerned Smalley, see A. M. Dubarle, O. P., ‘Le Sens Spirituel de l’Écriture’, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 31 (1947), 41–72. For a history of renewed interest in spiritual exegesis in mid-twentieth-century French theology, see Benedict T. Viviano, ‘The Renewal of Biblical Studies in France 1934–1954 as an Element in Theological Ressourcement’, in Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology, ed. by Gabriel Flynn and Paul D. Murray (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 305–17. 189 e.g., De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, i, 49 and iii, 4. 190 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 214–19; see n. 38. De Lubac recalls Hugh’s disagreements with the noted grammarian Abelard.

85

86

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

and philosophical emphases.191 If Medieval Exegesis was at least partly occasioned by Smalley’s book, it was not the first time de Lubac had engaged the implications of naturalistic or materialistic interpretive theories. While never wanting to ‘go back to a pre-critical stage’ of Biblical exegesis, de Lubac did desire to ‘get at the root of criticism, and, moreover, establish a critique of criticism’.192 His study of Friedrich Nietzsche, Auguste Comte, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Drama of Atheistic Humanism, first published (in French) in 1944, offered a short assessment of Comte’s pioneering description of materialistic positivism. For Compte, the human quest for knowledge ‘has necessarily to pass through three successive theoretical states’: first, the theological or fictitious state, in which one imagines that supernatural agents act in the world and which concerns itself with the purpose of things; second, the metaphysical or abstract state, in which one imagines that things have essential natures and which concerns itself with the definition of things; and, finally, the scientific or positive state, in which one is content to identify ‘a certain number of invariable natural laws’ which, while explaining nothing about the purpose of life or the essence of natures, at least explain the causes of how individual things come to exist and to interact with their environment.193 Where Comte saw successive states which could not co-exist in the same mind, de Lubac insists that these three are actually ‘three coexistent modes of thought’, corresponding to the objective side of reality (Comte’s third state) and the intellectual attempt to understand what a thing is in itself (Comte’s second stage) or what it is for (Comte’s first stage).194 Comte’s triad therefore looks rather like a reversal of Hugh’s Trinitarian-inflected triads. De Lubac, echoing Hugh’s ability to hold the factual, theoretical, and moral together through the doctrine of the Trinity, thus resisted the reduction of the thinking mind to the status of a mere object among many, or the reduction of scholarly work to the consideration of ‘just the facts’.195 Applied to exegesis, the exegete’s engagement with the text (a mental act) can never be reduced to the attempt to understand the historical causes of the object (the text exegeted). De Lubac writes, When we are faced with a very great text, a very profound one, never can we maintain that the interpretation we give of it — even if it is very accurate, the most accurate, if need be, the only accurate one — coincides exactly with its author’s thought. The fact is, the text and the interpretation are not of the same order; they do not develop at the same level, and therefore they cannot overlay one another.196 191 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 221–22 and, especially, 239: ‘There is nothing there to mark or even foreshadow the least change in the principles or methods of exegesis, certainly nothing like the birth of some new ‘scientific movement.’ 192 Henri de Lubac, Paradoxes of Faith, trans. by Paule Simon and others (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), p. 107. 193 Henri de Lubac, The Drama of Atheist Humanism, trans. by Edith Riley and others (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995). pp. 139–40. 194 De Lubac, The Drama of Atheist Humanism, p. 144. 195 De Lubac, The Drama of Atheist Humanism, p. 146. 196 Henri de Lubac, Paradoxes of Faith, p. 109.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

As a result, de Lubac insists that, in any attempt to understand the Scriptural text, the whole breadth of the Christian tradition ought to be explored — warning both against ‘the hackneyedly moralizing interpretation of those who have not studied the subject historically’ and ‘the narrowly historical interpretation of those who have not gone deeply into it spiritually’ as both ‘alternating forms of mediocrity’.197 Indeed, for de Lubac, the capacity for synthesis was the greatest testimony to the presence of the Spirit of Christ.198 At the very time when de Lubac was attempting to resist the reduction of scholarly inquiry to the ‘objective, historical fact’ by historical-critical exegesis through his insistence on the importance of the spiritual senses of allegory (with anagogy) and tropology, within the Roman Catholic Church attention was shifting to the study of the literal, historical sense ‘almost to the point of becoming exclusive’ of other senses — both among those scholars more open to modern, historical-critical exegesis and those interested in opposing it.199 Indeed, in 1950, an encyclical widely taken to be critical of de Lubac cautioned against those promoting spiritual interpretations of the Bible.200 While, in 1965, the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on Divine Revelation would insist that in the interpretation of Scripture the ‘living tradition of the whole Church must be taken into account’, the level of attention de Lubac had sought for the spiritual senses of Scripture would finally be given by the teaching authority of the modern Roman Catholic Church in a 2010 post-synodal exhortation — and with specific reference to Hugh of St Victor.201 A concluding remark. Both Smalley and de Lubac share an interesting frustration with Hugh’s exegetical framework: Both believe that Hugh elides together senses of Scripture that ought more rightly to be treated separately. Smalley, as previously mentioned, writes that Hugh confuses the literal sense of Scripture (what the words say) with the historical sense of Scripture (when those letters sometimes narrate past events). Though as previously mentioned de Lubac defends Hugh’s allegorical sense as including both the allegorical and the anagogical, he notes that Hugh remains ‘stuck on tripartite divisions’ and thus does not give the anagogical sense the independent consideration it might otherwise receive.202 Although both remark on Hugh’s use

197 Henri de Lubac, Paradoxes of Faith, p. 108. 198 Francesco Bertoldi, ‘Henri de Lubac on Dei verbum’, trans. by Mandy Murphy, Communio (US) 17 (Spring 1990), p. 92. 199 Bertoldi, ‘Henri de Lubac on Dei verbum’, p. 89. 200 Pius XII, Humani Generis, 23, in The Encyclical ‘Humani generis’: With a Commentary, trans. by A. C. Cotter (Weston: Weston College Press, 1951). A 1943 encyclical on Biblical studies, Pius XII’s Divino Afflante Spiritu is still cautious about the spiritual senses of Scripture, though recommends them nonetheless (25–26). 201 Vatican II Council, Dei Verbum, 12, trans. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, part 1, in Vatican Council II, The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. by A. Flannery (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1975); Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, 37–39. 202 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 247.

87

88

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

of triads to structure his thought, neither connects this triadic structuring to Hugh’s programmatic use of the doctrine of the Trinity as outlined in his De tribus diebus (The Three Days).203 Seen through a Trinitarian reading of Hugh’s corpus, however, both of these apparent elisions are seen to be the layering of different concepts onto the same Trinitarian moments, rather than the muddling of concepts whose distinctness Hugh allegedly failed to appreciate.

Appendix 1: The Texts of Hugonian Exegesis Shortly after Hugh’s death, his abbot, Gilduin, composed a list known as the Indiculum which establishes the authenticity of many of Hugh’s works, though it does not include them all.204 Patrice Sicard published an exhaustive 2015 study of the manuscript tradition associated with Hugh and Richard of St Victor, building on while also correcting previous studies on the manuscript tradition of Hugh’s work and its dating, Goy’s Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos von St Viktor and Van den Eynde’s Essai sur la succession et la date des éscrits de Hugues de Saint-Victor (1960).205 Sicard offers a definitive list of the works attributed to Hugh which can be judged authentic, as well as a list of those works formerly attributed to Hugh but which would have to be judged as dubious or inauthentic. Hugh’s expansive view of Biblical exegesis extends to include not just the text of Scripture but also his treatment of doctrine, ethics, and contemplative prayer. For this reason, a complete introduction to Hugh’s exegesis would amount to an introduction to all of his thought; as Dominique Poirel has observed, ‘the study and interiorization of the Bible are at the heart of Hugh’s entire literary corpus’.206 We can, however, identify about eighteen properly exegetical works within

203 Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 86; de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 246. Smalley’s mischaracterization of Hugh’s literal and allegorical senses as both pertaining to knowledge, rather than to memory and intellect respectively, underscores that she does not see the psychological analogy of the Trinity at work in Hugh’s divisions of the Scriptural senses (Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 88). 204 This list exists in a single manuscript (Oxford Merton College Ms 49); see J. de Ghellinck, ‘La table des materières de la première edition des oeuvres de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, RSR, 1 (1910), 270–89 and 385–96. 205 Laura Pani has described Sicard’s study, Iter Victorinum, as a ‘fundamental instrument for any scholar dealing, at any purpose, with the two major Victorines’. See Laura Pani, review of Patrice Sicard, Iter Victorinum: La tradition manuscrite des œuvres de Hugues et de Richard de Saint-Victor; Répertoire complémentaire et études, avec un index cumulatif des manuscrits des œuvres de Hugues et de Richard de Saint-Victor, Speculum, 94.1 (2019), 287–88. Any scholar using Goy’s work will benefit from Sicard’s corrigenda of Goy’s manuscript references (Patrice Sicard, Iter Victorinum: La tradition manuscrite des œuvres de Hugues et de Richard de Saint-Victor; Réportoire complémentaire et études, avec un index cumulatif des manuscrits des œuvres de Hugues et de Richard de Saint-Victor, BV, 24 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 870–73). 206 Poirel, Hugues de Saint-Victor, p. 65; ‘On a déjà dit à quel point l’étude et l’intériorisation de la Bible sont au coeur de tout l’œuvre littéraire de Hugues.’

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

Hugh’s corpus, in addition to the massive collection of largely homiletic material known as the Miscellanea.207 These works can be divided into the following six categories.208 Many of Hugh’s works have circulated under more than one name, or close variations of the same name; Sicard has compiled a helpful list of all these variant names.209 Included below are rough estimates of the date of each work’s composition. I. Propaedeutic Works which Prepare for the Reading of Scripture.210 a. The Didascalicon. A ‘reader’s guide’ (by 1125) that lays out an intensive programme of secular and sacred study covering almost every conceivable subject, ‘from the humanities to the sciences, from arts to crafts’, with advice on the order and method of study.211 b. The Chronicles (Chronicon). An introductory work (between 1130–1131, and 1137) of tables and diagrams describing the fundamentals of history, intended for memorization by students at the beginning of their studies.212 c. ‘On the Three Most important circumstances of deeds’ (De tribus maximus). A preface to the Chronicon, which explains that history is best understood by memorizing three things: the persons, the places, and the times related to past events.213 II. Works Reflecting on the Method of Exegesis. a. ‘Exposition of Jerome’s Prologue’ (In prologum divi Hieronymi). A preface to Hugh’s ‘Notes on the Pentateuch’, which consists of Jerome’s Prologue to Genesis and Hugh’s interpretation of how it ought to be read. b. ‘On Sacred Scripture and its Authors’ (De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris).* Written between 1127–1130,214 this is the best description of Hugh’s actual

207 For an introduction to the content of these works, Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor. For the decisive review of their associated manuscript traditions, see Sicard, Iter Victorinum. For the earlier, groundbreaking essay dating Hugh’s corpus, see Van den Eynde, Essai sur la succession et la date, pp. 39–110. In his categorization of Hugh’s exegetical works, Poirel includes the Sententiae de divinitate as a propaedeutic work (Hugues de Saint-Victor, p. 70). For another list of exegetical works, with its own small variations, see Baron, Science et Sagesse, p. x. 208 For a current system of abbreviations, see the VTT; for alternate systems of abbreviating Hugh’s works, see Poirel, Hugues de Saint-Victor, pp. 139–40 or Van den Eynde, Essai sur la succession et la date, pp. vii–viii. 209 Sicard, Iter Victorinum, pp. 874–83. 210 For a list of Hugh’s works with available Latin editions and English translations, consult the helpful tables at the beginning of each VTT volume; note, however, that the tables in the earlier volumes list more works than in later volumes. 211 See Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor, pp. 21–37, especially p. 21. 212 See Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor, pp. 15–17. 213 See Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor, p. 15. 214 Van den Eynde argues that the Didascalicon was composed before ‘On Sacred Scripture,’ on the grounds, for example, that some points seem more clearly expressed in ‘On Sacred Scripture’ (Essai sur la succession et la date, p. 208). At the same time, the Didascalicon appears to give better renditions of the Hebrew names of the Old Testament books than does ‘On Sacred Scripture,’ suggesting a later origin for the Didascalicon.

89

90

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

exegetical practice and serves as Hugh’s general introduction to Biblical reading and exegesis, particularly literal exegesis.215 c. ‘The Diligent Examiner’ (Diligens scrutator). A shorter, apparently earlier version of ‘On Sacred Scripture’, which serves as an admonition to study numbers, proportions, dimensions, times, and the significance of numbers to better understand their use by the Scriptures circulated with a number of companion texts helpful for exegesis. ‘The Diligent Examiner’ circulated with three other texts: ‘On Weights and Measurements’ (De ponderibus et mensuris), which explains various ancient weights and measurements; ‘The Present Age’ (Prasens saeculum), which relates the events of the Old Testament to world history; and ‘The Difficulties of Sacred Scripture’ (De difficultatibus Sacrae Scripturae), which works out various chronological issues in Judith, Daniel, and Maccabees.216 III. Academic Glosses of the Literal Sense.217 a. ‘Notes on the Pentateuch’ (Annotiones in Pentateuchon, or Adnotationes Elucidatoriae). A collection of notes on the literal-historical interpretation of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.218 It exists in two series, a first covering Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus, and a second covering Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.219 Written before 1125.220 b. ‘Notes on Judges and Ruth’ (Annotiones in Iudicum et Ruth). A collection of notes (written before 1125) on the literal-historical interpretation of the books of Judges and of Ruth.221 c. ‘Notes on the Books of Kings’ (Annotiones in libros Regum). A collection of notes (written before 1125) on the literal historical-historical interpretation of the books of Kings.

215 Zinn, Jr. ‘Hugh of St Victor’s “De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris” as an Accessus Treatise,’ p. 116. See Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor, pp. 17–21. 216 See Van Liere, ‘Introduction to On Sacred Scripture’, p. 209. 217 Migne attributes commentaries on Joel (Pseudo-Hugh, Adnotaniunculae elucidatoriae in Joelem prophetam, PL 175.322–372; In Ioelem), Obadiah (Pseudo-Hugh, Expositio moralis in Abdiam, PL 175.371–406), and Nahum (In Nahum, PL 96.705–58) to Hugh, but these are spurious. See Sicard, Iter Victorinum, p. 479. 218 See Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor, pp. 52–54. 219 H. J. Pollit, ‘Some Considerations on the Structure and Sources of Hugh of St Victor’s Notes on the Octateuch’, RTAM, 33 (1966), 5–38, (pp. 8–9). 220 Baron denies the authenticity of the second series of Notes on the Pentateuch. See Roger Baron, Études sur Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris: Desclée de Bouwer, 1963), p. 266. See also Sicard, Iter Victoriunum, p. 81. 221 Vernet disputes the authenticity of the Notes on Judges, which is not included in the Indiculum; however, Pollit argues strongly for its authenticity. See F. Vernet, ‘Hugues de Saint-Victor’ in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. by Alfred Vacant, Eugène Mangenot, and Emile Anriann (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1927) and Pollit, ‘Some Considerations on the Structure and Sources of Hugh of St Victor’s Notes’, p. 9. Sicard accepts its authenticity; see Sicard, Iter Victorinum, p. 81.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

IV. Commentaries on More than the Literal and Spiritual Senses: a. ‘Exposition of Lamentations’ (Expositio super Threnos, or Super Lamentationes). A collection of notes (written between 1127–1137) on the historical-literal, allegorical, and tropological senses of the book of Lamentations; however, only the historical-literal notes may be authentic to Hugh.222 V. Homilies Expositing the Literal Sense. a. ‘Homilies on Ecclesiastes’ (Homiliae in Ecclesiasten). A lengthy work (1137–1140) of nineteen homilies about Solomon’s Book of Ecclesiastes. b. ‘On the Canticle of Mary’ (In canticum beatae Mariae or Super canticum Mariae). A commentary on Luke 1. 46–55, a common liturgical text (1130–1131 and 1137), exegeting such distinctions as what it means that Mary’s soul glorifies God, but that her spirit exalts.223 c. ‘On the Lord’s Prayer’ (De oratione dominica). A commentary (1137 and 1140) on the Lord’s prayer as found in Matthew 6. 9–13.224 VI. Spiritual Commentaries on Liturgical Texts. a. ‘On the Love of the Bridegroom towards the Bride’ (Eulogium sponsi et sponsae). A tropological exegesis (1137 and 1140225) of Song of Songs 4. 4–6, which explores the ascent of the soul to God.226 b. ‘On the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary’ (De assumption beatae Mariae). A commentary (1130–1131 and 1137) on the allegorical sense of Song of Songs 4. 7, sung on the feast of the Assumption, which relates the text to Marian doctrine.227

222 While Poirel and Smalley, among others, treat the entire work as Hugonian, more recent analysis has questioned the authenticity, if not of the entire commentary, at least of its treatment of the allegorical and tropological senses, which differ in vocabulary from Hugh and which are uncharacteristically anti-Semitic. See Moore, ‘Hugh of St Victor and the Authorship of In Threnos Ieremiae’, pp. 255–69. In Moore’s opinion, even the literal treatment may be spurious. See also Sicard, Iter Victorinum, pp. 269–71. 223 See Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor, p. 123. Rorem considers this a tropological essay, though in my judgement Poirel’s judgement that Hugh believes he is expositing the literal sense seems correct, even if the tropological implications of the work are clear. See Hugh of Saint-Victor, L’œuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor, 2: Super Canticum Mariae. Pro Assumptione Virginis. De beatae Mariae virginitate. Egredietur virga, Maria porta, ed. by Bernadette Jollés (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), pp. 24–91. 224 Included in Hugues de Saint-Victor. Six opuscules spirituels, ed. by Roger Baron, SC, 155 (Paris: Cerf, 1969), Vernet considers it inauthentic, as does Goy (Rudolf Goy, Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos von St Viktor: Ein Beitrag zur Kommunikationsgeschichte des Mittelalters, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, 14 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1976), pp. 401–04). See also Sicard, Iter Victorinum, pp. 236–40. 225 E. Ann Matter, ‘Eulogium sponsi de sponsa: Canons, Monks, and the Song of Songs’, The Thomist, 49.4 (1985), 551–74. Goy considers this work inauthentic (Goy, Die Überlieferung, pp. 268–77). See also Sicard, Iter Victorinum, pp. 219–28. 226 See Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor, p. 125. 227 See Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor, p. 124.

91

92

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

c. ‘On the Nature of Love’ (De substantia dilectionis).228 d. ‘On the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit’ (De septem donis Spiritus sancti).229 VII. Exposition on the Psalms (Expositio super Psalmos, or Miscellanea, II. 1–78). An incomplete and relatively under-studied work which offers brief comments on the psalms, not limited to the literal sense (1125 and 1130–1131). In addition to these works, there are also the Miscellanea, four volumes of material drawn from letters and sermons which, in the words of Van den Eynde, ‘form an imposing part of the Hugonian heritage’ and which contain much authentic material, including over fifty exegetical items, concentrated in the first two volumes.230 Readers should also be aware of a recent discovery of additional homiletic material attributed to Hugh, and of Sicard’s list of Hugh’s works not present in Migne’s Patrologia Latina.231

Appendix 2: An Anonymous Letter on Victorine Exegesis An anonymous letter, ‘probably written by a Victorine, which clarifies and simplifies the scheme of the Didascalicon’.232 The letter can serve as an excellent summary of Hugh’s exegetical thought and practice. In Smalley’s judgement, this letter represents an improvement upon Hugh’s exegetical doctrine because, while Hugh uses history, allegory, and tropology to refer both to modes of exegesis and the content of exegesis, this letter avoids that ‘confusing double meaning’. While by allegory Hugh either might mean the way in which the Old Testament is read for reference to Christian belief or might refer to Christian belief and doctrine itself, here it is clear that allegory refers to the method of reading scripture. This letter is an interesting testament to the early reception

228 Included in Baron’s Hugues de Saint-Victor. Six opuscules spirituels, though P. Glorieux considers it inauthentic; see P. Glorieux, Pour revalorizer Migne: Tables rectificatives (Lille: Facultés Catholiques, 1952). Goy also considers this work inauthentic (Goy, Die Überlieferung, pp. 392–99). See also Sicard, Iter Victorinum, p. 175. 229 Goy considers this work inauthentic (Goy, Die Überlieferung, pp. 399–01). See also Sicard, Iter Victorinum, p. 174. 230 Van den Eynde, Essai sur la succession et la date, pp. 210–11. Van den Eynde argues strongly that the Miscellanea are not extracts selected from Hugh’s other works, noting that they are not associated with any specific treatises in the manuscript tradition and never suggest within themselves some connection to a context of a larger work. The surprising paucity of letters and sermons attributed to Hugh is explained by the incorporation of these material into the Miscellanea. Widely divergent lists of which titles from the Miscellanea have been drawn up, from Van den Eynde, Essai sur la succession et la date, pp. 17–19 and Baron (Science et Sagesse, p. xxv), who consider most of Book I to be authentic, to Châtillon, who defends the authenticity of fewer still. See Jean Châtillon, ‘Autour des Miscellanea attribués à Hugues de Saint-Victor. Note sur la redaction brève de quelques ouvrages ou opuscules spirituels du prieur Richard’, Revue d’ascétique et de mystique, 25.98–100 (1949), pp. 299–305. Goy offers a more detailed breakdown of what he considers to be authentic within the Miscellanea (Goy, Die Überlieferung, pp. 452–57), but the definitive treatment is found in Sicard, Iter Victorinum, pp. 287–73. 231 Ralf M. W. Stammberger, ‘The Liber Sermonum Hugonis: The Discovery of a New Work by Hugh of Saint Victor’, Medieval Sermon Studies (2008), pp. 63–71. See also Sicard, Iter Victorinum, pp. 379–99. 232 Smalley, The Study of the Bible, p. 88.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

of Hugonian exegesis at St Victor. Note that while the letter is addressed to the author’s friend, Hugh, this friend is obviously not to the presumably deceased Hugh of St Victor.

An Anonymous Letter to a Friend Named Hugh, On the Manner and Order of Reading the Sacred Scriptures233 I am compelled by the bond of my promise to write you, Hugh, my dear brother in the Lord, (486F), in a compendious and somewhat mediocre style concerning the manner and the order of reading the books of the Sacred Page; that I have put it off is to be attributed to my various duties, but that I finally have written is to be attributed to your charity, which roused me from torpor. It seems best to fulfill a promise late, rather than seem to be inexorable and undutiful any longer to a petitioning friend. (487A) It is not now my intention to expound on the manner and order in which the Sacred Page is taught in the schools, but rather speaking to that which deserves attention, the manner or order, in which the Divine Word is to be read and searched through, especially for those who, taking up a new profession, are bound by the bond of obedience. But even here a distinction must be made: for there are some who have been fully immersed in the reading of both pages [i.e., sacred and secular] before their conversion [to monastic life]; but there are others who have advanced in a praiseworthy fashion only in one or the other [of the two pages] before they renounced the world, and finally (487B) there are still others who were scarcely made aware of the most rudimentary things about the grammatical arts before they shut themselves up in cloisters to fight for God. The business of the present, therefore, will be to teach by what path and by what degrees those who are wholly unlearned, and those unfamiliar with any literature at all, are able to ascend to a full understanding of the Sacred Page. In fact, let such ones as these attend closely when to others it is said, ‘You search the scriptures [because you think you have eternal life through them]’ ( John 5. 39), ‘Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with all their heart’ (Psalms 118. 2), ‘Blessed are those who meditate day and night upon the law of the Lord’ (cf. Psalms 1. 1–2), and ‘If you do not know the Scriptures or their power, you are lost’ (Matthew 22. 29). And let them trust the One who said: (487C) ‘I praise you, Father, because you have hidden these things from the wise, but have revealed them to babes’ (cf. Matthew 11. 25). With eager jaws, let them ponder [ruminentur] the divine discipline, until they become like the silver wings of a dove, against a backdrop of gold, that is, until they become doctors of the Church with the splendour of eloquence, their charity founded upon true wisdom. First, the number of books must be set [distinguatar], both of the Old and New Testaments, and their names memorized. And finally we must show what is to be read, in what order, and how. (487D) According to one reckoning, there are twenty-two

233 Anonymous, ‘Epistola anonymi ad Hugonem amicaum suum’, in Thesaurus Novus Anecdotum, ed. by Edmond Martène et Ursin Durand, vol. i (Paris, [1717]), pp. 486E–490D.

93

94

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

books in the Old Testament; but by another, there are twenty-four. These books are divided into three groups: some are books of the law, others of the prophets, and the rest are hagiographies — that is, ‘sacred writings’ simply so-called. There are five books of the Law: the book of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, the book of Numbers, and Deuteronomy. There are eight books of the prophets: Josua Benneum, the book of Judges, the book of Samuel, which is the first part of the book of Kings, and the book of Kings, which in Hebrew (487E) is called Malachim by some, Malachot by others; the book of Isaiah, the book of Jeremiah, the book of Ezechiel, and the book of the twelve Prophets, which are called Tharaasra in Hebrew. There are nine books of hagiographies: the book of Job, the Psalms, the book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, the book of Daniel, Paralippomenon, Esdras, and Ester. These five, eight, and nine will add up to twenty-two. However, to the nine hagiographies some add the book of Ruth and the book of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The books of the New Testament are (487F) only eight: the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and four others which are called apostolic writings (the book of Paul’s epistles, the canonical epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse). These books have pride of place and are the principal authority in the Church. Aside from the books listed so far, there are five others, called ‘apocryphal’ — that is, hidden and dubious — by the Hebrews, [but] which the Church honours and accepts nonetheless: (488A) the first is the book of Wisdom, the second is Ecclesiasticus, the third is Tobit, the fourth Judith, and fifth is the book of the Maccabees. Apart from all the other distinguished books above, there are the writtings of Jerome, Augustine, and others whose multitude it is superfluous to count out. Although this is the order in which the books are listed, a different sequence will appear necessary for the understanding of the aforesaid books. Now that the number of the books and their names have been given, let us now cover the order and the manner by which they should be read. (488B) It must be noted that the reading of both testaments is tripartite: first according to history, second according to allegory, and third according to moral instruction, better called ‘tropology’. First, however, read all of the Sacred Page according to history, three or four times, investigating it thoroughly; here, note carefully whatever cannot be understood according to the literal sense in any way, what is false according to a literal understanding, what according to a literal reading would sound foolish, what passages [if understood literally] would be useless or ambiguous, what passages would be an impediment (488C) to eternal life, for through such instances one is compelled to take up an allegorical understanding [of the text], even if one may be reluctant to do so. Here is the manner and the order by which the books of the Old Testament are read in the literal sense [secundum literralem]: first the books of the Law, second the book of Joshua and the book of Judges; third the book of Samuel and the book of Kings and Paralipomenon, and alongside them Josephus and Egesippus. If however in [reading] these [books] you happen upon an expression of unknown meaning, have on hand tools to facilitate your understanding so that we may not be impeded from making progress in reading; these can be found in (488D) Isidore’s Etymologies, Jerome’s On the Exposition of Hebrew Names, and the Book of Derivations, which is to

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

be found in many bookcases, and that book called either Partionarius or Glossarius, for which the older [the edition] which can be found, the more explanations of unknown expressions of speech it will be able to offer. When it comes to these unknown of expressions, the more you know about their origins, the more you will know about their meaning, so that progress in reading is easier and more intelligible [facilior et intelligibilior]. A summary of all the aforementioned must be collected and (488E) retained in the memory, [including also the following]: the works of the six days [of creation], the construction of the ark and its rooms, the promise made to Abraham, the names and number of the patriarchs, as well as of their spouses, concubines, and children; the number of years which the people of Israel were enslaved in Egypt; the number of signs and plagues; the exodus [introductione] of the people [from Egypt]; the law given and received at the mountain of Sinai; the construction of the tabernacle and its position; the twelve tribes; how they set up camp in a circle around the tabernacle; the priestly ornaments; (488F) the number and orders of the priests and Levites, and the kinds of sacrifices; the number of journeys [mansionum] and the different wars fought by the people of Israel before entering into the promised land; the cities destroyed, regained, and restored before they reached the promised land; the kings [which they] found there: who and how many there were, as well as the names and number of the [other] leaders [they encountered]; and of their deeds up until the time of the [Israelite] kings; the (489A) names, number, and order of kings, as well as their deeds (whether exceptional or egregiously base); the construction of the Temple, and the Temple’s vessels, and, finally, the number and order of its priests, Levites, and psalmists. In all of these things, Augustine’s On Questions from the Old Testament (De quaestionibus veteris testamenti) will prove very useful, even necessary. With these things diligently noted, you will be able to take up any of the books of the prophets that you wish — Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel, the twelve [minor] prophets, and Daniel — with full confidence. Note what parts of the prophecy’s (489B) literal sense have been fulfilled and what parts remain to be completed, as well as who the prophet was, and under which king he prophesied. On account of the resourcefulness of some, this is often found at the end of libraries. After these books, read Esther and Esdras, the book of the Maccabees, Judith, and Tobit. After those, [read] the Proverbs of Solomon, the book of Wisdom, and the book of Ecclesiasticus and of Ecclesiastes. Finally, read the book of Psalms, Job, and the Song of Songs; because these are not about Christ and the Church in the literal sense [ad litteram], they may be read at once.234 The books of the (489C)

234 In ancient and medieval Latin piety, these three Old Testament books were predominantly read in the allegorical sense as referring to Christ or to Christ’s relationship with the Church: The Book of Psalms was read as songs sung by the ‘whole Christ’ (totus Christus), that is, by Christ and the Church as the Body of Christ to each other; under the influence of Leo the Great, Job was read as a gentile figure referring in allegory to the innocent suffering of Christ; the Song of Songs was read as a wedding song celebrating the eschatological union of Christ and the Church. But because the references to Christ in these books is strictly allegorical, they may be included in the in one’s initial reading of the Old Testament for the purpose of studying its literal sense.

95

96

a n dr e w be n j am i n s al z m an n

New Testament should be read in this way and in this order: first Matthew; then Mark, which follows second; Luke third; John forth. In these, note diligently both the many sayings [sermonum] and miracles, as well as the what, where, and when of each and who was in the Lord’s presence when he said or did them. In this, it will be necessary for you to consult Jerome’s book describing the locations of Palestine and the book on the harmony of the four Gospels. Next you should read the Acts of the Apostles, then the catholic [canonicae] epistles and those of Paul, and, finally, the book of Apocalypse. When the whole sequence of each Testament has been (489D) examined and understood, the next step is to soak up the sacraments of the Church, which are fully covered in the books of Master Hugh;235 next, the nature of the cardinal virtues, and of the vices opposed to them, will be able to be considered, thoroughly sought out, and tracked down in every respect. If anyone wishes to know the reasons for the details which arise in church through the annual cycle [of readings], let him consult the book called Candela Gerlandi, or the book by Master Simon, which is called Quare. After that, let Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana and his De civitate Dei be read with all diligence (489E) and zeal. And when the mind has exercised itself, diligently and studiously, in the library [arca] of the sacred page in the way described above, let it turn boldly both to the allegorical and to the moral reading of scripture, broadly and in whatever order it will wish, and let it re-read the books of either the Old or the New Testaments, according to this twofold [spiritual] reading. Without much labour, it will immediately drink in whatever should happen to be signified or ought to be signified in the allegorical sense, or whatever is noted or ought to be noted in the moral sense. And in this way (489F) the mind will rejoice at its happy and delightful advance, exultantly rejoicing with new allegories to study and new moral instructions to consider. Yet let the mind be accustomed to seek out sometimes the works of Origen and of other similar authors in which it may once in a while happen upon Cerastes236 in the footpath, like an explorer. And let him learn to seek for (490A) pearls in the bed, and grapes in wild vines, and roses among the thorns, so that the dictum may be fulfilled: ‘Even if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not harm them’ (cf. Mark 16. 180). But if anybody should be disturbed either by the variety of the readings listed here, or by the multitude of works, let him attend to what Jerome says on the manner and order of reading the Sacred Page in his Epistle to Laeta on the education of her daughter: Let her first read the psalter; let her summon herself to holiness through these songs, and in the Proverbs of Solomon, let her be instructed [in rules] for living. In Ecclesiastes, (490B) let her grow accustomed to spurning the [vanities] of the world. In Job, let her attend to the examples of his patience and virtue. Let her pass on to the Gospels; never minimizing their importance [positura de minibus], let her [then] drink in the Acts of the Apostles and all the Epistles with a willing 235 This reference could refer specifically to the two books of Hugh’s De sacramentis Christianae fidei, or to a wider selection of Hugh’s works. 236 In Greek mythology, Cerastes was a fatal, horned snake.

a tr in ita r i an i n t ro d u ct i o n to h u g h o f st  vi cto r’s e xege si s

heart. Once she has enriched the storehouse [cellarium] of her heart with these precious things, let her commit to memory the Prophets, the Heptateuch and the books of Kings and Chronicles, as well as the books [volumina] of Ezra and Esther. Let her read without danger the Song of Songs in last place, but not before — for if she were to read it at the beginning [of her studies] and without understanding the spiritual marriage beneath the carnal words of the (940C) song [epithalamium], she would be wounded. Beware of all apocryphal works, and if she wants to read them, read them not as dogmatic truth, but out of reverence for the wonders [they recount]; let her know that they are not written by those to whom they are attributed, that many errors [vitiosa] have been added to them, and that searching for gold in such mud requires a mature caution [grandis prudentiae]. Let the works of Cyprian be always at hand. She may go through the letters of Athanasius and the books of Hilary without [fear of] stumbling. Let the genius of any author delight you whose books do not neglect due regard for the faith. Let her read other works in such a way that she judge them rather than to follow them. (490D) Farewell. These nourish a share which is very often pleasing to Christ. This becomes merit on the heavenly ridges of Dindymon.237

237 A possible rendering of this rather opaque sentence would read, ‘These [works] nourish a share [of the Lord’s vineyard] which is very often pleasing to Christ. This [scholarly searching] becomes merit on the heavenly ridges of Dindymon.’ Dindymon was a mountain in eastern Phrygia near Pessinus which was sacred to the goddess Cybele (or Rhea, in Greek). In imperial Rome, Cybele (or Magna Mater) was mother of Jupiter and patroness of the empire.

97

Rainer Berndt, SJ Tr anslated by Jonathan S King

The Sacraments of Christian Faith A Key Concept within Hugh of St Victor’s Doctrine

Introduction Hugh, a member of the abbey of Augustinian canons of St Victor at Paris, came from Saxony. His date of entry to St Victor cannot be determined precisely, though in light of the date of his death († 11 February 1141), it can hardly have occurred much later than around the time of the abbey’s endowment (around 1113). He is considered a student of William of Champeaux († 1121), founder of St Victor in the year 1108 and later Bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne (from 1113).1 Along with Bernard of Clairvaux († 1153), Hugh was one of the most significant figures of the twelfth century. His form of life as a canon regular points to his membership in the ecclesiastical reform movement, which applies in similar fashion to Bernard in the context of monasticism.2 Like Bernard, Hugh left behind a comprehensive written





1 See Paul Rorem, Hugh of Saint-Victor, Great Medieval Thinkers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), ch. 1, 3–14. More recently Constant J. Mews, ‘Memories of William of Champeaux. The Necrology and the Early Years of Saint-Victor’, in Legitur in necrologio victorino. Studien zum Nekrolog der Abtei Saint-Victor zu Paris, ed. by Anette Löffler together with Björn Gebert, CV, Instrumenta, 7 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2015), pp. 71–97. 2 Cf. Ursula Vones-Liebenstein, Vom Königskloster zur Kongregation, Schriftenreihe der Akademie der Augustiner-Chorherren von Windesheim, 12, (Paring: Augustiner-Chorherren, 2007); Joachim Ehlers, ‘Saint-Victor in Europa. Einzugsbereich und Wirkung der Kanonikergemeinschaft im europäischen Rahmen’, in Bibel und Exegese in der Abtei Saint-Victor zu Paris. Form und Funktion eines Grundtextes im europäischen Rahmen, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Instrumenta, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2009), pp. 17–33; Julian Führer, ‘L’abbaye de Saint-Victor dans la réforme canoniale’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris. Influence et rayonnement du moyen âge à l’époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 57–77; also Rainer Berndt, ‘The Writings of Hugh of St Victor: An Author and His Contexts’, in Ugo di San Vittore, Atti del XLVII Convegno Rainer Berndt, SJ  •  is a Professor of History of Philosophy and Medieval Theology at Frankfurt am Main, Germany and the Director of the Hugo von Sankt Victor-Institut. Jonathan S King  •  ([email protected]) is a theology teacher at Fenwick High School in Oak Park, IL. He completed his doctorate in Historical Theology at Saint Louis University, where he specialized in the early writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus, ed. by Robert J. Porwoll and David Allison Orsbon, CURSOR 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 99–121 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.122083

1 00

R a i n e r Be r n dt, S J

corpus. In contrast to Bernard, however, Hugh was no master of public address, but rather the master of ‘zeal in study’ (studia quaerendi, Didascalicon, 3. 14) in the school of St Victor. As a result of the work of this scholar, the Victorines were able to extricate themselves from the original conflict between William of Champeaux and Peter Abelard, though Hugh, throughout his life, never surrendered his theological objections to Abelard.3 The theology of Hugh of St Victor seems, so far as his fundamental perspective is concerned, to comprise a few key conceptions. Beginning with his early works — the Exposition of the Historical Books of the Old Testament, including On the Sacred Scriptures and Authors (De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris), the Chronicon, and the Didascalicon — Hugh recurs above all and continually to the distinction between the work of Creation (‘opus conditionis’) and the work of Restoration (‘opus restaurationis’).4 By means of this pair, the teacher of the Victorines captures the message of the action of God — which, in accord with the prologue to the Gospel of John ( John 1. 1–18), is from eternity continual and coherent — and presents the action of God toward humanity in recognizable terms. One can recognize this single work of God, according to human possibilities, in two modes: as creation and as restoration. These two complementary concepts may undoubtedly be regarded as the basic, theological structure of Hugh of St Victor’s doctrine. At the same time, they implicitly presuppose God’s revelation.5 Hugh designates a further key conception that builds upon this basic structure as sacrament (‘sacramentum’). The earliest evidence for it is found in his already mentioned Exposition of the Historical Books of the Old Testament, in the Didascalicon, in The Ark of Noah (De archa Noë or De triplici archa), the Sentences on Divinity (Sententie de diuinitate), and a series of other writings, finally above all in his major work On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis Christiane fidei). Already in his early Exposition of the Historical Books of the Old Testament6 and the

storico internazionale, Todi, 10–12 ottobre 2010 (Spoleto: Fondazione CISAM, 2011), pp. 1–20. See in general Giles Constable, The Reformation of the XIIth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 3 Cf. Lauge O. Nielsen, Theology and Philosophy in the Twelfth Century: A Study of Gilbert Porreta’s Thinking and the Theological Expositions of the Doctrine of Incarnation during the Period 1130–1180, Leiden: Brill, 1982), pp. 228–30; Ralf M. W. Stammberger, ‘De longe veritas videtur diversa iudicia parit. Hugh of Saint Victor and Peter Abelard’, in Pierre Abélard à l’aube des universités, ed. by Jean Jolivet and Henri Habrias (Nantes: Université de Nantes, 2001), pp. 385–412. 4 Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Notule in Pentateuchum, ed. by Rainer Berndt, in Hugonis de Sancto Victore operum Editio auspiciis Gilduini abbatis procurata et IV voluminibus digesta, novissime vero a Rainero Berndt restituta, ed. by Rainer Berndt and José Luis Narvaja, CV, Textus historici, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2017), i, 7, 19, and 23, 24; also Hugh, Cronica, ed. by Rainer Berndt, in Hugonis de Sancto Victore operum Editio auspiciis Gilduini abbatis procurata et IV voluminibus digesta, novissime vero a Rainero Berndt restituta, ed. by Rainer Berndt and José Luis Narvaja, CV, Textus historici, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2017) i, 43–164, Prologue, p. 7, 16. See Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor, ch. 3, pp. 38–55. 5 See further below, in turn of notes pp. 69–70. 6 See Hugh, In Pentateuchum, ed. by Berndt, p. 7, 19.

t h e s ac r ame nt s o f chri st i an fai t h

Sentences Hugh of St Victor formulates in full clarity the Christocentric perspective of his thought: Egimus iam de materia et distinximus eam in hec tria scilicet sacramentum incarnationis et sacramenta precedentia a principio mundi et subsequentia usque ad finem seculi. A modo ut perfecte materiam omnem diuinarum scripturarum explicemus agendum est de sacramentis et primo de sacramento incarnationis Christi quod primum et maximum et summum sacramentum est. Primum dico non tempore sed dignitate quia ipsum est quasi sacramentum sacramentorum et propter ipsum omnia alia uel precedentia uel subsequentia sunt instituta. We already have acted on the material [of this work] and have distinguished three points, i.e. the sacrament of the incarnation and the sacraments which precede since the beginning of the world and those which follow until the end of the world. From now, in order to explain perfectly the whole material of the Divine Scriptures, we are going to treat the sacraments, firstly on the sacrament of Christ’s incarnation which is the first and the greatest and the highest of all the sacraments. I call it the first not because of time, but because of dignity, since it is in some way the sacrament of sacraments and because of it all the other sacraments, those which precede as well as those which follow, have been instituted.7 With this the master of St Victor at Paris captures his effective Christology, already indicated in the above noted distinction between the works of creation and of restoration (‘opus conditionis’ and ‘opus restaurationis’), though he deepens it. The differentiation between ‘work of creation’ and ‘work of restoration’ constitutes a powerful historiographical interpretative key. But this differentiation not only facilitates the conception of a simultaneous world history (‘historia mundi’) in distinction from salvation history (‘historia salutis’),8 but rather allows the worldly and the divine to appear as subject to mediation in the first place; the two no longer need be understood as standing irreconcilably over against one another. On this basis Hugh’s understanding of sacrament succeeds in considering the radical dissimilarity of God and Creation, or Creator and Created, and in describing their relationship as being sacramental. In consideration of the fact that Hugh composed his major work De sacramentis Christiane fidei only in his later years, and in view of his total corpus, it stands beyond doubt that ‘sacramentum’ is the key which reveals in a comprehensive manner the lifelong concern of this Parisian teacher of the early twelfth century. Here naturally only an initial though synthetic perspective can be provided, in the following: first of all some of Hugh’s groundbreaking positions are addressed, in order to thereafter outline the developments



7 Hugh of Saint Victor, Sententiae de divinitate, ed. by Ambrogio Piazzoni, ‘Ugo di San Vittore, “auctor” delle “Sententie de divinitate”, Studi Medievali, 23 (1982), pp. 861–955, here 921, 291–98. See also the passage in n.6 above. 8 Hugh’s entire Cronica [sometimes titled Chronicon] is dedicated to this purpose. See now the first complete edition of it: Hugh of Saint Victor, Cronica, ed. by Berndt, pp. 18–21 and pp. 43–164. See also Franklin T. Harkins, Reading and the Work of Restoration: History and Scripture in the Theology of Hugh of St Victor, Medieval Law and Theology, 2 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieaval Studies, 2009).

101

102

R a i n e r Be r n dt, S J

in Hugh’s understanding of sacrament across the spectrum of his works. Finally, some principles which shape his sacramental salvation-historical theology are formulated.

Groundbreaking Positions Hugh of St Victor’s doctrine and writings owe much to the immediate educational, religious, and intellectual context of his time during the twilight of the eleventh century and the first half of the twelfth. Representatives of the period are Anselm of Canterbury († 1109), Berengar of Tours († 1088), and Ivo of Chartres († 1115), whose activities fell in the late years of the disputes over the reform of the Church, before the Concordat of Worms brought about an initial pacification of relations. If Anselm’s manner of framing questions ultimately always circles around the problem of true knowledge of God as knowledge of that which is utterly dissimilar from creation — which problem, for Berengar by way of example, was to lead to the difficulties of the appropriate understanding of the sacrament of the Eucharist — then Ivo, in his Prologus and in his Decretum, suggests a pioneering solution to both problems: since faith is the foundation of the Christian religion, the sacraments of faith of the Church (Baptism and Confirmation) constitute the theological locus of any knowledge of God whatsoever.9 Hugh of St Victor adopts this perspective in that he develops the conception of the Church as originary or ur-sacrament and deepens his doctrine of the understanding of faith. Ur-sacrament, the World, and Humanity in the Victorines (‘Sacramentum mundi et hominis’)

At the beginning of the fourth century the Christian author Lactantius writes in his apologetical text Divine Institutes (Divinae institutiones) that the pagans cannot name any reason why the human race should have been created or founded by God. Therefore, it is precisely the task of Christians ‘to explain the [ur-]sacrament of world and man’ (sacramentum mundi et hominis exponere). That is to say, those pagan experts can ‘neither reach nor see the sanctity of truth’ (sacrarium ueritatis nec attingere nec uidere poterunt).10 In the seventh century the English writer, the Venerable Bede highlights the Christological dimension of the salvific Revelation of God, since the Creator willed to disclose his divinity in the one who was at once

9 See Yves de Chartres, Le Prologue. Traduit, introduit et annoté par Jean Werckmeister, ed. by Jean Werckmeister, Sources canoniques, 1 (Paris: Cerf, 1997), Prologue, pp. 62–64. On Hugh’s reception of Ivo, cf. Hanns Peter Neuheuser, ‘Domus dedicanda, anima sanctificanda est. Rezeption des Ivo von Chartres und Neuprägung der hochmittelalterlichen Kirchweihtheologie durch Hugo von St Viktor’, Ecclesia orans, 18 (2001), 373–96; 19 (2002), 7–44. 10 Lactantius, Diuinae institutiones, ed. by Samuel Brandt, CSEL, 19 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1890), vii, 3, 14, pp. 590, pp. 13–17: ‘Illi enim nullam rationem adferebant cur humanum genus uel creatum uel constitutum esset a deo: nostrum hoc officium est, sacramentum mundi et hominis exponere, cuius illi expertes sacrarium ueritatis nec attingere nec uidere potuerunt.’

t h e s ac r ame nt s o f chri st i an fai t h

God and Man.11 Then in the ninth century John the Scot Eriugena, with reference to Paul’s hymn in Ephesians (Ephesians 1. 3–11), explains that the divine sacrament of the will (‘sacramentum uoluntatis’) aims only at the good of men, and asks who in faith would contradict this.12 At the beginning of the twelfth century, Rupert the abbot of Deutz deems Creation a ‘sacramentum’, because its cause (‘causa’) lies hidden in God, that is, is known to him alone.13 For Rupert, Christ finally purifies the Church too, which has been gathered for the sake of faith since the origin of the world, so that it corresponds completely to the ur-sacrament of God.14 The Victorines understood from the beginning on, and collectively, that their form of life (that is, the Rule of Augustine received by them) and their form of thought (that is, the exposition of Holy Scripture according to the scholarly conventions of their century) had been transmitted to them in words. Consequently, the canons of St Victor held the opinion that their part in the ecclesiastical reform consisted in handing on this form of life and form of thought in words, in the instruction in their school and in their preaching. Thus, the coherence between the mystery of the world as Creation, and the understanding of it that a person might have, was already perceived at St Victor since its beginning.15 The first independent instance of transmission that the Victorines accomplished in the establishment of reform under royal protection consists in their setting down in writing, and thus handing over for dissemination, after an approximately twenty-year probationary period, their form of life in the form of the Book of Order (Liber ordinis): in the manuscripts insofar as it is a text, and insofar as it is a juridical norm in a sacramental manner. The foundational act of Augustinian reception in the Abbey of St Victor consisted in selecting the Rule of Augustine (which since the eleventh century had increasingly gained esteem) as the primary text of reference for spelling out the form of life and form of thought for the blossoming abbey. The massive presence of the North African Church Father’s writings in the library of St Victor demonstrates

11 Cf.  Bede, Homeliae euangelii, ed. by David Hurst, CCSL, 122 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), pp. 2, 18, 223–25: ‘[…] ei dominus etiam diuinitatis suae patefacere sacramentum unumque et eundem filium dei et filium hominis mundi ostendere saluatorem […].’ 12 Cf. John Scotus Eriugena, De diuina praedestinatione liber, ed. by Goulven Madec, CCCM, 50 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978), pp. 11, 79–87: ‘[…] ostendens nobis sacramentum uoluntatis suae secundum bonum placitum eius, quod proposuit in eo […]. Contra istam ueritatis tam claram tubam quis homo sobriae uigilantisque fidei uoces admittat humanas?’ 13 Cf. Rupertus Tuitiensis, De gloria et honore filii hominis super Matheum, ed. by Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM, 29 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1979), pp. 13, 511–15: ‘Causa autem, cur haec omnia faceret, abscondita erat in Deo, et idcirco causa ipsa recte dicitur sacramentum, quia hoc erat in Deo absconditum, id est soli Deo cognitum, propter quid et angelos creasset, et fabricam huius mundi conderet.’ 14 Cf. Rupertus Tuitiensis, In euangelium sancti Iohannis, ed. by Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM, 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), pp. 13, 724, 502–05: ‘Etenim quicumque post horam illam qua ille uniuersam lauit ecclesiam ab origine mundi collectam ad fidem eius conuertuntur […].’ Likewise, Rupertus’ dedicatory letter to Kuno, Rupertus Tuitiensis, In euangelium sancti Iohannis, ed. by Haacke, pp. 3, 92–100. 15 See Hugh of Saint Victor, Sententiae de divinitate, ed. by Piazzoni, Prologus, pp. 921, p. 291: ‘Egimus iam de materia et distinximus eam in hec tria, scilicet sacramentum incarnationis et sacramenta precedentia a principio mundi et subsequentia usque ad finem seculi.’

103

104

R a i n e r Be r n dt, S J

the appreciation with which he was met, and both made possible the intensive study of his doctrine as well as encouraged his far-reaching reception.16 In this respect it is also unsurprising that Holy Scripture constitutes such a paramount point of reference for the thought of all Victorine authors. It is their rule of faith (regula fidei). Hugh and Richard, for example, constantly go on about the sacrament of faith (‘sacramentum fidei’) which they have received from Holy Scripture.17 The question of canonicity is also to be seen in this context, in which Hugh and Andrew famously stood in the Jeromian line that excluded the Old Testament Apocrypha.18 Richard’s position on this question has not yet been investigated in its specifics, though in any event in his Book of Selections (Liber exceptionum) he adopts the corresponding passages on the biblical canon from Hugh’s Didascalicon. Hugh’s position, amicably disposed to the hebraica veritas, that is, Jerome’s vulgate translation, is only rightly understood in light of the broader Augustinian background of all Victorine authors. The urgency with which Andrew of St Victor, for example, seeks to understand the literal sense of Holy Scripture, achieves its full significance only if we take in view the fact that in his time he stood alone in this approach. For all interpreters of Scripture took to heart Augustine’s On Christian Teaching (De doctrina christiana), The City of God (De civitate Dei), and On the Trinity (De trinitate), which in the long run led to the spiritualization of the history of man and to an evacuation of the understanding of creation as the sacrament of the world (‘sacramentum mundi’). The conflict between Richard and Andrew regarding the exegesis of Isaiah 7. 14, which permeates Richard’s work On Emmanuel (De Emmanuele), was thus also ignited only superficially by the question of whether and in what measure Jewish interpretations of the Christian page may be received. Rather, what is at stake for Richard in the second book of De Emmanuele is actually the place of the history of men, when they interpret Scripture in order to understand the ‘sacramentum mundi’.19 A further aspect of Victorine theology of the sacraments is its canonical interpretation of Scripture. In accord with the Apostle Paul (cf. Philippians 3. 8 ‘For the sake of 16 See Rainer Berndt, ‘Scriptura sacra magistra fidei. Zur Augustinus-Rezeption und der Einführung der vita regularis in Sankt Viktor zu Paris’, in Regula Sancti Augustini. Normative Grundlage differenter Verbände im Mittelalter, ed. by Gert Melville and Anne Müller, Publikationen der Akademie der AugustinerChorherren von Windesheim, 3 (Paring: n. pub., 2002), pp. 105–25, at pp. 106–09. See also Dominique Poirel, ‘Alter Augustinus - der zweite Augustinus. Hugo von Sankt Viktor und die Väter der Kirche’, in Väter der Kirche. Ekklesiales Denken von den Anfängen bis in die Neuzeit, Festgabe für Hermann Josef Sieben SJ zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. by Johannes Arnold, Rainer Berndt, and Ralf M. W. Stammberger together with Christine Feld, (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2004), pp. 643–68. 17 Cf. Rainer Berndt, ‘Hugo von St Victor. Theologie als Schriftauslegung’, in Theologen des Mittelalters. Eine Einführung, ed. by Ulrich Köpf (Darmstadt: n. pub., 2002), pp. 96–112. See also Rainer Berndt, ‘Exegese des Alten Testaments. Die Grundstruktur christlicher Theologie bei den Viktorinern’, in Bibel und Exegese in Saint-Victor zu Paris. Form und Funktion eines Grundtextes im europäischen Rahmen, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Instrumenta, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2009), pp. 423–42. 18 See Berndt, ‘Gehören die Kirchenväter’, and Rainer Berndt, André de Saint-Victor (+ 1175). Exégète et théologien, BV, 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991). 19 Richard of Saint Victor, De Emmanuele, ii. Prologus, col. 633D (PL 196.601–66): ‘Neminem vero conturbet si unum eumdemque Scripturae locum videat me aliter et aliter exponere, cum sciat apud Scripturae sacrae expositores hoc frequens esse et celebre. Nam datam illam superius de

t h e s ac r ame nt s o f chri st i an fai t h

Christ I regard all as rubbish’), Christians since Augustine indeed interpret the Holy Scriptures ‘for the sake of Christ’ (propter quem): Christ is the center of scripture, he is its foundation and its goal.20 Jerome expresses the same notion, even if with a slightly different accent: ‘[…] Ignoratio scripturarum, ignoratio Christi est’, he writes in the foreword of his commentary on Isaiah, that is, ‘ignorance of Holy Scripture is ignorance of Christ’.21 Gregory the Great later expanded upon the anthropological dimension: ‘Diuina eloquia crescunt cum legente’. Holy Scripture grows according to the measure of him who interprets it. He who is understood and spoken of enters into a most intimate bond with him who understands and speaks thereof.22 In the twelfth century the Victorines implemented this objective of the early Church in their own manner. The Rule of Augustine intended to make possible the ‘apostolic life’ (vita apostolica) for clerics under their own superior. In the formulation of the Book of Order the Victorines now discovered a communal life which essentially realized itself in the divine office (diuina officia) and in the interpretation of the sacred scriptures (diuina eloquia). According to Hugh, the Victorine liturgy consisted in this: Cum igitur diuinos libros legimus, in tanta multitudine uerorum intellectuum, qui de paucis eruuntur uerbis, et sanitate catholice fidei muniuntur, id potissimum diligamus, quod certum apparuerit eum sensisse quem legimus. When we read the divine books in such a multitude of true understandings that are drawn from just a few words and are fortified by the soundness of the catholic faith, let us above all select the one that appears for certain that the author whom we are reading thought.23 duobus regibus sententiam volui primo ponere, eo quod videatur magnorum quorumdam virorum expositioni magis accedere. Ad ultimum autem illam ponere placuit, ad quam animus meus amplius accedit. Lectoris autem judicio relinquitur eligere quod rectius judicaverit.’ 20 See Rainer Berndt, ‘Scientia und disciplina in der lateinischen Bibel und in der Exegese des hohen Mittelalters’, in “Scientia” und “disciplina”. Wissenstheorie und Wissenschaftspraxis im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, ed. by Rainer Berndt, Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, and Ralf M. W. Stammberger, together with Alexander Fidora and Andreas Niederberger, Erudiri Sapientia, 3 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2002), pp. 9–36, especially p. 25. 21 Jerome, Commentariorum in Esaiam libri 1–11, ed. by Marcus Adriaen, CCSL, 73 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1963), Prologus, pp. 1, 10–13: ‘Si enim iuxta apostolum Paulum Christus Dei uirtus est Deique sapientia; et qui nescit scripturas, nescit Dei uirtutem eiusque sapientiam, ignoratio scripturarum, ignoratio Christi est.’ See recently Patrice Sicard, Théologies victorines. Études d’histoire doctrinale médiévale et contemporaine (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2008), IV. 22 See Rainer Berndt, ‘Vernunft des Heils Die Rationalität der Geschichte in theologischen Summen des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts’, in Vernünftig - Ansätze gegenwärtiger Religionsphilosophie. 75 Jahre Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen Frankfurt am Main, ed. by Rainer Berndt Religion in der Moderne, 12 (Würzburg: Echter, 2003), pp. 231–62, particularly pp. 239–43. 23 Hugh of Saint Victor, Didascalicon de studio legendi, ed. by José Luis Narvaja, in Hugonis de Sancto Victore operum Editio auspiciis Gilduini abbatis procurata et IV voluminibus digesta, novissime vero a Rainero Berndt restituta, ed. by Rainer Berndt and José Luis Narvaja, CV, Textus historici, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2017) i, 331–30. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon: Hugonis de Sancto Victore Didascalicon de studio legendi, ed. by Charles H. Buttimer, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin, 10 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1939), 6. 11, p. 98, 13–16. Cf. Augustine of Hippo, Sancti Aureli Augustini De Genesi ad litteram, ed. by Iosephus Zycha, CSEL 28.1 (Wien: Tempsky,1894), I.21, pp. 3–435.

105

1 06

R a i n e r Be r n dt, S J

The Understanding of Faith (‘intellectus fidei’)

The Victorine concern for the understanding of faith is kindred to the Anselmian call for the understanding of faith (intellectus fidei). With both, a common point of reference shines forth. Augustine in effect laid the essential tracks for philosophical theology in the Middle Ages, which was counterbalanced first only in the thirteenth century over the course of the reception of the Latin Aristotle and of his Latinized Arab commentators.24 The undoubted priority of faith over understanding,25 just as much as the rule of faith for the truth of what is known,26 are fundamentally Augustinian positions that the Victorines adopted. With the help of the different senses of scripture, Letter — Allegory — Tropology (‘littera — allegoria — tropologia’), new insights open themselves to the reader of Holy Scripture. For Hugh, the plurality of senses enables a successive penetration into a deeper understanding of biblical history and is intrinsic (proprium) to the Christian re-reading (relecture) of the Old Testament.27 The reader himself must strive after this variety in the levels of meaning: Magnae sunt in scripturis sacris spiritalium sensuum profunditates; Sed quia non omnibus eadem intelligendi gratia data est habet sacrum eloquium quedam in se quibus fidem simplicium pascit. Que quidem altioribus iuncta unam veritatis regulam perficiunt. Propterea in sacri eloquii tractatione non eadem dicendi forma ubique servanda est quia altiora fidei sacramenta excellentiori sermone et digno sanctis reverenter tractanda sunt. Minor autem sacramentorum divinorum instrumenta pro capacitate simplicium humiliori locutionis genere explananda. The depths of spiritual meaning in the Sacred Scriptures are great but, since the same grace of understanding has not been given to all, Sacred 24 Among the wealth of literature not to be ignored, see Ulrich Köpf and Dieter R. Bauer, eds, Kulturkontakte und Rezeptionsvorgänge in der Theologie des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts, Archa Verbi, Subsidia, 8 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2011) (in particular the contributions by Rolf Darge and Mechthild Dreyer). Cf. Theo Kobusch, Die Philosophie des Hoch- und Spätmittelalters (Munich: Beck, 2011). 25 Augustine of Hippo, ‘Sermon 139’, in Sermones, col. 770A (PL 38): ‘Fides enim debet praecedere intellectum, ut sit intellectus fidei praemium’; Augustine of Hippo, In Iohannis euangelium tractatus, ed. by Radbous Willems, CCSL, 36 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954), 29. 6, pp. 16–18: ‘Intellectus enim merces est fidei. Ergo noli quaerere intellegere ut credas, sed crede ut intellegas; quoniam nisi credideritis non intellegetis.’ 26 Augustine of Hippo, In Psalmos, in Enarrationes in Psalmos, ed. by Eligius Dekkers and Iohannes Fraipont, CCSL, 38–40, 3 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 1956), vol. 39, ‘Sermon 74’, section 12, 20, p. 1033: ‘Quicumque tamen intellectus exierit, opus est ut regulae fidei congruat; nec maioribus inuidemus, nec paruuli desperamus’; Augustine of Hippo, Sermo 126, ed. by Cyril Lambot, ‘Le sermon CXXVI de saint Augustin sur le thème foi et intelligence et sur la vision du verbe’, Revue Bénédictine, 69 (1959), 177–90 (pp. 183, 1–3): ‘Arcana et secreta regni dei prius quaerunt credentes, quas faciant intellegentes. Fides enim gradus est intelligendi: intellectus autem meritum fidei.’ 27 Cf. Rainer Berndt, ‘The School of St Victor in Paris’, in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation. I/Part 2: The Middle Ages, ed. by Magne Sæbø, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), pp. 467–95. See also Berndt, ‘Exegese des Alten Testaments’.

t h e s ac r ame nt s o f chri st i an fai t h

Writ has certain things within itself by which it feeds the faith of the simple minded, and these indeed joined with the higher things form one rule of truth. Therefore, in the treatment of Sacred Writ the same form of expression must not be kept everywhere, since the higher sacraments of faith must be treated reverently with a higher diction and a diction worthy of sacred things, but the lower instruments of the divine sacraments must be explained according to the capacity of the simple minded in a minor kind of expression.28 Hugh binds the power of faith to the source from which it originates. The more deeply one understands Holy Scripture, the more faith is profound. Within the scope of this spectrum there are several characteristics to be observed among the Victorines individually. Andrew, for example, coming from the second generation, had an intellectualistic accent29 that primarily shaped his Old Testament exegesis, which was specifically aimed at tracing out the meaning of the text.30 In doing so, in his commentary on Daniel, Andrew also laid importance on understanding Daniel’s ‘visions’.31 Yet he can just as easily allow for the elucidation of how the human power of understanding could enable one to grasp theological statements.32 In Hugh’s treatise on faith by contrast, his doctrine of growth in faith stands out. In conjunction with a dynamic understanding of time, which conceives the three phases of salvation history — before the law, under the law, the time of grace (ante legem, sub lege, tempus gratie) — not only as a succession, but rather as simultaneous in the course of history.33 Hugh essentially sketches out a Christian doctrine of society, the measure of which is individual growth in faith. Hugh’s insight that the times change, while faith grows, rests upon his profound knowledge of Western philosophy and

28 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, II, Prefatiuncula, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Textus historici, 1 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008), p. 271, 2–9. Translation from Roy Deferrari: On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis), trans. by Roy J. Deferrari (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, [1951]). p. 205. 29 For example, Andrew of Saint-Victor, Expositio Super Heptateuchum, ed. by Charles H. Lohr and Rainer Berndt, CCCM, 53 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), In Genesim, p. 181: ‘Quia apud Deum purus est intellectus sine strepitu linguae.’ 30 Among countless examples, cf. Andrew of Saint-Victor, Expositio hystorica in librum Regum, ed. by Frans van Liere, CCCM, 53A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), In Regum 1, 2, 634: ‘Potest simpliciter secundum quod littera sonare uidetur intelligi quod magna pars domus Heli naturali et non extrinsecus uiolenter illata morte in ea etate mortua ist.’ 31 See Andrew of Saint-Victor, Expositio super Danielem, ed. by Mark Zier, CCCM 53F (Turnhout: Brepols, 1990), pp. 2, 10, 17: ‘Ideo dixit quod sermonem intellexit quia uisionem uidenti opus est intelligentia; frustra namque uisionem uidet qui eam non intelligit.’ 32 Cf. Andrew of Saint-Victor, Expositio super Heptateuchum, ed. by Lohr, In Genesim, 516: ‘Sed intelligendum est, aut Deum his uerbis omnino usum non fuisse, sed a scriptore propter supradictam causam posita fuisse, aut, si forte usus est, personarum pluralitatem et deitatis unitatem his uerbis insinuare uoluisse.’ 33 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, I.10, ed. by Berndt.

107

1 08

R a i n e r Be r n dt, S J

upon a pragmatic pedagogy. He accordingly clothes his theological epistemology in the maxim: ‘Experience is the teacher of knowledge’.34 The typically Hugonian form of salvation-historical thought therefore stands within the broader context of Victorine efforts to recognize the order of salvation in creation. The salvific action of the Church in the sacraments provides the faithful with an authentic locus for the knowledge of God, which the faithful can make fully fruitful for themselves when growth in faith is accompanied by progress in knowledge. The sacraments of the Church or sacraments of redemption (sacramenta Ecclesiae or sacramenta redemptionis) moreover strengthen the efficacy of the sacrament (uirtus sacramenti) in the faithful, by virtue of which they can lead a morally responsible life.35

The Shape of Hugh of St Victor’s Theology The theological form of the Victorine master, as emanating from what is for him, the obviously central understanding of sacrament, distinguishes itself by means of a comprehensive concept of the Church in conjunction with, secondly, a theology of time and space. Ecclesiology

Hugh’s writings on the Ark (De archa Noë or De triplici archa) display, insofar as they interpret the biblical narrative from the book of Genesis, a Christocentric image of the history of man in the light of faith in Christ. For the Victorine, the Church is the space both of history and of the salvation effected by Christ. From the inmost unification of Christ with the Church on the cross arise all subsequent sacraments which are available to man as loci of salvation: ‘Then the Ark was built, when from 34 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ed. by Dominique Poirel, in Hugonis de Sancto Victore Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ed. by Dominique Poirel CCCM, 178 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), p. 7, p. 592, pp. 744–48: ‘Non enim perfectum facit cognitio ueritatis, nisi habitus uirtutis subsequatur. Iccirco ‚lucidissimam doctrinam’ uocat, quae in habitu uirtutis constat, quia magistra intelligendi experientia est, et ille optime ueritatem nouit qui eam non audiendo solum sed et gustando et faciendo didicit.’ Walter of St Victor later took up this notion. See Galterus a Sancto Victore, Galteri a Sancto Victore Sermones, ed. by Jean Châtillon, CCCM, 36 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976), Sermo XIV, pp. 167–71, p. 127: ‘Licet itaque totam uim dilectionis uerbis ostendere non simus idonei, aliquos tamen ramos opportet nos tangere uel potius frangere et in uia communis aedificationis sternere, et haec quidem uirtus melius addiscitur experientia quam doctrina, quia magistra intelligendi est ipsa experientia, et lucidius docemur gustando et experiendo quam audiendo uel loquendo.’ 35 See, for example, Richard of Saint-Victor, Nonnullae allegoriae tabernaculi foederis, pp. 191–202, col. 200C (PL 196.191–202): ‘Ad horum mensuram allegorica doctrina se format, cum eorum dictis per omnia concordat. Notandum quod ipsi labio corona fieri praecipitur, quoniam ex sacramentorum virtute morum disciplina utilis et observabilis redditur.’ See most recently Fabrizio Mandreoli, ‘La virtus della fede nel De sacramentis Christiane fidei’, in “Fides virtus”: The Virtue of Faith from the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century, ed. by Marco Forlivesi, Riccardo Quinto, and Silvana Vecchio, Archa Verbi Subsidia, 12 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2014), pp. 151–82.

t h e s ac r ame nt s o f chri st i an fai t h

the side of Christ hanging on the cross in blood and water all the sacraments of the church flowed forth’.36 This Ark of Noah, which is the Church, contains in itself all that man seeks.37 But not only that: Ibi uniuersa opera restaurationis nostre¸ a principio mundi usque ad finem plenissime continentur. & status uniuersalis ecclesie figuratur. Ibi historia rerum gestarum texitur. ibi mysteria sacramentorum inueniuntur. In this Ark, all of the works of our restoration, from the beginning of the world until its end, are contained completely. And this signifies the status of the Church. Therein history has been weaved, therein sacramental salvation is to be found.38 Later Hugh explains himself, regarding the ecclesiological intentions which he nourished with the Sacraments, as follows in the Preface to Book Two: Sicut enim sancta electorum ecclesia morum bonorum ac virtutum varietate pulcre adornatur ita sacra scriptura unde ipsa ecclesia sancta vivendi formam sumit in suo sermone pulcra varietate contexitur in qua tamen varietas ipsa apta est ut scisma non generet et diversitas concors ut adversitatem non pariat. … Nemo igitur miretur si post magna et inter magna fidei sacramenta eorum que in suo ordine inferiora videntur mentio fit. Quare non se abhorrent simul que in veritate unum sunt. Nam ipse deus humiliari dignatus est ad humana descendens ut hominem postmodum ad divina sublevaret. For, just as the Holy Church of the elect is adorned beautifully with a variety of good morals and virtues, so Sacred Scripture, whence Holy Church herself takes the form of living, is interwoven in its diction with beautiful variety. In this, however, variety is itself apt, that it may not generate schism and diversity, concordant that it may not produce adversity. … Therefore let no one wonder if after the great, and in the midst of the great sacraments of faith, mention is made of those things which in their own order seem inferior, since things that are one in truth are not at all abhorrent to each other. For God himself deigned to be humbled, descending to human things, that afterwards He might raise up to the divine.39

36 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, De triplici archa, ed. by José Luis Narvaja, Hugonis de Sancto Victore operum Editio auspiciis Gilduini abbatis procurata et IV voluminibus digesta, novissime vero a Rainero Berndt restituta, ed. by Rainer Berndt and José Luis Narvaja, CV, Textus historici, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2017), i, 291, 27: ‘Tunc namque fabricata est archa; quando de latere Christi in cruce pendentis in sanguine et aqua profluxerunt ecclesie sacramenta.’ 37 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, De triplici archa, i. 607–85, ed. by Narvaja, pp. 354, 29– 355, 1: ‘Hec arca similis est. apothece omnium deliciarum uarietate referte. Nichil in ea quesieris quod non inuenias. et cum unum inueneris; multa tibi patefacta uidebis.’ 38 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De triplici archa, ed. by Narvaja, p. 355, 1–4. 39 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, ii. Prefatiuncula, ed. by Berndt, p. 271, 9–13, pp. 15–18; Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 205.

109

110

R a i n e r Be r n dt, S J

The form of life of the Church reflects the sacramental relationship of God with the people; indeed, the Church itself is the sacrament of this relationship (‘Deus humiliari dignatus est ad humana descendens’). The task accrues to the Church as the authentic ‘sacrament of faith’ (sacramentum fidei) to approximate, in its form of life (‘forma uiuendi’), that which is received in the many sacraments (‘Ecclesia morum bonorum ac uirtutum uarietate pulchre adornatur’). The Church is the sign par excellence of the age of grace (‘tempus gratie’). The Irruption of the Eternal into Time

According to Hugh, the action of God leading to creation (the ‘work of creation’) provides the creature with loci in which ‘by signification’ the encounter with the creator is possible and effectively takes place: D[iscipulus]. Quare dicitur sacramentum sacre rei signum? M. Quia per id quod foris uisibile cernitur aliud interius inuisibile significatur. Verbi gratia ut per aquam remissio peccatorum per ignem ardor charitatis per oleum misericordia per salem sapientia et cetera. … D. Ergo in omni sacramento plus esse credendum est quam id quod solum uideri et corporali sensu percipi potest? M. Duo ibi sunt unum quod exterius sensu corporali percipimus quod proprie sacramentum id est sacre rei signum dicitur alterum quod non uidemus sed credimus quod recte res siue uirtus sacramenti nominatur. D. Quid interest inter signum et sacramentum? M. Signum solum ex institutione significat sacramentum etiam ex similitudine representat. Item signum rem significare potest non confere. In sacramento autem non sola significatio est sed etiam efficacia ut uidelicet simul et ex institutione significat et ex similitudine representet et conferat ex sanctificatione. Student: Why is a sacrament called a sign of a sacred thing? M[aster]: Because some inner invisible thing is signified by what is outwardly seen visibly. For example, the remission of sins [is signified] by water, the flame of love by fire, mercy by the oil, wisdom by the salt, and so on. … S: Therefore, is it more to be believed than only what can be seen and perceived by bodily sense in every sacrament? M: There are two there: one that we perceive externally by bodily sense, which is properly the sacrament, what is called a sign of a sacred thing; the other is what we do not see but we believe that it is rightly named the thing (res) or power of the sacrament. S: What is the difference between sign and sacrament?

t h e s ac r ame nt s o f chri st i an fai t h

M: The sign signifies only on account of its institution; the sacrament also represents by reason of similitude. Likewise, the sign can signify the thing (rem), not confer it. But in a sacrament, there is not only signification but also efficacy, as may be seen from the fact that at one and the same time it signifies from its institution, represents from similitude, and bestows from sanctification.40 Under ‘sacramenta’ Hugh accordingly understands things and signs (‘res et signa’) which stand at the disposal of the creature within the factual course of human history. To be sure, these do not immediately alter the universal course of history, but interweave it individually and radically: For from the time when man, having fallen from the state of first incorruption, began to ail in body through mortality and in soul through iniquity, God at once prepared a remedy in His sacraments […] diverse, indeed, in species yet having the one effect and producing the one health. If anyone, therefore, seeks the time of the institution of the sacraments, let him know that as long as there is sickness, there is a time for remedy. The present life, therefore, running from the beginning of the world even to the end through mortality is a time of sickness and a time of remedy. In this life itself and on account of it were the sacraments instituted, […].41 Hugh thus neither can nor needs to further distinguish between human history and salvation history, when his three above-mentioned salvation-historical epochs already do so anyway. For every age has its own and specific sacramental things; for Hugh no moment of time is separate from God’s work.42 The sacramental event is always in its totality located in the beforehand and the thereafter of time: Tria enim sunt tempora per que presentis seculi spacium decurrit. Primum est tempus naturalis legis, secundum tempus scripte legis, tercium tempus gratie. Primum est tempus ab Adam usque ad Moysen. Secundum a Moyse ad Christum. Tercium a Christo, usque ad finem seculi. Similiter tria sunt genera hominum id est homines naturalis legis, homines scripte legis, homines gratie […] Ista tria genera hominum ab inicio nunquam ullo tempore defuerunt. For there are three periods of time throughout which the space of this world runs. The first is the period of the natural law, the second the period of the written law, the third the period of grace. The first is from Adam even unto Moses, the second from Moses even unto Christ, the third from

40 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei, pp. 17–42, col. 34AD (PL 176.173–618). 41 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. 8, ed. by Berndt, p. 204, 13–25; Hugh of SaintVictor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 150. 42 On the question of the correct ‘usage’ of time in Hugh’s thought, see most recently Ineke Van’t Spijker, ‘Tempus longum … locus asper: Chiaroscuro in Hugh of Saint-Victor’, in How the West was Won: Essays on Literary Imagination, ed. by Willemien Otten and A. Vanderjagt (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 377–91.

111

112

R a i n e r Be r n dt, S J

Christ even unto the end of the world. Similarly, there are three kinds of men, that is men of the natural law, men of the written law, men of grace. […] These three kinds of men have never been wanting at any time from the beginning.43 The salvation and restoration (‘restauratio’) of man, of the individual as well as of social systems, ensues from the incarnate God on the cross. Since then the actual, registrable progress in faith of the individual is synonymous with the fact that a future vision of God (‘futura contemplatio’) has become humanly possible: Fides est sacramentum future contemplationis, et in ipsa contemplatio res et virtus sacramenti, et accipimus nunc interim sacramentum sanctificandi, ut perfecti sanctificati ipsam rem capere possimus. Si ergo summum bonum hominis contemplatio creatoris sui merito creditur, non inconvenienter fides per quam absentem quodammodo videre incipit, inicium boni et principium restaurationis eius memoratur. Que videlicet restauratio secundum incrementa fidei crescit dum homo et per agnitionem amplius illuminatur, ut plenius agnoscat, et inflammatur per dilectionem ut ardentius diligat. Faith, then, is the sacrament of future contemplation, and in contemplation is the thing and the virtue of the sacrament, and we now receive meanwhile the sacrament of sanctification that sanctified perfectly we may be able to take the thing itself. If, then, the highest good is rightly believed to be man’s contemplation of his Creator, not unfittingly is faith, through which he begins in some manner to see the absent, said to be the beginning of good and the first step of restoration; this restoration, indeed, increases according to increases of faith, while man is enlightened more through knowledge that he may know more fully, and is inflamed with love that he may love more ardently.44 Faith takes place in the individual history of a person, so that the person is individually renewed, in consequence, the progress in the faith of the entire Church is also effected.

Hugh’s Doctrine of the Sacraments The essential components of Hugh’s doctrine of the sacraments may be grasped under the headings of his specific interpretation of scripture in conjunction with his markedly salvation-historical language.

43 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. 8, ed. by Berndt, p. 203, 2–18; Hugh of SaintVictor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 149. 44 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. 10, ed. by Berndt, p. 242, 9–16; Hugh of SaintVictor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 181.

t h e s ac r ame nt s o f chri st i an fai t h

Theological Exegesis

At the beginning of his summa Sacraments of the Christian Faith, Hugh distinguishes the ‘first instruction in Holy Scripture’, which consists of the ‘historical reading’ and to which he had already dedicated a separate comprehensive work, from this new work which is the ‘second instruction’, and which carries out the ‘allegorical reading’.45 With this the master of Saint-Victor himself, at the highpoint of his accomplishments, set an intellectual framework for his theology. For beginning with the Didascalicon, the philosophical-theological early work (which emerged during the decade of the 1120s), there spans for him a single theological arc, via the Chronicon, the above-mentioned ‘historical reading’, up to his theological summa Sacraments, which originated during his last decade of life. With regard to the possibilities for the formation of human life, Hugh similarly blazes a trail which leads from The Formation of Novices (De institutione nouitiorum) up to the Homilies on Ecclesiastes (Homiliae in Ecclesiasten).46 All of his writings blend into this twofold theological and ethical context: both those of the ‘student of the arts’ (lector artium) as well as those of the ‘student of the divine word’ (lector divinus). The structure of knowledge developed in the Didascalicon orders the knowledge that is available in the artes altogether toward the appropriate understanding of Holy Scripture. Toward the end of this ‘cartography of knowledge’ — to take up a concept coined by Luce Giard47 — Hugh expresses a very anxious recommendation: ‘Learn everything; later you will see that nothing is superfluous’.48 This statement should not be read as an invitation to undifferentiated accumulation of knowledge. Rather

45 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. Prologus, ed. by Berndt, p. 31, 1–5; Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 3: ‘Cum igitur de prima erudicione sacrii eloquii que in historica constat lectione compendiosum volumen prius dictassem hoc nunc ad secundam eruditionem que in allegoria est, introducendis preparavi in quo quasi fundamento quodam cognitionis fidei animum stabiliant, ut cetera que vel legendo, vel audiendo superedificare potuerint inconcussa permaneant.’ ‘Since, therefore, I previously composed a compendium on the initial instruction in Holy Scripture, which consists in their historical reading, I have prepared the present work for those who are to be introduced to the second stage of instruction, which is in allegory. By this work they may firmly establish their minds on that foundation, so to speak, of the knowledge of faith, so that such other things as may be added to the structure by reading or hearing may remain unshaken.’ 46 On this see the enlightening study from C. Stephen Jaeger, ‘Humanism and Ethics at the School of St Victor in the Early Twelfth Century’, Mediaeval Studies, 55 (1993), 51–79. See also stimulating reflections in Jean-Claude Schmitt, Die Logik der Gesten im europäischen Mittelalter (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1992). The strong manuscript tradition of De institutione noutiorum (the database of our institute catalogues some 210 textual witnesses, for the Didascalicon however only around 180) is an index of the high esteem of the work in the Middle Ages. For the moment however, one is left merely to assume that the key function of the text was evident to Medieval readers. Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, In Salomonis Homiliae XIX in Ecclesiasten, pp. 113–56 (PL 175.113–256). 47 See Luce Giard, ‘Hugues de Saint-Victor: cartographe du savoir’, in L’abbaye parisienne de Saint-Victor au moyen âge, ed. by Jean Longère, BV, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991), pp. 253–69. 48 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6, 3, ed. by Narvaja, p. 415, 30: ‘Omnia disce uidebis postea nihil esse superfluum.’

113

114

R a i n e r Be r n dt, S J

Hugh wants to emphasize that science and knowledge are open. They can each develop their own dynamics in accord with ever deeper understanding, so far as in doing so they are directed toward the interpretation of Holy Scripture. For only such a science, as Master Hugh knows, makes one happy, since it brings with it all of the prerequisites for its perfection in ‘meditation’.49 Without wishing to force the various literary genres of the Victorine’s writings into a schema, nevertheless they may be understood throughout as biblical interpretation. One can attribute all of his writings to the phases of his preferred triad of ‘letter/history–allegory–tropology’.50 This perspective appears unproblematic on the one hand for the commentaries on the historical books, the Lamentations, and the Psalms perhaps, and on the other hand for The Ark of Noah (De archa Noë), the Homilies (Homiliae in Ecclesiasten), and the commentary on the celestial hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius. Only upon further examination does one recognize, above all in The Vanity of the World (De uanitate mundi) and the so-called spiritual writings, a tropological exegesis which sought to elicit51 from

49 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 3, 10, ed. by Narvaja, p. 375, 8–16: ‘Meditatio est cogitatio frequens cum consilio. que¸ causam & originem modum & utilitatem uniuscuiusque rei prudenter inuestigat. Meditatio principium sumit a lectione. - nullis tamen stringitur regulis. aut preceptis lectionis. Delectatur enim quodam aperto decurrere spacio. ubi liberam contemplande ueritati aciem affigat. & nunc has nunc illas rerum causas perstringere. nunc autem profunda queque penetrare. nichil anceps. nichil obscurum relinquere. Principium ergo doctrine est in lectione. consummatio in meditatione. Quam si quis familiarius amare didicerit. eique sepius uacare uoluerit. iocundam ualde reddit uitam & maximam in tribulatione prestat consolationem.’ Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6,13, ed. by Narvaja, p. 375, 20–25. On this see Ralf M. W. Stammberger, ‘Via ad ipsum sunt scientia, disciplina, bonitas. Theorie und Praxis der Bildung in Sankt Viktor im zwölften Jahrhundert’, in “Scientia” und “disciplina”. Wissenstheorie und Wissenschaftspraxis im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, ed. by Rainer Berndt, Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, and Ralf M. W. Stammberger, together with Alexander Fidora und Andreas Niederberger, Erudiri Sapientia, 3 (Berlin: Akademie, 2002), pp. 91–126. 50 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, Prologus Cronicorum in Cronica, ed. by Berndt, pp. 43–164, at p. 6, 15–23: ‘Diuinarum scripturarum expositio omnis secundum triplicem sensum tractatur. hystoriam. allegoriam. Et tropologiam. Id est moralitatem. Hystoria est rerum gestarum narratio. Per primam littere significationem expressa. Allegoria est cum per factum historie quod in sensu littere inuenitur. Aliud siue preteriti. Siue presentis. Siue futuri temporis factum innuitur. Tropologia est cum in eo quod factum audiuimus quid nobis sit faciendum agnoscimus. Vnde etiam recte tropologia. Id est. Sermo conuersus. Siue loquutio replicata nomen accepit. Quare nimirum aliene narrationis sermonem ad nostram tunc eruditionem conuertimus; cum facta aliorum legendo ea nobis ad exemplum uiuendi conformamus.’ Incidentally Henri de Lubac has convincingly and impressively illustrated Hugh’s role in the history of the scriptural senses in Exégèse médiévale. Les quatre sens de l’Écriture, Volumes 1–4, (Paris: Aubier, 1959–1964), i.1, 146–57, as well as in the long chapter in ii.1, 287–59. 51 In the prologue of the Didascalicon (ed. by Narvaja, p. 4, 9–10), Hugh announces his chief interest: ‘deinde docet qualiter legere debeat sacram scripturam is qui in ea correctionem morum suorum & formam uiuendi querit.’ Cf. also Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 5, 6, pp. 79, pp. 19–22: ‘Geminus est diuine¸ lectionis fructus. quia mentem uel scientia erudit. uel moribus ornat. Docet quod scire delectet. & quod imitari expediat. Quorum alterum. id est. scientia magis ad hystoriam & allegoriam. alterum. id est. instructio morum ad tropologiam magis respicit.’

t h e s ac r ame nt s o f chri st i an fai t h

the Bible the ‘institution and form of correct life’ (ad institutionem & formam recte vivendi).52 The points of reference for Hugh’s theological (i.e. oriented toward a superordinately theological total project) exegesis do not lie solely in the Bible in the strict textual sense. A broad understanding of inspiration and canon, which he incidentally shared with his contemporaries,53 enable Hugh to have a similarly broad theology, fundamentally derived from Scripture. He comments upon the books of the Old Testament and the writings of the Church. In the commentary on the Magnificat for example and in the On the Love of the Bridegroom for the Bridge (Eulogium sponsi et sponse), a commentary on the Song of Songs, 4. 6–8, he lays the basis for the common liturgical expressions of the corresponding biblical texts in the Abbey of St Victor.54 Among other Church Fathers, Pseudo-Dionysius also counts for him as an authentic writer of the new covenant.55 With the Chronicon, which arose at the beginning of the 1130s, Hugh presented according to his own words the ‘foundation of the foundation’ in exegesis, namely the ‘historical reading’ of the entire Holy Scriptures; thus, a historical summa.56 On these grounds the work Sacraments of the Christian Faith, which arose a short time later, can rightly be regarded as the highpoint of Hugonian theology. Hugh concludes his life’s work with the Homilies on Ecclesiastes (Homiliae in Ecclesiasten, toward the end of the 1130s).57 In the preface to this collection, he firmly denies wanting to write another commentary for the sole purpose of satisfying any

52 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, ed. by Berndt, p. 148, 6–8: ‘Illud omnino probabile consequens esse uidetur. quod ad institutionem & formam recte uiuendi magis spectabat. ut ei facienda indicerentur potius quam ut futura predicerentur.’ 53 Cf.  Berndt, ‘Gehören die Kirchenväter’, pp. 191–99. 54 See for example the examination of Eva-Maria Denner, ‘Serua secretum, custodi commissum, absconde creditum: Historisch-systematische Untersuchung der Expositio super Canticum Marie Hugos von Sankt Viktor’, Sacris Erudiri, 35 (1995), 133–20. The verse commented upon in the Eulogium sponsi et sponse is found verbatim in the Victorine Antiphonal (Paris, BnF, Hs. lat. 14816, fol. 256v) as the Antiphon for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 55 Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 4, 14, ed. by Narvaja, p. 69, 15–16. See Ludwig Ott, ‘Hugo von St Viktor und die Kirchenväter’, Divus Thomas: Jahrbuch für Philosophie und spekulative Theologie, 27 (1949), pp. 180–200 and pp. 293–332, at pp. 190–91. See also Berndt, ‘Gehören die Kirchenväter’, pp. 194–95, and Berndt, ‘Pseudo-Dionysius in Saint-Victor’, in Kulturkontakte und Rezeptionsvorgänge in der Theologie des 12. und 13. Jahr-hunderts, ed. by Ulrich Köpfund and Dieter R. Bauer, Archa Verbi, Subsidia, 8 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2011), pp. 17–44, and also most recently Dominique Poirel, ‘La boue et le marbre. L’exégèse du Pseudo-Denys par Hugues de Saint-Victor’, in Bibel und Exegese in Saint-Victor zu Paris, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Instrumenta, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2009), pp. 105–30. 56 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Prologus Cronicorum, ed. by Berndt, p. 6, 23–26: ‘Sed nos historiam nunc in manibus habemus quasi fundamentum omnis doctrine primum in memoria collocandum. Sed quare ut diximus memoria breuitate gaudet. gesta autem temporum infinita pene sunt. oportet nos ex omnibus breuem quandam summam colligere quasi fundamentum fundamenti. Hoc est primum fundamentum quam facile possit animus comprehendere et memoria retinere.’ 57 See Damien Van den Eynde, Essai sur la succession et la date des écrits de Hugues de Saint-Victor, Spicilegium Pontificii Athenaei Antoniani, 13 (Roma: Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum, 1960), pp. 108–10; J. Ehlers, ‘Freiheit des Handelns und göttliche Fugung in Geschichtsverstandnis

115

116

R a i n e r Be r n dt, S J

who wish to seek in the Bible a ‘mystical understanding’ or to discover the ‘depth of the allegories’.58 In writing down the Homiliae he intends rather to move his readers to delight not only in what is lovingly read but rather above all in what is lovingly understood.59 With remarkable continuity Hugh thereby preserves his central theological insight that is gained from the encounter with Scripture. For already in the Didascalicon, where he defined ‘doctrine’ as consisting of ‘reading’ and ‘contemplation’, he falls silent in the end before the goal of ‘contemplation’. For him, it is worthier to keep utterly silent on this than to say anything imperfect.60 The Language of Salvation History

According to his intention, Hugh represents Sacraments (De sacramentis Christiane fidei) as an exegetical work (‘second instruction, which is allegory’), though in form and content it is a theological summa. The evidence for this rests upon the literary form of Sacraments, which consists precisely not in the continuous commentary upon one or several biblical books.61 In comparison to corresponding systematic drafts of the thirteenth century it is apparent that the summae of the twelfth century are characterized by their literary origins in the collections of opinions or judgements



58

59

60

61

mittelalterlicher Autoren’, in Die Abendländische Freiheit vom 10. bis zum 14. Jahrhundert. Die Wirkungszusammenhang von Idee und Wirklichkeit im europäischen Vergleich, ed. by Johannes Fried (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1991), pp. 205–20. See also Rudolf Goy, Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos von St Viktor. Ein Beitrag zur Kommunikationsgeschichte des Mittelalters, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, 14 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1976), pp. 339–40. Van den Eynde, Ehlers, and Goy leave one to assume the text of the Homiliae arose after the Didascalicon. Hugh of Saint-Victor, In Salomonis Homiliae XIX in Ecclesiasten, Prologus, ed. by Migne, col. 115A: ‘Multi uirtutem scripturarum non intelligentes, expositionibus peregrinis decorem ac pulchritudinem earum obnubilant; et cum occulta reserare debuerint, etiam manifesta obscurant. Mihi uero simili culpe subiacere uidentur, uel qui in sacra Scriptura mysticam intelligentiam et allegoriarum profunditatem uel inquirendam pertinaciter negant, ubi non est.’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, In Salomonis Homiliae XIX in Ecclesiasten, Prologus, ed. by Migne, col. 115BC: ‘Sed aliud est, quo tota scribentis intentio totaque narrationis series ducitur attendere; atque aliud quedam ex accidenti mystice dicta et spiritualiter intelligenda non negligenter pretereunda putare. Nunc itaque narrationis superficiem que tanta eloquii ac sententiarum uenustate pollet explanandam suscipimus, ut ea que scripta nunc legitis amodo non solum uobis scripta, sed a uobis intellecta gaudeatis.’ Didascalicon, 6, 13, ed. by Narvaja, p. 99, 6–9: ‘Et iam ea que ad lectionem pertinent quanto lucidius & compendiosius potuimus explicata sunt. De reliqua uero parte doctrine. id est. meditatione aliquid in presenti dicere omitto. quia res tanta speciali tractatu indiget. & dignum magis est omnino silere in huiusmodi. quam aliquid imperfecte dicere.’ Petrus Comestor with his Historia Scholastica, which narrates the history of the People of God, accomplished a corresponding work. In doing so Petrus Comestor primarily selected some historical books of the Old and New Testaments (the Heptateuch, Kings, Daniel, Judith, Esther, the Maccabees), or also certain passages (Tobit, Ezekiel, the Historia evangelica) and then paraphrased these texts. The selection of texts and paraphrases of texts undertaken by him amount to a textbook of biblical history. See on this recently Gian Luca Potestà, „Insegnare nelle scholae. Il manuale di Pietro Comestore”, in Scrivere la storia. Narrazioni del cristianesimo nei secoli, ed. by Giovanni Filoramo and Daniele Menozzi, (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2015), pp. 97–108.

t h e s ac r ame nt s o f chri st i an fai t h

(sententiae). These derive their ordering not from articles and questions (articuli and quaestiones) that emerged from the disputes between independent schools or in universities, but rather are grouped together for example in books, parts, and chapters, and in this respect have rather the character of treatises.62 The oldest manuscripts of Sacraments confirm the known arrangement of the work. The beginning constitutes a general prologue, patterned according to the rules of the accessus ad auctores (introduction to authors). As usual in his writings, Hugh therein lays particular emphasis upon the classification of the material to be treated: here, a division into two books, the first of which consists of twelve parts. Attached to this is the chapter list for Book i. Then in the first book he again begins with a prologue in seven chapters which is introduced with a preface. The second book opens with a more concise prologue, again followed by the chapter list. The prologue to the first book unfolds the theological and exegetical perspective of the project, and in so doing there initially explains the central theological terminology of the project. Hugh summarizes the fundamental salvation-historical structure of his interpretation of the world by means of the conceptual pair, the work of creation and work of restoration (‘opus conditionis’ and ‘opus restaurationis’). He then puts these in relation to Holy Scripture.63 The prologue to Book i however functions not only as a hermeneutical key for Sacraments, but also as a formal key. For the literary-formal introduction to the total work (with the sequence: General Prologue — List of Chapters of Book i — Preface of Book i) suddenly broadens itself out there to the question of the relationship between interpretation of Scripture and theology.64 62 Cf. Bernardo C. Bazàn, John W. Wippel, Gérard Fransen, and Danielle Jacquart, Les questions disputées et les questions quodlibétiques dans les facultés de Théologie, de Droit et de Médecine (Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental pp. 44–45), (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985). On the problematics of classification of works in the Middle Ages, cf. Jean Châtillon, ‘Désarticulation et restructuration des textes à l’époque scolastique (xie-xiiie siècle)’, in La notion de paragraphe, ed. by. Roger Laufer (Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1985), pp. 23–40; Nigel F. Palmer, ‘Kapitel und Buch. Zu den Gliederungsprinzipien mittelalterlicher Bücher’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 23 (1989), 63–100. 63 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. Prologus, ed. by Berndt, p. 31, 20–24; Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 3: ‘The subject matter of all the Divine Scriptures is the works of man’s restoration. For there are two works in which all that has been done is contained. The first is the work of foundation; the second is the work of restoration. The work of foundation is that whereby those things which were not came into being. The work of restoration is that whereby those things which had been impaired were made better.’ Cf. the still highly readable study of Luis F. Ladaria, ‘Creación y salvación en la cristología de Hugo de San Víctor’, Miscelanea Comíllas, 31 (1973), 261–301; 32 (1974) 63–100 64 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. Prologus, ed. by Berndt, p. 32, 10–25; Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 4: ‘In all these writings the works of restoration are considered, with which the whole intent of the Divine Scriptures is concerned. Worldly or secular writings have as subject matter the works of foundation. Divine Scripture has as subject the works of restoration. Therefore, it is rightly believed to be superior to all other writings insofar as the subject matter is more dignified and the more sublime with which its consideration and discourse are concerned. For the works of restoration are of much greater dignity than the works of foundation, because the latter were made for servitude, that they might be subject to man standing; the former, for salvation, that they might raise man fallen. Therefore, the works

117

118

R a i n e r Be r n dt, S J

Whereas in the later age of the university disputation the relationship between exegesis and theology into Holy Doctrine (‘sacra doctrina’) is redefined,65 the theological systematic drafts from the generation of Hugh of St Victor are still unequivocally bound to Scripture (‘sacra pagina’). The intellectual ordering power of the quaestiones and disputationes of the thirteenth century proceeds from the science that was coming to awareness in the course of the second reception of Aristotle in the West. The differentiation of faculties — teachers of the artes here, theologians there — facilitates the freedom of the disputationes, where a developing doctrina necessitates the analysis of concepts as well as the weighing of arguments. In the preceding twelfth century, neither the logical forays of Peter Abelard with Sic et non nor the Decretum of Gratian themselves sufficed to release the new order of theological thought, already then looming, from exegesis. What Abelard’s Theologia ‘Scholarium’ in his well-known trilogy may merely indicate, Hugh says explicitly: Sacraments executes the ‘allegorical reading’ of the entire Holy Scripture. The fulcrum of Hugonian theology is hence undoubtedly an exegesis bound to the senses of Scripture,66 whereby Hugh however is simultaneously open to further methodological developments and has at his disposal a broad spectrum of sources to rely upon (Church Fathers, legal texts, authors from Antiquity, contemporaneous theologians). Seen in terms of the history of exegesis, Hugh demonstrates the depth of dimension in this genre of biblical theology. That is, allegorical interpretation does not mean a more or less contrived second stage of contemplation of the text; rather it focuses the meaning of the entire Bible in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Only through the Christological re-reading (relecture) of the Jewish Scriptures do these texts become the Old Testament, i.e. Holy Scripture for Christians as well.67 The sensus allegoricus thus opens the door to a total presentation of the Christian faith, which fundamentally remains biblically-oriented. In the twelfth century the sensus allegoricus thus became the point of departure for systematic theology. That Hugh was conducting scriptural interpretation in his theological summa is demonstrated most clearly in his theological key conceptions of the work of of creation and work of restoration (opus conditionis, opus restaurationis).68 He gains these from

65 66 67 68

of foundation, as if of little importance, were accomplished in six days, but the works of restoration cannot be completed except in six ages. Yet six are placed over against six that the Restorer may be proven to be the same as the Creator.’ Cf. Thomas Prügl, ‘Die Bibel als Lehrbuch: Zum “Plan” der Theologie nach mittelalterlichen KanonAuslegungen’, Archa Verbi, 1 (2004), 42–66. Cf. Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale, ii.1, 287–89; see also the more recent, Sicard, Théologies victorines, iii. Cf. Berndt, ‘The School of St Victor’. Since here is not the place to elaborate extensively upon the exegetical grounding of Hugh’s likewise important concepts of ‘law’ and ‘sacrament,’ only the following hypothesis is offered: Hugh’s conception of the sequence of time (‘time of natural law — time of the written law — time of grace’) grows out of the exegetical triad of letter — allegory — tropology. Put differently: the Bible can, according to the three senses of scripture, be read in every one of those three eras as the ‘Testament of the Law.’ This relates by analogy to the definition of sacrament: ‘Now if anyone wishes to define more fully and more perfectly what a sacrament is, he can say: A sacrament is a corporeal or material

t h e s ac r ame nt s o f chri st i an fai t h

the ‘historical reading’ (lectio historica) of the Old Testament69 and converts them into structural elements; these allow him to present the fullness of the material he is handling in a thematically well-ordered manner. Because the sensus allegoricus is simply a theological-hermeneutical element of the structure, Hugh supplements it by means of the chapter lists of both books as literary-formal elements of his summa. Multiple times in his works, the Victorine defines his theological categories. The ‘work of creation’ he describes as the process ‘whereby those things which were not came into being’, and the ‘work of restoration’ as the ‘Incarnation of the Word with all its sacraments, both those which have gone before it from the beginning of time, and those which come after it, even to the end of the world’.70 The ‘restoration’ thereby begins immediately after the Fall.71 Hugh reads Holy Scripture as world history. It is for him a book of history which does not report the historical details for their own sake, but rather interprets and reveals them in their meaningful consequences. Creation and restoration (‘conditio’ and ‘restauratio’) are for Hugh the fundamental and comprehensive patterns for interpretation. He develops them from Holy Scripture as the premises of theology par excellence. His ‘allegorical reading’ as presented in Sacraments is executed in his universal reinterpretation of the history of humanity depicted in the Old Testament — beginning with the first day of Creation — from Christ outward: the restoration follows upon the creation. Both concepts are as complementary, as the world-historical events indicated by them elucidate one another. According to Hugh of St Victor, allegorical interpretation of Scripture thus

element set before the senses without, representing by similitude and signifying by institution and containing by sanctification some invisible and spiritual grace (Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. 9, ed. by Berndt, pp. 209, 21 – 210, 2; Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 155).’ In this definition Hugh initially distinguishes the ‘sign’ from the ‘sacrament.’ Then, however, he introduces a tripartite definition which seems to be patterned upon the above-named exegetical triad. Put differently: Hugh extends the method of reading scripture to the relecture of the entire creation, such that it becomes whole and even sacramental. See Hanns Peter Neuheuser, ‘Bibel und Sakrament. Die Lehre Hugos von Sankt Viktor über die Heilsinstrumente anhand seiner beiden Hauptwerke Didascalicon und De sacramentis’, in Bibel und Exegese in der Abtei Saint-Victor zu Paris, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Instrumenta 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2009), pp. 297–333. 69 On this see Berndt, ‘Exegese des Alten Testaments’. See also Rainer Berndt, ‘La raison du salut. L’influence d’Hugues de Saint-Victor sur la formation des sommes de théologie aux xiie et xiiie siècles’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris. Influence et rayonnement du moyen âge à l’époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 285–98. 70 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. Prologus, ed. by Berndt, pp. 31, 22– 32, 2; Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 3: ‘Ergo opus condicionis est creatio mundi cum omnibus suis elementis. Opus restaurationis est incarnatio verbi cum omnibus sacramentis suis. Sive his que precesserunt ab inicio seculi, sive his que subsequentur usque ad finem mundi.’ ‘Therefore, the work of foundation is the creation of the world with all its elements. The work of restoration is the Incarnation of the Word with all its sacraments, both those which have gone before from the beginning of time, and those which come after, even to the end of the world.’ 71 Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. Prologus, ed. by Berndt, p. 33, 5–6; Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 4: ‘[…] next how man fell; lastly how he was restored.’

119

1 20

R a i n e r Be r n dt, S J

presupposes the knowledge that a certain event indicates another event — past, present, or future.72 Systematic theology that grows out of scriptural interpretation remains, in its formation of concepts, confined to the possibilities arising from Augustinian hermeneutics. The head of the school of St Victor, however, presents his summa as a draft that exhausts all of the means that stood at his disposal. In this manner the Victorine succeeds in binding together the linear-chronological perspective with the momentary-sacramental, in an unexpectedly comprehensive and well-rounded draft of salvation history. Beyond his genuinely philosophical-theological achievement, his salvation-historical historiography furthermore clearly attests to the epistemological power of his Didascalicon. In his Dialogue on the Sacraments of the Written Law (Dialogus de sacramentis legis scripte) and in his summa Sacraments, Hugh of St Victor does not leave matters to theological terminology and systematic presentation. Biblical history, from the Old to the New Testament and into the time of the Church Fathers, serves for him as a foil for the interpretation of the history of the faithful Christian. Indeed, he does not identify the history of the world with that of the Church; yet he allows the former to lead into the latter. The biblical-patristic foundation consequently enables him initially to write a sacred universal history: ‘The work of foundation is that whereby those things which were not came into being. The work of restoration is that whereby those things which had been impaired were made better’.73 The connection with the doctrine of the sacraments then allows Hugh to read the personal history of the individual under salvation-historical auspices. The Victorine thus integrates the salvific process of the individual story of faith into the universal history of salvation.74 The characteristically Hugonian twofold determination of the relationship between, on the one hand, scriptural interpretation and theology, and, on the other hand, between universal history and individual history, expresses itself powerfully 72 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. Prologus, ed. by Berndt, p. 33, 11–14; Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 5: ‘Historia rerum est gestarum narratio, que in prima significatione littere continetur. Allegoria est cum per id quod factum dicitur aliquid aliud factum sive in preterito, sive in presenti, sive in futuro significatur. Tropologia est cum per id quod factum dicitur aliquid faciendum esse significatur.’‘History is the narration of events, which is contained in the first meaning of the letter; we have allegory when, through what is said to have been done, something else is signified as done either in the past or in the present or in the future; we have tropology when through what is said to have been done, it is signified that something ought to be done.’ 73 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. Prologus, ed. by Berndt, p. 31, 22–24; Hugh of Saint-Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Deferrari, p. 3: ‘Opus condicionis est quo factum est, ut essent que non erant. Opus restaurationis est quo factum est, ut melius essent que perierdant.’ 74 See on this Peter Knauer, ‘Hermeneutische Fundamentaltheologie: Der Glaubenstraktat des Hugo von St Viktor’, in ‘Testimonium veritati’. Philosophische und theologische Studien zu kirchlichen Fragen der Gegenwart, ed. by Hans Wolter SJ, Frankfurter Theologische Studien, 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Knecht, 1971), pp. 67–80. More recently Mandreoli’s treatment also recommends itself: Fabrizio Mandreoli, La teologia della fede nel “De sacramentis Christiane fidei” di Ugo di San Vittore, CV, Instrumenta, 4 (Münster: Aschendorff. 2010).

t h e s ac r ame nt s o f chri st i an fai t h

in his reception of the words of Gregory the Great, who declares in his commentary on Ezekiel: Since each one of the saints, as much as he advanced in sacred scripture, to that same extent does this very same sacred scripture advance with him because the divine Word grows with the one who is reading, for one understands them more deeply the more one reaches deeply into them.75 Hugh adopts this idea when, in Sacraments, he develops a dynamic and progressive understanding of faith.76 With the aid of the various senses of Scripture, the Holy Scriptures open up ever newer insights to the reader. The variety of senses, which facilitate a successive penetration into a deeper understanding of salvation history, counts for Hugh as a unique characteristic of the Christian re-reading (relecture) of the Old Testament. Thus, faith grows in the measure of one’s understanding of Scripture, and thereby demonstrates itself as participative of the ur-sacrament which allows its divine origin to appear in full splendour.

75 Gregory the Great, In Hiezechielem, 1. 7. 140: ‘Et quia unusquisque sanctorum quanto ipse in scriptura sacra profecerit, tanto haec eadem scriptura sacra proficit apud ipsum, quia diuina eloquia cum legente crescunt, nam tanto illa quisque altius intellegit, quanto in eis altius intendit.’ See Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Hiezechielem prophetam, ed. by Marcus Adriaen, CCSL, 142 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971). On this see Stephan C. Kessler, ‘Präsenz und Verwendung der Heiligen Schrift bei Gregor dem Großen: Exegese in der Spannung zwischen Antike und Mittelalter und zwischen Mönchtum und Mystik’, in Präsenz und Verwendung der Heiligen Schrift im christlichen Frühmittelalter: exegetische Literatur und liturgische Texte, ed. by Patrizia Carmassi, Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien, 20 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz in Kommission, 2008), pp. 17–32. 76 See Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, i. 10, ed. by Berndt, p. 228, pp. 25–230, p. 20.

121

Conrad Rudolph

‘In Its Extraordinary Arrangement’ Hugh of Saint Victor, the History of Salvation, and the World Map of The Mystic Ark*

Very rarely, if at all, has a detailed account of the actual moment of conception of a great work of art come down to us from the Middle Ages. But it is with precisely such an account that Hugh of Saint Victor — considered to be the leading theologian of Europe during his life — begins The Moral Ark, a treatise that records one of a series of lectures undertaken by him sometime between 1125 and 1130 at Saint Victor, a Parisian abbey of Augustinian canons, whose school, along with those of Notre-Dame and Sainte-Geneviève, acted as the predecessor of the University of Paris. He writes, Cum sederem aliquando in conventu fratrum et, illis interrogantibus meque respondente, multa in medium prolata fuissent, ad hoc tandem deducta sunt verba ut de humani potissimum cordis instabilitate et inquietudine ammirari omnes simul et suspirare inciperemus. Cumque magno quidam desiderio exposcerent demonstrari sibi, que causa in corde hominis tantas cogitationum fluctuationes ageret, ac deinde si qua arta sive laboris cuiuslibet exercitatione huic tanto malo obviari posset summopere doceri fragitarent. One day, when I was sitting in discussion with the brethren, with them asking questions and me responding, many things were brought up for consideration. After a while, the conversation came around to a point that, all together, we began to express a kind of astonishment at the inconstancy and restlessness of the human heart, and to sigh over it. And then, with great desire indeed, they asked that they be shown what it was that brought about such wild fluctuations of thought in the human heart, and repeatedly and urgently demanded that they be taught, if it were possible, to counter such a great evil as this through some skill or by the practice of some discipline.1



* This article is an expansion of the discussion of the world/world map of The Mystic Ark in my book The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century; as such, some passages may appear in both works. Conrad Rudolph  •  ([email protected]) is Distinguished Professor of Medieval Art History at the University of California, Riverside. Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus, ed. by Robert J. Porwoll and David Allison Orsbon, CURSOR 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 123–146 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.122084

1 24

co n r a d r u do l p h

Figure 1. The Mystic Ark. Original 1125 to early 1130. Shown as it might have appeared if constructed at the convent of Hohenbourg during the abbacy of Abbess Herrad in the late twelfth century. The construction here has a height of 3.632 metres (11 feet, 11 inches) and width of 4.623 metres (15 feet, 2 inches). Digital construction: Clement/ Bahmer/ Rivas/ Bozhilova/ Rudolph.

Hugh was thus charged with answering two questions. The first question asks about the source of ‘the restlessness of the human heart’: that is, the inability of humankind to remain in the presence of God through contemplation, expressed here through reference to the famous restless heart of the opening passage of Augustine’s Confessions.2 The second question seeks the means by which to ameliorate this condition ‘through some skill or by the practice of some discipline’. In response to both of these, Hugh goes on to say that he would show, first, where this restlessness comes from; second, how the mind may find steady rest; and, third, how it can be kept in that rest — the

1 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Moral Ark, in De archa Noe, Libellus de formatione arche, 1. 1, ed. by Patrice Sicard, CCCM, 176 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), p. 3. 2 Augustine of Hippo, Confessiones, 1. 1, in Confessionum libri XII, ed. by Lucas Verheijen, CCSL, 27 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1990), p. 1.

‘ i n i t s e x t r ao rd i nary arrange me nt ’

same rest with which Augustine closes the Confessions.3 But, more remarkably than this creative association with Augustine, Hugh chose to do this — to respond to the charge of the Ark lectures — with an image, with what he himself indirectly refers to as a work of art: The Mystic Ark (Fig. 1).4 One of the great intellectual conflicts of the twelfth century was that between the ‘old theology’, an experiential theology of blind faith that is best represented by traditional monasticism, and the ‘new theology’, a theology of inquiry whose faith was based on logic that is best represented by the Neoplatonic circles.5 Hugh — a middle-ground figure whose sympathies lay with the ‘old theology’ but whose intellectual interests and methodologies often lay with the ‘new’— felt that the ‘new theology’ and others among the educated elite were, in a phrase, studying for all the wrong reasons, that they were more concerned with purely academic learning than they were with any real spiritual edification. He felt that many of these wanted to ‘play the philosopher’,6 that, in neglecting the historical in their use of Scripture, they were neglecting a full exegetical methodology — that is, they were neglecting proper methodology.7 He felt that this encouraged study for its own sake, which in turn tended to distance learning from what he saw as the point of learning — working toward salvation — and to privilege intellectual positions such as Neoplatonism. And so, ever the scholar, rather than simply answer the questions of the brethren directly, Hugh chose to apply a full exegetical method to the charge of the Ark lectures, in part, no doubt, as a demonstration to his students of the value of this method, but also indirectly as an intellectual provocation within the context of School culture.8 And the scriptural source to which he chose to apply this method in his response was the Ark of the Flood, with the resultant lectures being known as the Mystic Ark lectures.9 Very briefly put, The Mystic Ark is a forty-two page description of the most complex individual work of figural art of the entire Middle Ages, a painting also known as ‘The Mystic Ark’. The purpose of the painting was to serve as the basis of a series of brilliant lectures undertaken by Hugh at Saint Victor. The purpose of the text was 3 Augustine of Hippo, Confessiones, ed. by Verheijen, 13: 50–53, pp. 272–73. 4 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Moral Ark, 1. 3, ed. by Sicard, p. 10. On The Mystic Ark in general, see Conrad Rudolph, The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). For a discussion of the question of The Mystic Ark as a work of art in particular, Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 49–51. 5 For a fuller discussion, see Rudolph, The The Mystic Ark, pp. 33–42. 6 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon, 6. 3, ed. by Charles H. Buttimer, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin, 10 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1939), p. 114; ‘Scio quosdam esse qui statim philosophari volunt.’ I use Taylor’s translation: Hugh of Saint-Victor, The Didascalicon of Hugh of St Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, intro. and trans. by Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), p. 136. 7 Exegesis is the more or less systematic methodology for the interpretation of the Bible in use during the Early Christian and medieval periods. Depending on the position of the individual, it traditionally consists of either three or four categories or levels of analysis. Hugh followed a three-level exegetical methodology — the literal, allegorical, and tropological — although he sometimes divided the allegorical level into two components: simple allegory and anagogical allegory. 8 Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 46–48, 169. 9 On Hugh’s sources, see Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 51–56.

125

1 26

co n r a d r u do l p h

Figure 2. The Mystic Ark, diagram. Relative proportions of different Mystic Ark compositions. Clement/Bahmer/Rivas/Rudolph. A) The relative size of The Mystic Ark if made according to the reduced proportions recommended in the text of The Mystic Ark (Ark proper 200 × 50 cubits). These proportions allow the image to fit onto the wall of a cloister — the traditional place of learning in a monastery — the size of Saint-Trophime in Arles.

B) The relative size of The Mystic Ark if made according to the unaltered biblical proportions of Genesis 6. 15, which result in an image too large for a contemporary cloister wall (Ark proper 300 × 50 cubits).

to enable others outside of Saint Victor — teachers, advanced students, scholars, monks, canons — to undertake similar discussions themselves by providing the information necessary to produce the image. Previous scholars have seen the text of The Mystic Ark variously as a work of ekphrasis (the literary description of an imaginary work of art) or some simpler literary form for individual reading, as a detailed set of ‘step-by-step’ instructions describing the process of drawing and painting the image of The Mystic Ark, and — most notably in Mary Carruthers’ highly acclaimed work — as a memory aid.10 However, as I have shown elsewhere, The Mystic Ark is not a work of literature properly speaking but a reportatio, that is, a form of writing similar to 10 Among others, see Michael Evans, ‘Fictive Painting in Twelfth-Century Paris’, Sight and Insight: Essays on Art and Culture in Honour of E. H. Gombrich at 85, ed. by John Onians (London: Phaidon, 1994) pp. 73–87; Grover Zinn, ‘Mandala Symbolism and Use in the Mysticism of Hugh of St Victor’, History of Religions, 12 (1972–1973), pp. 317–41, at p. 321; Patrice Sicard, Diagrammes médiévaux et exégèse visuelle: Le Libellus de formatione arche de Hugues de Saint-Victor, BV, 4 (Paris: Brepols, 1993), pp. 53 n. 86, 55, 57, 58, 66; Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), esp. pp. 53–55, 155, 202–03,

‘ i n i t s e x t r ao rd i nary arrange me nt ’

class notes, as its style and composition so clearly show.11 It is not a ‘step-by-step’ set of instructions since its sequence does not, in fact, follow standard artistic procedure but rather a ‘component-by-component’ method of providing strictly the minimal information necessary in the semblance (only) of a ‘step-by-step’ set of instructions.12 And the evidence indicates that it is not primarily meant as a memory aid for a number of reasons.13 Perhaps most importantly, the text recommends shortening the length of the Ark as given in the Bible ‘because of its more suitable form in the painting’,14 an entirely practical instruction given so that the image would not be too large to construct, and an altering of the original dimensions from Scripture, no less, that the mind has no need of in a memory aid (Fig. 2). But also, after describing the image, the text lists the related inscriptions separately, completely removed from the image, something clearly for convenience of construction and without any concern for coherence of thought. And, something that cannot be over emphasized, it is not a memory aid that completely ignores the essential theological basis of the image, the works of creation and of restoration, the basic dichotomy of Hugh’s own systematic theology, and, even more, that makes no reference whatsoever to the four Arks, which are The Mystic Ark, both of which will be discussed later. The text of The Mystic Ark describes a painting so astonishingly complex — there are hundreds of figures, symbols, and inscriptions at operation in this painting — that it would be literally impossible to give a description of even the principal components and their interrelations here, let alone discuss the significance of the work. (Fig. 3, the central cubit, gives an idea of the level of detail of The Mystic Ark.15). However, very briefly put, The Mystic Ark portrays all time, all space, all matter, all human history, and all spiritual striving (Fig. 4 and Fig. 5). It does this through an image of the Lord — flanked by the nine choirs of angels and with the six days of creation proceeding from his mouth — embracing the entire cosmos, formed by the traditional cosmic zones of earth (shown as a mappa mundi or world map, through which the Chosen People travel), air (including an unusually complex quaternary harmony), and ether (depicted as the cycles of the zodiac and the twelve months). In other words, it does this through an image of the Lord embracing the most complex, seemingly Neoplatonic macro/microcosm to date (For perhaps the next

257–60, 293–302. For fuller discussion of the previous literature on The Mystic Ark in general, see Conrad Rudolph, ‘First, I Find the Center Point’: Reading the Text of Hugh of Saint Victor’s The Mystic Ark (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2004), and Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 8–19. 11 On The Mystic Ark as a reportatio, see Rudolph, ‘First, I Find the Center Point’, pp. 9–31. 12 Rudolph, ‘First, I Find the Center Point’, pp. 78–81. 13 Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 12–16. 14 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Mystic Ark, 1, ed. by Sicard, p. 123 (English translation, Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, p. 406). 15 For what ultimately can only be a partial explanation of this one component of The Mystic Ark, see Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 152–71, 340–42.

127

1 28

co n r a d r u do l p h

Figure 3. The Mystic Ark, detail. The central cubit. Clement/ Bahmer/ Rivas/ Bozhilova/ Rudolph.

most complex Neoplatonic macro/microcosm at the time, see Fig. 6). Coterminous with the world — and so placed in the centre of this symbolic cosmos — is the Ark of the Flood (Fig. 7), down the centre of which runs the line of generation (the physical ancestors and spiritual descendants of Christ) (Fig. 8) and from each of whose four corners sixty men and sixty women ascend ladders rising up from the guilts and punishments of original sin as theorized by Augustine and elaborated upon by Hugh, striving toward the image of Christ as the Lamb of God in the central cubit (Fig. 9, Fig. 10). The stages and ladders upon which these sixty men and sixty women ascend form the superstructure of the Ark and constitute the schematic structure of the two most prominent of a number of ‘celestial ladder’ systems in The Mystic Ark — five, actually — a two-dimensional image that is meant to be understood three-dimensionally (Fig. 11).16 Each of these two systems is made up of four triads

16 For more on this, see Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 258–342.

‘ i n i t s e x t r ao rd i nary arrange me nt ’

Figure 4. The Mystic Ark, diagram. The cosmic structure and the three stages of the Ark. Clement/ Bahmer/ Rivas/Rudolph.

of what are called ‘virtues’, with one conformed to the four sides of the three-staged Ark (Fig. 12) and the other to the ladders that rise up the three stages from the four corners (Fig. 10). At the same time, there are actually four different Arks that are to be read in this single image — each with its own relatively comprehensive understanding, and each approaching the image of The Mystic Ark in a completely different way: the Ark of Noah, the Ark of the Church, the Ark of Wisdom, and the Ark of Mother Grace. The result is an astonishingly complex exegetical reading of the Ark of the Flood: with the Ark of Noah, the Ark of the Church, the Ark of Wisdom, and the Ark of Mother Grace corresponding to Hugh’s own system of exegetical

129

130

co n r a d r u do l p h

Figure 5. The Mystic Ark, diagram. Main components. Clement/ Bahmer/ Rivas/ Rudolph.

levels of the literal, allegory proper, anagogical allegory, and tropology.17 As the basis of Hugh’s methodology for his systematic theology, these different levels of analysis directly address the problem of ‘the restless heart’ and provide the solution in the form of a means to overcome this weakness: from the initial exegetical type-source from Scripture (the Ark of Noah), to the explanation of the

17 On Hugh’s use of three rather than four levels (while sometimes dividing one level into two, resulting in four categories of analysis), see Hugh of Saint-Victor, De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris (PL 175.9–28), here, Hugh of Saint-Victor, De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris, 3, cols 11–12. On Hugh’s exegesis in general, see Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale: Les quatre sens de l’écriture, 4 vols (Paris: Aubier, 1959–1964), ii.1, 287–359. On Hugh’s distinction between simple allegory and anagogical allegory, in which he was not alone, see de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale, pt. i.2, 139–46, esp. 140–41, where Hugh is specifically discussed.

‘ i n i t s e x t r ao rd i nary arrange me nt ’

Figure 6. Macro/microcosm. Byrhtferth’s Diagram. Oxford, St John’s College, ms 17:7v. Reproduced by permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford.

macrocosmic alienation of humankind from its creator (the Ark of the Church), to the solution in the two-stage microcosmic return of the individual to his or her creator: how to find rest (the Ark of Wisdom) and how to remain in that rest (the Ark of Mother Grace). The Ark lectures were presented as a weeks- or even months-long course, and the individual Arks themselves can be very complex. Here, I can only give a very brief discussion of one aspect of the Ark of the Church: the world or world map, the most dynamic map of its time. As I have said, The Mystic Ark is a reportatio by one of Hugh’s students, and, in his description of the map of The Mystic Ark, the reporter — who can be thought of also as an eye-witness to this remarkable image — writes:

131

13 2

co n r a d r u do l p h

Figure 7. The Mystic Ark, detail. The world/world map and the Ark proper. Clement/ Bahmer/ Rivas/ Bozhilova/ Rudolph.

‘ i n i t s e x t r ao rd i nary arrange me nt ’

Figure 8. The Mystic Ark, diagram. The line of generation. Clement/ Bahmer/ Rivas/ Rudolph.

133

134

co n r a d r u do l p h

Figure 9. The Mystic Ark, diagram. The Flood, the serpent, and the sixty men and sixty women. Bozhilov/ Rudolph.

A map of the world is depicted … in such a way that the head of the Ark is directed toward the east and its end touches the west to the effect that — in its extraordinary arrangement — the geographical layout of the sites extends downward from the same beginning, in sequence with the events of time, and the end of the world is the same as the end of time.18

18 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Mystic Ark, 11, ed. by Sicard, p. 157 (English translation, Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 483–84).

‘ i n i t s e x t r ao rd i nary arrange me nt ’

Figure 10. The Mystic Ark, diagram. The four ascents, with ascent/ descent patterns. Clement/ Bahmer/ Rivas/ Rudolph.

135

1 36

co n r a d r u do l p h

Figure 11. Three-dimensional reconstruction of the three-stage Ark proper from Hugh of Saint Victor’s two-dimensional painting of The Mystic Ark as described in the text of The Mystic Ark. Bahmer/Rudolph.

The map that the reporter refers to is perhaps the earliest significant example of a map with Jerusalem at its centre (I personally do not consider the unique and confused St John’s map to be in the same class as The Mystic Ark, of which eighty-eight known copies survive) and The Mystic Ark has the earliest executed oval earth of which I am aware, and Last Judgement.19 But its real interest lies in the way in which the actual specifics of the map are engaged with the Ark, in a way, even activated by the Ark, resulting in a cartographical image of previously unrivalled conception. Among other things, The Mystic Ark presents an elaborate visual summary of the entire history of salvation from the beginning until the end of time, an image that is nothing less than a visual capsulization of Hugh’s most original theological theory as expressed in his great written systematic theology, The Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis christianae fidei). In De sacramentis, Hugh writes that ‘everything that has ever been done’ is included in two ‘works’: the works of creation and the works of restoration.20 The works of creation consist of the world with all 19 On The Mystic Ark as the earliest significant example of a map with Jerusalem at its centre, see Conrad Rudolph, ‘The City of the Great King: Jerusalem in Hugh of Saint Victor’s Mystic Ark’, in Visual Constructs of Jerusalem, ed. by Bianca Kühnel, Galit Noga-Banai, and Hanna Vorholt (Brepols, Turnhout, 2014), pp. 343–52. What may be the earliest extant map with Jerusalem at the centre is Oxford, St John’s College, MS 17. 6 (reproduced in E. Edson and E. Savage-Smith, Medieval Views of the Cosmos (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2004), figure 34; and see C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, 1066–1190, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Miller, 1975), cat. 9) of around 1090, though the representation of Jerusalem is vague and the positioning of the cross is seemingly purposefully off-centre. On the map in The Mystic Ark as the earliest oval world map actually known to have been executed, see Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, p. 390. 20 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis christiane fidei, 1 prologue 2, 1. 10. 2, 1. 10. 5, 1. 10. 8, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Textus historici, 1 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008); Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei, cols 183–84, 329, 334, 341 (PL 176.173–618). For more on this, see Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 61–62.

‘ i n i t s e x t r ao rd i nary arrange me nt ’

Figure 12. The Mystic Ark, diagram. The three stages. Clement/Bahmer/ Rivas/Rudolph.

137

138

co n r a d r u do l p h

Figure 13. The Mystic Ark, diagram. Systems of periodization. Clement/ Bahmer/ Rivas/ Bozhilov/ Rudolph.

its ‘elements’ as manifested during the six days of creation that culminated in the Fall of Adam and Eve — that is, the alienation of humankind from its creator. The works of restoration comprise the Incarnation of the Word (that is, Christ) with all its ‘sacraments’ as manifested during the six ages of the history of salvation (the six ages that constitute human history from Adam to the end of time) — works that will restore humankind to its creator (Fig. 13). Central to this world-view as put forth in the image of The Mystic Ark is the depiction of the earth as the stage for the history of salvation, with the Ark proper acting as an image of both the Church throughout time and of the progression of time itself (as specifically stated in the text of The Mystic Ark), and with the focal point of all this being Christ as the Lamb of God in the central cubit (Fig. 3). It is the fundamental pervasion of this dynamic of the history of salvation throughout the image of The Mystic Ark — the map, the Ark, the cosmos, the figure of Christ — that makes its map so different from other contemporary maps, which may, in a less concerted way, also refer to the history of salvation. The relation of salvation to time is a complex one in Hugh’s conception and is not put forth through any single visual argument but is conveyed through a wide variety of devices. For instance, the map of the world explicitly situated in a depiction of the cosmos, embraced by Christ, indicates the medieval conception of the relation of the

‘ i n i t s e x t r ao rd i nary arrange me nt ’

creator to the creature in terms of time: with Christ as both creator and saviour shown as extending beyond the cosmos in both directions — that is, existing both before time and after time (Fig. 1). Within time itself, as indicated by the Ark proper, the straightforward bisecting of the line of generation (Fig. 8) refers to the basic Christian division of history into before the coming of Christ and after the coming of Christ — bc and ad — the same dichotomy found in the Christian division of divine knowledge or revelation, that is, Scripture, into the Old Testament and the New (Fig. 13). More specific to Hugh’s own historical thought, though, is the development of the Augustinian idea that the six days of the works of creation typologically prefigure the six ages of the history of salvation (see the six days in Fig. 8, the six ages in Fig. 13). This comprises the essential core of The Mystic Ark upon which the map of the world depends — first, to indicate the process of the physical creation of the world in six days, and then, to show the world’s basic character as the stage for the history (and works) of salvation in six ages, the structure of the six ages being indicated through inscriptions along the length of the Ark proper. But far more nuanced in regard to the map itself is Hugh’s theory of an east-west spatial-temporal progression of events throughout history, a theory that underlies all of the other means he brings to bear on his overall argument. This is the idea that the locus of spiritual (translatio spiritualitatis) and, to a certain extent, political (translatio imperii) and intellectual — activity has gradually migrated from Paradise in the far east; to the empires of Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia in the near east; to Greece; to Rome in the west; and, finally, to Europe — and the awaiting of the end of time — in the furthermost western extent.21 There are a number of precedents, both religious and ‘secular’, that resonate with this theory ranging from Virgil to Paul to Augustine. But, to the best of my knowledge, the full manifestation of Hugh’s theory is the result of the application of his own categories of historical analysis — place, time, and person — to the ‘order’ of the works of restoration, these categories constituting a formal methodology he taught to his students at Saint Victor.22 Hugh conceives of the periodization of history — one means of objectifying the east-west spatial-temporal progression — in different ways, but the one in which his own imprint is most pronounced is his radical development of the Pauline concept of the three periods of the history of salvation. This system partitions time into the periods of natural law (from creation up to the giving of the Mosaic law), the written law (from the Mosaic law up to the Incarnation), and grace (from the Incarnation to the end of time), with each period having its own body of faithful who meet the requirements for salvation of the given period (Fig. 13). On a purely spiritual level, this theory is most uncompromisingly put forth in the system of planks of the Ark proper — ship’s planks that run the length of the Ark, which, as I said, is the Church as it exists throughout all time (Fig. 13). To visualize this, Hugh marks off the length of the Ark into three succeeding divisions. The first

21 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Moral Ark, 4. 9, ed. by Sicard, p. 112. And see Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 200–03. 22 For a discussion of Hugh’s categories, see Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 194–95.

1 39

140

co n r a d r u do l p h

division indicates the period of natural law, running from the beginning of the Ark, which is the beginning of time, up to proliferation of the Chosen People. The second denotes the period of the written law, continuing from the twelve sons of Jacob to the central cubit. The third represents the period of grace, stretching from the central cubit, or Incarnation, to the end of the Ark, which is the end of time. Easily taken at face value as a simple indication of historical periods or peoples in the narrow sense, this structure is, actually, a relatively comprehensive and finely nuanced visual projection of Hugh’s response to certain contemporary issues raised by the renowned Parisian theologian Peter Abelard.23 For, while each period has its own people, each type of people exists in each period, something that Hugh indicates by means of colour symbolism, with green referring to the people of natural law, yellow to the people of the written law, and purple to the people of grace (purple — purpureus, the colour of fresh blood). By varying the width and position of the various coloured planks, he depicts the variation in cognition (or spiritual awareness) throughout the history of salvation, as well as the spiritual dominance of the various peoples. In regard to the actual specifics of the map of The Mystic Ark, we find that it is engaged with the Ark proper — in a way, even activated by the Ark proper — to an ‘extraordinary’ degree, to quote the reporter. For example, Paradise in the east (Fig. 14, no. 4) — Paradise being an actual geographic locality — is intimately related to the Adam macro/microcosm (Fig. 14, no. 5) with which the line of generation proper begins. From Egypt, the Chosen People actually flee from the map into the Ark through a gate on its south side between the periods of natural law and the written Law (Fig. 14, no. 7), these Chosen People further being associated with the twelve sons of Jacob (Fig. 8), who span the width of the Ark proper here in order to indicate the spread of the community of faithful at this point in time. The forty-two stopping places (Fig. 14, no. 8) of the wandering in the wilderness are related to Egypt (Fig. 14, no. 6), to the River Jordan (Fig. 15), to the location of the Promised Land (inscribed on the Ark, near no. 1 in Fig. 14; this inscription can be partially seen in Fig. 3), and to Jerusalem — the City of the Great King (which occupies the central cubit, the same place primarily occupied by Christ as the Lamb of God, no. 1 in Fig. 14) — these four geographical locations acting as elements of the map located on the Ark proper because the Ark proper is to be understood as overlaying this part of the world. Babylon (Fig. 14, no. 10) is visually linked with those members of the Tribe of Judah who are led off into captivity there through a gate on the north side of the Ark proper between the periods of natural law and the written law (Fig. 14, no. 9) — these exiles being specifically associated with Jechoniah, king of Judah at the time of the Babylonian Captivity, where his name appears on the line of generation according to the flesh (cf. Fig. 8).

23 According to Abelard, logic demanded that the minimum requirements for salvation be the same whether before the Incarnation or after. Therefore, since a knowledge of the Incarnation, the nature of Christ, his sacrifice, the Trinity, and so on, are necessary for salvation for those living after the Incarnation, an equal, explicit understanding was required for those living before the Incarnation. For further discussion, see Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 131–38.

‘ i n i t s e x t r ao rd i nary arrange me nt ’

Figure 14. The Mystic Ark, diagram. Selected components of the Ark proper and the earth. Clement/ Rivas/ Rudolph.

Figure 15. The Mystic Ark, detail. The central pillar, the River Jordan, and the twelve Apostles.

141

142

co n r a d r u do l p h

Aside from this, the basic Old Testament/New Testament dichotomy mentioned earlier may very well have been understood as embedded in the T-O underpinning of the world map (in a traditional T-O map, the horizontal of the ‘T’ is understood as the south-north extension of the Nile and Tanais or Don rivers, while the vertical of the ‘T’ corresponds to the east-west expanse of the Mediterranean; the ‘O’ corresponds to the world; in the map of the Ark, the horizontal of the ‘T’ corresponds to the horizontal that bisects the Ark and then aligns with the Nile and Tanais; the ‘O’ is represented by the oval of the world; cf. the T-0 map in Fig. 16).24 References to different ethnic peoples were common enough on medieval maps, and the plank system with inscriptions referring to the peoples of natural law, the written law, and grace was almost certainly seen by Hugh’s audience in this sense, but also as a chronologically and geographically complex construct that generally aligned with the map and its progression of time and space.25 The inscriptions of the six ages on the Ark proper (Fig. 13) certainly would have been associated with any number of names, places, and events along the line of generation as well as places on the map — for example, the first age has a correspondence with the six days of creation (Fig. 8), Paradise (Fig. 14, no. 4), and the Adam macro/ microcosm (Fig. 14, no. 5); the second age with the flood that surrounds the Ark proper (Fig. 9); the third age with the twelve sons of Jacob (Fig. 8); the fourth age and David (on the line of generation according to the flesh, Fig. 8); the fifth age with the exile of the Tribe of Judah to Babylon (Fig. 14, no. 9); the sixth age with Christ as the Lamb of God in the central cubit, the Twelve Apostles, and the Last Judgement (Fig. 14, no. 9); and so on. Moreover, the evidence strongly suggests that Hugh presented a brief overview of world history — secular history as well as the history of salvation — and that this ‘sequence of events’ would very much have engaged with any number of geographical locations on the map mentioned in Hugh’s other Mystic Ark-related texts, such as Assyria, Persia, Troy, Macedonia, Athens, and Rome, whose pax romana prepared the world for the coming of Christ.26 All of this culminates in the Last Judgement at the western extreme of the map: the termination of the line of generation, meant to be understood as taking place at 24 On the T-O map in general, see J. B. Harley and David Woodward, eds, Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, The History of Cartography, 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 301–02, pp. 342–47. 25 For a T-O map comprised strictly of such names, see Ghent, Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent, MS 92:19, reproduced in Patrick Gautier Dalché, ‘De la glose à la contemplation: Place et fonction de la carte dans les manuscripts du haut moyen âge’, in Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 41 (Spoleto: Presso la sede del Centro, 1994), pp. 693–64, figure 15. 26 For more on the probable appearance of a component of world history in the Mystic Ark lectures, see Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 198–99. I borrow the term ‘sequence of events’ from Chenu (Marie-Dominique Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 168–69), who seems to have taken it from Hugh, De vanitate mundi, 3, cols 703–40, especially col. 733 (PL 176.703–40).

‘ i n i t s e x t r ao rd i nary arrange me nt ’

Figure 16. T-O map. London, British Library, ms Royal 6.C.1:108v. Reproduced by permission of the British Library Board.

the western limit or ‘end’ of the world, both geographically and temporally, although the time of this event can never be known, something indicated by the unfilled space at the end of the line of generation, specified in the text of The Mystic Ark (Fig. 14, no. 9).27 After this, at the end of time, saved humankind will take its place in heaven as the tenth choir of the as-yet nine choirs of heavenly beings (Fig. 5, no. 4). At this point, all physical creation will be destroyed — the earth, the cosmos, the map — to be re-created as a new, history-less ‘other world’ for all eternity.

27 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Mystic Ark, 2, ed. by Sicard, p. 131 (English translation, Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, p. 421).

143

144

co n r a d r u do l p h

Concluding Remarks Hugh wrote concerning his lost large-scale map that he wanted ‘to show not things and not the images of things, but rather their significations — not those that the things themselves signify, but those that are signified’28 — or, put another way, he wanted to show not Egypt or the geographical depiction of Egypt, but rather ‘ignorance’, which is what the word ‘Egypt’ was thought to mean etymologically and so exegetically. That is, he wanted to show not the geographical reality, but the spiritual reality. Thus, in portraying the Chosen People fleeing Egypt on the map and Ark of The Mystic Ark — complete with the forty-two stopping places of the wandering in the wilderness (Fig. 14, no. 6, 7, and 8) — Hugh is showing not the Flight from Egypt or a work of art of the Flight from Egypt, but a turning of the soul from the ignorance that is a guilt and punishment of original sin to Christ, whose position in the central cubit is also understood as Jerusalem (Fig. 14, no. 1), in the Promised Land, with the forty-two stopping places being an elaborate metaphor of the soul’s spiritual progress in this endeavour.29 And this was how the map of The Mystic Ark would have been seen by its contemporaries: not as an attempt at a geographically accurate depiction of the world, but as the ultimate in spiritual cartography. The use of geography in religious study was nothing new.30 Nor did the world map as a visual means of conveying the concept of the history of salvation originate with Hugh.31 But the map of The Mystic Ark went far beyond anything that had ever come before, and the immediate impetus to this — aside from the intellectual disputes of the day — was history. Hugh has been described as almost alone among his contemporaries in the significance that he attached to history.32 This was no simple insistence on the importance of the past. Taking the typically straightforward cartographic guide to scriptural or classical reading with its modest references to the earth as God’s creation and the place of human events (for example, Fig. 17), he positions it in the Neoplatonic macro/microcosm of School culture (for example, Fig. 6) in such a way that he radically alters the latter’s meaning, replacing the human-centred conception of creation with a God-centred one (Fig. 3).

28 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Descriptio mappe mundi, in La ‘Descriptio mappe mundi’ de Hugues de SaintVictor: Texte inédit avec introduction et commentaire, prologue, ed. by Patrick Gautier Dalché (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes, 1988), p. 133. 29 Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 275–76. 30 For example, see Jerome, Liber de situ: (Liber de situ nominibus locorum hebraicorum (PL 23.859–928) (following Eusebius’s Onomasticon); Orosius, Historia adversus Paganos, 1. 2, ed. by Marie-Pierre Arnaud-Lindet, Histoires (Contre le Païens), 3 vols (Paris: n.pub., 1990–1991), pp. 13–42; and Cassiodorus, Institutiones, ed. by R. A. B. Mynors, Cassiodori senatoris institutions, 25. 1–2 (Oxford, 1961), p. 66. 31 Harley and Woodward, eds, Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, pp. 334–35; Patrick Gautier Dalché, ‘L’espace de l’histoire: Le rôle de la géographie dans le chroniques universelles’, in L’historiographie médiévale en Europe, ed. by Jean-Philippe Genet (Paris: CNRS, 1991), pp. 287–300. 32 Richard W. Southern, ‘Presidential Address: Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 2. Hugh of St Victor and the Idea of Historical Development’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 21 (1971), 159–80 (p. 165).

‘ i n i t s e x t r ao rd i nary arrange me nt ’

But it is also one that fundamentally conceives of the world in all its geographical and historical detail as the stage for the history of salvation, the place of the intervention of God in human affairs, in history — indeed, of the creator who directly oversees (in the image, embraces) his creation (Fig. 1). And that is part of the difference between the Neoplatonic macro/microcosm and the macro/ microcosmic Mystic Ark: the one is an independent working of nature, while the other is an image of direct divine providence (and so not truly Neoplatonic). The specific visual device that enabled the map of The Mystic Ark to do all this — to go so far beyond the historical and spiritual meaning already invested in the more traditional world maps (e.g., Fig. 17) — was the Ark proper (Fig. 7, Fig. 13). The result is nothing less than a fully articulated world-view directly aimed at (and appropriating) the more prestigious (and secular) Neoplatonic thought of the time, a newly perceived threat that was arising out of the same School culture in which and for which The Mystic Ark was created, and from whose standard academic imagery it borrows. We know nothing of the fate of the original painting of The Mystic Ark that Hugh painted on the walls of Saint Victor in response to the charge of the Ark lectures. But we do know that one of Hugh’s students, with Hugh’s cooperation, created a reportatio of The Mystic Ark that was of enormous popularity and that became a vehicle for the dissemination of Hugh’s systematized middle-ground world-view across Europe and across the centuries, allowing this astonishing image and the lectures of which it was such a significant part to be repeated again and again throughout Western European intellectual circles. Immediately popular from its creation through the thirteenth century — as we know from the quantity of extant copies of The Mystic Ark — the number of copies of the text drop in the fourteenth century with the rise of Aristotelianism only to rise 3½ times that of the fourteenth-century level in the fifteenth century, something that was almost certainly in reaction to growing contemporary humanism, paradoxically in combination with the revival of neoplatonism that had begun, in turn, to supplant Aristotelianism. From Scotland to Italy and from Sweden to Spain, The Mystic Ark was read at the great Schools as much as across the monastic spectrum. Printed editions of The Mystic Ark began to appear not long after the period of incunabula, with the transmission of both The Moral Ark and The Mystic Ark being described as ‘one of the most extensive diffusions found in medieval spiritual literature’.33 Deeply a part of the intellectual discourses of its day — discourses whose issues might reformulate themselves in different ways over the years — the image of The Mystic Ark provided a means for many of those below the very highest level to personally enter into these discourses from the intellectual/ political standpoint of the educated middle ground.34

33 Sicard, ‘Introduction’, in Hugh of Saint-Victor, De archa Noe. Libellus de formatione arche, ed. by Patrice Sicard (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), p. 10*. 34 For more on the afterlife of The Mystic Ark, including an analysis of extant manuscript provenance, see Rudolph, The Mystic Ark, pp. 359–64.

145

146

co n r a d r u do l p h

Figure 17. World map. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, ms Clm 10058:154v. Reproduced by permission of Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.

And so we see that this is indeed an ‘extraordinary arrangement’, one in which the world and the Ark — the works of creation and of restoration — are inseparable, and which, in its fusion of time and space and in its activation of the specifics of the world map in the context of a systematic theology by the Ark, make it the most dynamic cartographical conception of its time.

Dominique Poirel Translated by David Orsbon

Hugh’s Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy

The Super Ierarchiam Dionisii is a continuous commentary on pseudo-Dionysius’ Celestial Hierarchy, according to the translation by John the Scot, commonly known as Eriugena.1 Under this title, it played a major role in the Latin West’s reception of 1  Hugonis de Sancto Victore Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ed. by Dominique Poirel, CCCM, 178 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), a stemmatic edition based on the 121 manuscripts known and preserved from the twelfth to the sixteenth century; Hugh of Saint-Victor, In hierarchiam caelestem S. Dionysii (PL 175.923–1154), whose text reproduces, through three intermediate editions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that of Josse Baden and Jean Petit, Paris, 1526, which was based on the Victorine manuscript Paris, Bibl. nat. from France, lat. 14507 (15th 2/4), copy of the excellent Victorine manuscript Vaticano, Bibl. Apost. Vat., Vat. lat. 179 (v. 1140/1150), corresponding to ‘l’édition de Gilduin’ (see below, note 5). On Hugh’s commentary, see Heinrich Weisweiler, ‘Die Ps.-Dionysiuskommentare In coelestem Hierarchiam des Scotus Eriugena und Hugos von St Viktor,’ RTAM, 19 (1952), 26–47; René Roques, ‘Connaissance de Dieu et théologie symbolique d’après l’“In Hierarchiam coelestem sancti Dionysii” de Hugues de Saint-Victor,’ in René Roques, Structures théologiques de la Gnose à Richard de Saint-Victor. Essais et analyses critiques, Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, Section des sciences religieuses, 72, (Paris, 1962) pp. 294–64; Roger Baron, ‘Le commentaire de la Hiérarchie céleste par Hugues de Saint-Victor,’ in Roger Baron, Études sur Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1963), pp. 133–13; David E. Luscombe, ‘The Commentary of Hugh of Saint-Victor on the Celestial Hierarchy’, in Die Dionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter. Internationales Kolloquium in Sofia vom 8. bis 11. April 1999 unter der Schirmherrschaft der Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale, ed. by Tzotcho Boiadjiev, Georgi Kapriev, and Andreas Speer, Rencontres de Philosophie médiévale, 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002) , pp. 159–75; Anko Ypenga, ‘Sacramentum: Hugo van St.-Victor († 1141) en zijn invloed of de allegorische interpretatie van de liturgie en de sacramentele theologie vanaf 1140 tot aan Durandus van Mende († 1296): een hermeneutisch-methodologische benadering’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Groningen, 2002); Csaba Németh, ‘The Victorines and the Areopagite’, in L’école de Saint-Victor. Influence et Dominique Poirel  •  ([email protected]) is Archiviste paléographe, Docteur habilité in History, and Directeur de Recherche at the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes (CNRS). He is also Director of the Institut d’Études Médiévales at Institut Catholique de Paris (France) and Visiting Professor at Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II (Lublin, Poland). He specializes in the intellectual history of the twelfth-century and co-directs the critical edition of Hugh of Saint-Victor for Corpus Christianorum. David Orsbon  •  ([email protected]) is a joint doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature and Classics at the University of Chicago. Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus, ed. by Robert J. Porwoll and David Allison Orsbon, CURSOR 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 147–172 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.122085

1 48

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

the texts and teachings of this mysterious Greek-language author, who likely lived around ad 500 and composed — under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, a figure from the Acts of the Apostles — a difficult and fascinating corpus of works which lies at the crossroads of the theology of the Greek Fathers and the Neoplatonic philosophy of Proclus.2 Before Hugh, very few had read the writings of pseudo-Dionysius apart from their translators.3 Thanks to Hugh’s commentary, of which more than a hundred manuscript copies survive from the twelfth through sixteenth centuries, key Dionysian themes — the hierarchical structure of the universe, symbolic theology, negative theology, and mystical theology, among others — became popular among Latin theologians and, in less than a century, obtained among them an authority almost equal to that of Augustine or Aristotle. It is therefore worthwhile to examine the Super Ierarchiam Dionisii — Hugh of Saint Victor’s second largest work after Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis christianae fidei), and one of his most remarkable — in order to understand his teachings on angels, the principal subject of the Celestial Hierarchy, and more generally on invisible realities, God included, and on the way in which humans can come to know the invisible through the visible realities. We will go about this in the following manner. First, I will present the commentary itself. Then I will focus on its most theologically important passages. Finally, I will describe its role in the revival of Dionysian studies in the twelfth century.





rayonnement du Moyen Âge à la Renaissance. Colloque international du C.N.R.S. pour le neuvième centenaire de la fondation (1108–2008), ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 333–83. I myself have published a dozen articles on Hugh’s commentary, most of which have been included in the volume: Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013). 2 On pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, see Stephen Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigation of the Prehistory and Evolution of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1978); Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century (New York: Crossroad, 1994); Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to their Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); René Roques, L’univers Dionysien. Stucture hiérarchique du monde selon le Pseudo-Denys (Paris: Aubier, 1954); René Roques and others, ‘Denys l’Aréopagite (le Pseudo-)’, in Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, ed. by M. Viller and others, vol. iii (Paris: Beauchesne, 1954), pp. 244–329; Endre von Ivanka, Plato Christianus, Übernahme und Umgestaltung des Platonismus durch die Väter (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1964); Bernhard Brons, Gott und die Seienden. Untersuchungen zum Verhaltnis von neuplatonischer Metaphysik and christlicher Tradition bei Dionysius Areopagita (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1976); Ysabel de Andia, L’union à Dieu chez Denys l’Aréopagite (Leiden: Brill, 1996); Tzotcho Boiadjiev, Georgi Kapriev, and Andreas Speer, eds, Die Dionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter. Internationales Kolloquium in Sofia vom 8. bis 11. April 1999 unter der Schirmherrschaft der Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale, Rencontres de Philosophie médiévale, 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002); Ysabel de Andia, ed., Denys l’Aréopagite et sa postérité en orient et en occident. Actes du Colloque international. Paris, 21–24 septembre 1994, Collection des études augustiniennes, Série Antiquité, 151 (Paris: Institut d’études augustiniennes, 1997); Ysabel de Andia, ed., Denys l’Aréopagite: tradition et métamorphoses, Histoire de la philosophie, 42 (Paris: Vrin, 2006). 3 See Dominique Poirel, ‘Le mirage dionysien: la réception latine du pseudo-Denys jusqu’au xiie siècle à l’épreuve des manuscrits’, in Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 271–92.

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

Presentation of the Commentary Hugh’s commentary consists of ten books. The first is an introduction to the whole of the Dionysian corpus: Celestial Hierarchy, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, Divine Names, and Mystical Theology; the nine books that follow comment on the first of these treatises, whose fifteen chapters are grouped or divided here and there according to the size of the chapter and according to the relative length of the commentator’s treatment. In general, Hugh’s explanations tend to be more in depth at the beginning and faster at the end of the commentary. Book i Book ii Book iii Book iv Book v Book vi Book vii Book viii Book ix Book x

Introduction to the Dionysian Corpus Commentary on Chapter i Commentary on Chapter ii Commentary on Chapter iii Commentary on Chapters iv–vi Commentary on the first part of Chapter vii Commentary on the second part of Chapter vii Commentary on Chapter viii Commentary on Chapters ix–xiv Commentary on Chapter xv

pp. 399–413 pp. 414–46 pp. 447–96 pp. 497–514 pp. 515–52 pp. 553–68 pp. 569–607 pp. 608–24 pp. 625–88 pp. 689–717

Table 1. Contents of Hugh’s Commentary

Hugh’s authorship of the commentary has never been disputed.4 It is based on numerous and matching indices. For the most part, the manuscripts give the name ‘Master Hugh’ or ‘Master Hugh of Saint-Victor’ and do not propose any competing attribution. The Indiculum omnium scriptorum magistri Hugonis de Sancto Victore que scripsit — a ‘table of contents’ to Hugh’s works, prepared shortly after his death on the initiative of his Abbot Gilduin — is a very reliable source to ground the authenticity of Hugh’s writings.5 This Indiculum precisely describes the title of the commentary, the incipits of its first three books, and the exegete’s omission of a sentence in the original — all of this exactly corresponds to the text we possess. Finally, the commentary also contains a long literal parallel with De sacramentis christianae fidei, a reference to the Didascalicon or Epitoma Dindimi, and several strong similarities with various other writings by Hugh (Didascalicon, De archa





4 See my edition Hugonis de Sancto Victore Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ed. by Poirel, pp. 9–10, pp. 328–29; Roger Baron, ‘Étude sur l’authenticité de l’œuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor d’après les mss Paris Maz. 717, BN 14506 et Douai 360–366’, Scriptorium, 10 (1956), 182–20; Roger Baron, ‘Hugues de SaintVictor. Contribution à un nouvel examen de son œuvre’, Traditio, 15 (1959), 223–97. 5 See Joseph de Ghellinck, ‘La table des matières de la première édition des œuvres de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, RSR, 1 (1910), 270–89; 85–96; Dominique Poirel, ‘Une édition victorine: les volumina de l’abbé Gilduin’, in Livre de la nature et débat trinitaire au xiie siècle. Le “De tribus diebus” de Hugues de Saint-Victor, BV, 14 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 27–86.

149

150

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

Noe, De tribus diebus, etc.), all of which leave no doubt about the identity of the commentary’s author.6 The Date

The date of composition has been more open to discussion.7 Two arguments, more tenuous than they at first appear, have contributed to situating the work toward the later years of Hugh’s life. First, a dedication to King Louis VII (1137–1180) in printed editions seemed to suggest that it dates back to Hugh’s final years (d. 1141). However, this dedication is absent from all the extant manuscripts. Modern editors probably construed it according to the imprecise and late suggestion of a continuator of the Chronicle of Sigebert de Gembloux, according to which Hugh would had composed his work at the request of a certain king Louis (petente … rege Ludovico). But this king could be Louis VI (1108–1137) just as easily as his son Louis VII. Moreover, Hugh himself declares that he composed his work at the request, not of a king, but of several ‘introducendi’ which probably refers to his fellow brothers or advanced students. There is, therefore, no need to take into account this dubious dedication to a king Louis in order to date Hugh’s commentary. Another reason for locating this last work toward the final years of the Victorine’s life is that another commentator on pseudo-Dionysius, Jean Sarrazin, who was active in the generation after Hugh, justifies his explication of pseudo-Dionysius’ oeuvre by saying that, nec expositor nec didascalus apud nos reperitur qui hos edisserat (there is to be found among us no commentator or master who explains these [books]).8 From this remark, it was all too quickly concluded that Jean Sarrazin had commented on pseudo-Dionysius before Hugh. But this position forces one into chronological contortions, because Jean Sarrazin is unknown before the mid-1160s. At the same time, Eriugena’s commentary had already existed for three centuries. It is therefore simpler to understand Jean Sarrazin’s remark not as an assertion that his is truly the first commentary on pseudo-Dionysius, which is impossible, but rather as a profession of humility: if he accepts the request that is made of him to produce a commentary, it is because there is no one else apud nos (around us) capable of carrying out the task. The two reasons given do not provide any clue for dating the work of Hugh. Damien Van den Eynde relied on a series of stylistic and doctrinal comparisons to classify Hugh’s writings in chronological sequence, from the least to the most



6 See especially Erich Kleineidam, ‘Literaturgeschichtliche Bemerkungen zur Eucharistielehre Hugos von St Viktor’, Scholastik, 20–24 (1949), 564–66. 7 See Dominique Poirel, ‘L’œuvre de toute une vie’, in Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 51–147. 8 ‘In quorum explanatione librorum doctiores audire tacendo vellem si fieri posset. Sed quia nec expositor nec didascalus apud nos reperitur qui hos edisserat et fructuosissima eorum scientia velut thesaurus absconditus parum aut nihil utilitatis humanis usibus afferre videtur…’ See Paris, Bib. Nat. 1619, col. 22; 18061, fol. 21v; cited in G. Théry, ‘Documents concernants Jean Sarrazin, Réviseur de la Traduction érigénienne du ‘Corpus Dionisiacum’, AHDLMA, 18 (1950–1951) 45–87 (p. 46).

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

refined.9 He concluded that the Victorine’s commentary predated various works that he attaches to the 1120s: a lost letter to St Bernard, written according to him around 1126; the Sentences on Divinity (Sententiae de divinitate), which he situates between 1125 and 1131; and De tribus diebus, which he dates to approximately 1125. Therefore, the commentary dates from before 1125. On further analysis, however, the entire chronological system of Van den Eynde looks like a house of cards: the minor differences of style or doctrine that he points to may have completely different explanations than order of composition. The conclusions he draws on to date Hugh’s commentary, as well as the Victorine’s other writings, are therefore extremely tenuous. In my view, two questions, which have hitherto not been separated, must be carefully distinguished: (1) when did Hugh read the Dionysian corpus for the first time? and, (2) when did he begin to comment on the Celestial Hierarchy? There are various indications that these two events are separated by a long interval.10 All things considered, I am inclined to think that Hugh discovered the Dionysian corpus during his youth in the Holy Roman Empire, and then set himself to commenting on it from about 1125 to his death. Why did Hugh start reading pseudo-Dionysius in the Holy Roman Empire? Firstly, because it is there that the Dionysian corpus, until the twelfth century, was the most copied, the most read, and the most studied. In France, Dionysian manuscripts are exceedingly rare; also, before Hugh the majority of those in France who mention Dionysius the Areopagite did not read his demanding and hard-to-find writings, but rather the Passio Dionysii of Hilduin, abbot of Saint-Denis, who summarizes the Dionysian corpus and makes it unnecessary to read it. This is what I have called the ‘Dionysian mirage’.11 Then there is the fact that the Dionysian influence on Hugh of Saint-Victor’s work and thought is both ubiquitous and discreet, without chronological break. Only long-term frequentation with pseudo-Dionysius would enable a theologian, such as Hugh, to accurately understand these texts and to harmonize them with the Augustinian tradition, as he did. Hugh began his commentary around 1125. Around 1120 he still believed, on the authority of Bede, that Dionysius the Areopagite had been the bishop of Corinth. But in both The Vanity of Worldy Things (De vanitate rerum mundanarum) and in his commentary he abandons this thesis, as did Peter Abelard, following the scandal raised in 1121 by the latter concerning the identity of the convert of Saint Paul. Furthermore, from the middle of the 1120s, Hugh shows an increasing interest in the angelic world, especially in his treatises on the ark and his doctrinal syntheses, Sententiae de divinitate and De sacramentis christianae fidei. This greater interest in

9 Damien Van den Eynde, Essai sur la succession et la date des écrits de Hugues de Saint-Victor, Spicilegium Pontificii Athenaei Antoniani, 13 (Roma: Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum, 1958, 1960), pp. 58–65 and passim; see also: Roger Baron, ‘Note sur la succession de l’œuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 57(1962), 88–118; Roger Baron, ‘L’œuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor du point de vue chronologique,’ in Roger Baron, Études sur Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1963), pp. 69–89. 10 See Poirel, ‘L’œuvre de toute une vie’, in Des symboles et des anges, pp. 51–147. 11 See Poirel, ‘Le mirage dionysien’, in Des symboles et des anges, pp. 271–92.

15 1

152

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

angels suggests that he was beginning to comment on the Celestial Hierarchy. The commentary must have occupied him for a long time: he himself speaks of a long pause between Books vi and vii, and the manuscript tradition suggests at least one other pause. Some anomalies in the redaction even suggest that Hugh did not re-read and correct his commentary, as he did for other works that circulated during his lifetime. The manuscript tradition of his entire commentary seems to depend on the ‘edition’ of Hugh of Saint-Victor’s writings that Abbot Gilduin organized shortly after his death. It must be concluded, therefore, that the writing of the commentary was probably spread over a long period, from about 1125 to 1140. Meaning of the Work

For what reason was Hugh interested in the Dionysian corpus? And why, within this corpus, did he choose to comment on the Celestial Hierarchy? The mythical identification with the first bishop of Paris — Saint Denis — seems to have played no part in this choice, because, as I have said, the Victorine had knowledge of the writings transmitted under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite from his youth in the Holy Roman Empire.12 Also, when in 1120, shortly after his entry into Saint Victor, he named Dionysius the Areopagite among a list of ‘authentic writings’ authoritative in sacred doctrine, he did not identify Dionysius as a bishop of Paris, but rather of Corinth, on the basis of erroneous information found in the Venerable Bede.13 It was therefore the texts themselves that interested him, on account of their particular philosophical and theological content, not to mention the prestige attached to the supposed convert of Saint Paul, briefly mentioned in Acts (17. 34). In Book i of the commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy, Dionysius the Areopagite is presented as an ancient philosopher turned Christian theologian (ex philosopho christianus effectus theologus).14 Seeing that ‘the wisdom of the world puffed up against the humility of the Christian faith’, he decided to show that ‘those who despise the humility of faith in death of the Savior, admire his sublimity in the knowledge of the creator’.15 In other words, Dionysius seems to Hugh like some intermediate or transmitter between the two forms of wisdom, worldly and Christian. In themselves,

12 See Dominique Poirel, ‘Hugo Saxo. Les origines germaniques de la pensée d’Hugues de Saint-Victor’, Francia. Forschungen zur Westeuropäischen Geschichte, 33.1 (2006), 163–74. 13 ‘Dionysius Areopagita, episcopus ordinatus Corinthiorum, multa ingenii sui uolumina reliquit.’, Didascalicon: Hugonis de Sancto Victore Didascalicon de studio legendi, iv. 14, ed. by Charles H. Buttimer, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin, 10 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1939), pp. 89, 15–16 = [Eruditionis didascalicae libri septem] (Migne citation) PL 176.787A-B (PL 176.741–838). 14 ‘Dionisius Ariopagites, ex philosopho christianus effectus theologus…,’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, i. Prol., ed. by Poirel, p. 405, 160–61. See Dominique Poirel, ‘La figure du pseudoDenys chez Hugues de Saint-Victor,’ in Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 149–94. 15 ‘Dignum quippe erat ut confunderentur in summis, qui de infimorum cognitione superbierant, et qui humilitatem fidei in morte Salvatoris despiciunt, celsitudinem eius admirentur in agnitione creatoris.’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, i. Prol., ed. by Poirel, p. 402, 84–87.

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

these two wisdoms were not contradictory: the natural wisdom of the ancients should have let itself be completed by the revealed wisdom of the Christians. On account of pride, however, Greek philosophy had despised the paradox of a God who becomes human, who suffers, and who dies. Here, Hugh is probably thinking of Saint Paul’s partial failure in Athens at the occasion of his speech at the Areopagus, which Dionysius — as a matter of fact called the ‘Areopagite’ — attended, since after this speech he converted to Christianity. For Hugh, the Dionysian corpus thus appears as the model of a synthesis between Greek philosophy and biblical revelation, between natural reason and Christian faith.16 One can therefore understand the attraction that the figure of the Areopagite held for the author of the Didascalicon, who similarly endeavoured to concile, into a programme of Christian education, the study of the whole of philosophy and the study of the divine Scriptures.17 But why comment on the Celestial Hierarchy and not, for example, the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, whose subject is much closer to that of Hugh’s De sacramentis? Certainly, the angelic creature, as an intermediary between God and humanity, could have seemed to Hugh a suggestive model through which to think of his own vocation as a canon regular and master in sacred doctrine — that is, as an intermediary between God and humanity, and a ‘messenger’ (ἄγγελος, ángelos in Greek) of divine grace and doctrine. But Hugh’s interest in angels seems to be more an effect, rather than a cause, of his composition of the Super Ierarchiam Dionisii. Another, simpler explanation probably should be preferred: the Celestial Hierarchy appears in the manuscripts as the first writing of the Dionysian corpus, which Hugh of Saint Victor would have commented on in its entirety if he had lived long enough to do so.18 Several facts corroborate this hypothesis. First, Book i of Hugh’s commentary introduces the reader not to the Celestial Hierarchy alone, but to all of pseudo-Dionysius’ treatises. Further, the title itself, Super ‘Ierarchiam’ Dionisii, without the expected modifier caelestem or angelicam, is an anomaly — unless, that is, one reads the substantive Ierarchia as referring generically to the entire Dionysian corpus, as is the case in several writers of the twelfth century, from Sigebert of Gembloux to John of Salisbury. If he had lived longer, Hugh of Saint-Victor would therefore have commented on all the Areopagite’s writings, as did his fellow brother Thomas Gallus a century after him. Hugh did not choose to comment on the Celestial Hierarchy in preference to other treatises; rather, the order of the texts in the Latin manuscript tradition and the illness that ended his life on 11 February 1141 together explain why this treatise of pseudo-Dionysius is the only one for which we have an expositio on Hugh’s part.

16 ‘Dionisius Ariopagites, ex philosopho christianus effectus theologus…,’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, i. Prol., ed. by Poirel, p. 405, 160–61. 17 See Dominique Poirel, ‘Pierre Abélard, Hugues de Saint-Victor et la naissance de la théologie,’ in Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 435–73. 18 See Dominique Poirel, ‘“Sur la Hiérarchie”: le sens d’un titre’, in Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 195–239.

15 3

154

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

Exegetical Method

For his only commentary that does not treat texts taken from the Bible, Hugh was faced with special difficulties. Even in Greek, the Dionysian corpus is difficult to read because of its demanding doctrine and abstruse language, that is, complex sentences filled with neologisms. On top of these original complexities, there is also the shift from one era, one region, one language, and one culture to another; the conservatism of Eriugena’s translation, which translates word for word, calquing the Dionysian terminology into Latin and preserving the grammatical turns of the original Greek; and finally, there are the difficulties introduced by scribal errors, first in the Greek codex used by Eriugena, and later in the Latin manuscript used by Hugh. To cope with these difficulties, Hugh, who was not a Hellenist, nevertheless had two supports. First of all, the commentary composed by the translator: Eriugena’s Expositiones in Ierarchiam coelestem.19 However, Eriugena’s commentary seems to have come to him with at least a third of it butchered, as is the case for all but one of the manuscripts which transmit it. Thus, Hugh can only rely on it for chapters i–iii and vii–xv. In addition, the Victorine also had access to a manuscript of Eriugena’s translation that was accompanied by the glosses of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, which consist of interlinear or marginal corrections, and marginal scholia extracted and translated by Anastasius from two Greek Fathers: John of Scythopolis (sixth century) and Maximus the Confessor (d. 662), both of them experts in the Dionysian writings.20 For the rest, Hugh could only rely on his own talent as an exegete, mindful to interpret each text according to its own logic and with the aid of context. After diverse tries, Hugh ended up developing a particularly effective exegetic method.21 After having quoted the Dionysian lemma that he is about to explain, he often begins by paraphrasing it, reshaping the sentence to formulate it in a more comprehensible order of words, and by glossing or replacing the more obscure terms with other, clearer terms. Little by little, this literal explication gives way to a more doctrinal interpretation, where Hugh focuses on what he sees as the essential idea of the passage. On occasion, he indulges in a digression: sometimes he expresses his admiration for Dionysius’ work, sometimes he discusses some difficulty it raises, sometimes he criticizes an erroneous opinion that could arise were the text not 19 John Scotus Eriugena, Expositiones in Ierarchiam coelestem, ed. by Jeanne Barbet, CCCM, 31 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975). 20 Hyacinthe François Dondaine, Le corpus dionysien de l’université de Paris au xiiie siècle (Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1953), pp. 35–66; Jean Châtillon, ‘Hugues de Saint-Victor critique de Jean Scot’ in Jean Scot Érigène et l’histoire de la philosophie. Laon, 7–12 juillet 1975, Colloques internationaux du C.N.R.S., 561 (Paris: Éditions du C.N.R.S., 1977), pp. 415–31 = Jean Châtillon, Le mouvement canonial au Moyen Âge. Réforme de l’Église, spiritualité et culture, ed. by Patrice Sicard, BV, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), pp. 419–45. 21 See Dominique Poirel, ‘Exposer la Hiérarchie céleste: un défi et un paradoxe’, in Des symboles et des anges Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 293–333.

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

properly understood, sometimes he extends some idea that he has just read — and liked — and wishes to emphasize in his own way. These less literal passages are also the most personal, for it is in these that Hugh most clearly expresses his own interests as an exegete, theologian, and spiritual author. In sum, the commentary on each lemma exhibits a constant tension between, on the one hand, the most meticulous attention to the letter of the text in order to elucidate its smallest difficulties and, on the other hand, the search for the doctrinal coherence of each sentence with the more general sense of the passage, the chapter, and the work as a whole. Yet, Hugh passes from one to the other gradually. There is therefore no need to assume, as Heinrich Weisweiler did, that the Super Ierarchiam Dionisii is the fusion of two different commentaries that Hugh initially composed separately.22

The Doctrine of the Commentary Following the Dionysian text, the main subject of Hugh’s Super Ierarchiam Dionisii is the ‘celestial hierarchy’ — that is to say, the unequal but harmonious society that is formed by the different angelic orders. However, like pseudo-Dionysius, and to an even greater degree, Hugh addresses many other issues. In the treatise upon which he comments, the celestial spirits hardly appear before chapter iv, as though the author had wanted to lead his reader toward the angelic world in a gradual manner, after first passing, so to say, through a succession of closer and closer cinematographic shots: i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi xii xiii xiv xv

The multiplicity of divine gifts comes from God alone and returns to him Superiority of dissimilar symbols over similar symbols What is hierarchy in general Meaning of the term ‘angel’ Why all celestial essences are called ‘angels’ The three triads of angelic orders First Triad: Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones Second triad: Dominions, Virtues, and Powers Third triad: Principalities, Archangels, and Angels Summation of the angelic organization Why all celestial essences are called ‘virtues’ Why human hierarchs (prelates) are called ‘angels’ Why Isaiah was purified by a seraph Meaning of numbers in Scripture related to angels Meaning of images in Scripture related to angels

Table 2. Chapter Breakdown.

22 Weisweiler, ‘Die Pseudo-Dionysiuskommentare In coelestem Hierarchiam des Scotus Eriugena und Hugos von St Viktor’, 26–47.

15 5

156

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

First, there is the hierarchical system as a whole (i); then, the manner in which it comes to be known, through a spiritual ascent from the visible to the invisible (ii); then, the definition of ‘hierarchy’ (iii). Only at this point does pseudo-Dionysius arrive at the core subject of the Celestial Hierarchy: first, the angelic world as a whole, that is ‘angel’ taken in an undifferentiated sense, (iv) and the reason why this term — which, strictly speaking, designates only one of the nine orders — can be applied generally to the other eight orders of celestial spirits (v). After these generalities, the author comes to the true heart of the treatise, the ‘celestial hierarchy’, the unequal but harmonious way, that is, in which the society of celestial spirits is structured in three triads of angelic orders. This division is the subject of the central chapters (vi–x). Indeed, chapters vii–ix, preceded by an introduction (vi) and followed by a recapitulation (x), are devoted to the three triads from the highest to the lowest.

Seraphim

Celestial Hierachy

Upper Triad (Ch. VII)

Cheribum

Intermediate Triad (Ch. VIII)

Virtues

Lower Triad (ch. VIII)

Archangels

Thornes Dominions Powers Principalities Angels

Table 3. Triadic Structures.

At this point, pseudo-Dionysius raises (and answers) three objections that could be made to his description of the angelic world that originate from Scripture’s apparently contradictory usage of the terms ‘virtues’ (xi), ‘angels’ (xii), and ‘seraphim’ (xiii). Finally, he concludes his treatise with two chapters on numbers (xiv) and visible figures (xv) that Scripture uses when speaking of celestial spirits. In this light, it makes perfect sense that Hugh does not restrict himself in his commentary to angelic spirits alone, but also that he is interested in the Dionysian hierarchical system as a whole and in the problem of knowledge of the invisible realities, especially God. This, then, is what we shall study here, following Hugh’s lead, though we shall not delve into every detail of his teaching on angels. Rather, we will focus on those issues that elicited the most extensive commentary from the Victorine.

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

The Universal Hierarchy

Although the Greek word ἀρχή (archē) possesses a double meaning in that it can refer to a ‘principle’ as well as a ‘command’ and, thus, the word ἱεραρχία (hierarchia) contains both the idea of sacred causality and sacred power, it is especially the latter sense that was handed down in the medieval Latin world, because of the equivalence, in Hilduin’s translation, between ierarchia and sacer principatus. This is not without consequence for the way in which Hugh of Saint-Victor receives and understands Dionysius’ hierarchical system, at least at the beginning of his commentary. In Book i, he explains that God the creator freely chose to have rational creatures participate in his power. This is the reason why God established, among angels in heaven as well as human beings on earth, magistrates, powers, and sacred principalities (magistratus et potestates et principatus sacros) — so that the rational creature — that is both angels and humans — may govern all of creation.23 Why? Hugh proposes three explanations. First, a reason of suitability: being rational, angelic and human creatures thus bear a resemblance to God, who set them apart from all other creatures. In making them partners of his power, God thus completes this resemblance.24 Secondly, this participation in God’s power testifies to his generosity. Being omnipotent, God obviously could have governed on his own what he, and he alone, had created. Nevertheless, surrounding himself with collaborators, he does not aim to benefit from their help, but rather the opposite, to benefit his collaborators through this elevation.25 Finally, Hugh suggests an aesthetic reason: by introducing into creation a multiplicity of successive relays between his original power and the humblest of beings, God establishes an order that is harmonious. Hence, there is a cascade of orders and of degrees within the universal participation in his gifts.26 The hierarchical universe is the descending, gracious, and stratified unfolding and multiplication of God’s unique goodness. The World of the Angels

With regard to the distribution of celestial spirits into nine categories, Hugh is not unaware that pseudo-Dionysius’ ‘hierarchy’ diverges from the one that was predominant at the time in the Latin world, drawn from the writings of Gregory the Great.27 Indeed, Gregory presented not one but two different vertical arrangements of celestial spirits, one in his Homilies on the Gospels (Homiliae in Evangelia),28 and

23 ‘…magistratus et potestates et principatus sacros…,’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, i. Prol., ed. by D. Poirel, p. 405, 163–64. 24 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, i. Prol., ed. by Poirel, p. 405, 165–69. 25 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, i. Prol., ed. by Poirel, p. 405, 170–74. 26 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, i. Prol., ed. by Poirel, pp. 405–06, 175–79. 27 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, v. v, ed. by Poirel, pp. 543–45, 270–329. 28 See the table below, Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelium, ii. 34, ed. by Raymond Étaix, CCSL, 141 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), p. 305, 148–51 (PL 176.1246C–1259A).

15 7

1 58

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

the other in his Commentary on Job (Moralia in Iob),29 though it was above all the first that was handed down within the Latin world, starting, most notably, with Isidore of Seville. It is not surprising therefore that it is this one Hugh brings up, to contrast pseudo-Dionysius’ angelic hierarchy. In the face of this disparity, what does our commentator do? In the first place, Hugh notes the points of agreement between them (‘eadem omnium sententia constat’) on the three highest orders and on the two lowest orders.30 Then, he compares the points of difference with respect to the four intermediate orders, maintaining great impartiality between the two systems.31 This is not the case in De sacramentis christianae fidei, where Hugh abandons his neutrality and uses only the Dionysian nomenclature.32 This exclusive choice is all the more remarkable given that Gregory’s position was almost unanimously accepted until the twelfth century. Even at the end of this century, Innocent III, although he refers in his On the Sacred Mystery of the Altar (De sacro altaris mysterio) to ‘Dionysius the Areopagite’, actually cites the Gregorian hierarchy, so traditional among the Latin theologians that they have considerable difficulty detaching themselves from it.33 According to pseudo-Dionysius

According to Gregory

Seraphim Cherubim Thrones Dominions Virtues Powers Principalities Archangels Angels

Seraphim Cherubim Thrones Dominions Principalities Powers Virtues Archangels Angels

Table 4. Comparative Angelic Lists.

Another divergence between the Dionysian and Gregorian angelologies concerns the significance of this classification. Does the latter distinguish natures or simple functions? In other words, is the distinction strict and permanent, or flexible and temporary? For Gregory and the Latin tradition, which relies on particular passages of Scripture (Isaiah 6. 6–7, Hebrews 1. 14), it is purely functional, such that the same 29 ‘angeli, archangeli, troni, dominationes, uirtutes, principatus, potestates, cherubim et seraphim,’ in Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, xxxii. xxiii (48), ed. by M. Adriaen, CCSL, 143B (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985), p. 1666, pp. 41–43 (PL 176:665C). 30 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, v. v, ed. by Poirel, p. 543, 271. 31 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, v. v, ed. by Poirel, pp. 543–45, 270–29. 32 Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei, i. vi. 30, col. 260CD (PL 176.173–618). 33 See Marcia L. Colish, ‘Early Scholastic Angelology’, RTAM, 62 (1995), 80–109; see also Dominique Poirel, ‘L’ange gothique’, in Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 337–62, in particular, p. 359 n. 59.

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

celestial spirits can sometimes be called ‘angels’ and sometimes ‘seraphim’ according to the mission the spirit is performing. For Dionysius, on the other hand, who foregrounds other passages from Scripture (Daniel 7. 10), this classification is strict: it corresponds to an inequality among substances. Between God and the human, there is an ontological gradation represented by the diversity of the angelic world, from the highest essences (seraphim) to the lowest (‘angels’ in the strict sense). According to its proximity to God, each heavenly spirit is therefore more or less excellent, both in its being as well as in its activity. It is therefore also impossible for a celestial spirit to leave its natural category in order to fulfil a function allotted to another, just as it would be impossible for a human to become an angel or vice versa. At first, Hugh sets forth the two competing systems, but refrains from taking sides.34 Then, since it is the Celestial Hierarchy that he is commenting on, he lays out the Dionysian doctrine in its own consistency, even if he has to seek new solutions to the problems it seems to raise. The principal difficulties consist in conciling the strictness and precision of pseudo-Dionysius’ system with the far less thorough details of Scripture. Faced, then, with what appears to be exceptional cases, pseudo-Dionysius and Hugh in turn follow a series of rules that attempt to rationalize and systematize the biblical usage of angelic names.35 Rule 1: Any name of a lower category may be adopted by a higher category.36 Indeed, the divine gifts are spread from top to bottom across all orders — in a cascade, as it were — and each order receives these divine gifts according to its capacity. Since this capacity decreases as one moves away from God, the higher orders will receive all the same perfections of the lower ones, except to a greater degree. Therefore, it is logical that a higher order can also receive the names of the lower orders. This is the reason why the name ‘angel’ refers strictly speaking to one order among others, the lowest of all, but also applies broadly to any celestial spirit, regardless of whatever category it may belong to. Since the angels are the lowest order, all the other angels have their perfections, and therefore they are fit to take on the name ‘angel’ as well. However, this first rule is not sufficient, since Scripture sometimes refers to all of the heavenly spirits as ‘virtues’, even though that name refers strictly to the fifth order of celestial spirits — below the seraphim, cherubim, thrones, and dominions, but above the powers, principalities, archangels, and angels. But if all these categories of spirit, both inferior as well as superior, are included under the name of ‘virtues’, this contradicts the first rule, according to which the superior orders, and they alone, can adopt the name of the lower orders. Moreover, the Book of Isaiah states that the lips of this prophet were purified by a ‘seraph’, yet the entry of a spirit of the highest

34 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, v. v, ed. by Poirel, pp. 535–38, 2–84. 35 See Dominique Poirel, ‘Magis proprie: la question du langage en théologie chez Hugues de SaintVictor’, in Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 411–33. 36 ‘Propterea enim non possunt angeli “principes” aut “throni” aut “seraphin” nominari, sicut principes et throni et seraphin “angeli” nominantur, quia superiores angelicam proprietatem uniuersaliter participant, angeli uero superiorum illuminationes et uirtutes non uniuersaliter participant,’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, v. v, ed. by Poirel, p. 540, 174–79.

1 59

1 60

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

category into direct contact with a human radically transgresses the entire structure of pseudo-Dionysius’ hierarchy. Hence, Rule 2: Any action of a higher category can be attributed to a lower category.37 Indeed, the actions of inferior spirits have their origin in actions of higher spirits, which have been transmitted from order to order according to the hierarchical cascade. In other words, the spirit that purified Isaiah’s lips was actually a simple angel, then a spirit from the lowest order, but he was commanded by a higher order to perform this purifying action: the origin of his action was, therefore, seraphic, and even divine. On the account of his action this ‘angel’ can therefore be called, broadly speaking, a ‘seraph’. The purpose of these two rules, obviously, is to bring coherence to biblical material which, in reality, does not lend itself to such order. Therefore, these two rules have therefore the paradoxical result of formulating, in theory, the most rigorous classification of the celestial spirits, and in practice, of accommodating all possible exceptions: any heavenly spirit, whether lower or higher, may take the name of any order, lower or higher. Hugh seems to have recognized this fundamental difficulty of the Dionysian system.38 Indeed, he formulates the following objection: If, according to Rule 1, all the names of the lowest orders are suitable for the highest orders — since the latter possess all the perfections of the former, albeit in a more excellent manner — it follows that there is no longer any way of giving any meaningful, proper name to the lowest orders; for these would have nothing proper or unique to themselves that could be used to distinguish them from other orders. The solution which Hugh proposes in order to save the Dionysian hierarchy consists in giving a purely conventional meaning to the names of the angelic categories. Essentially, the celestial orders are not distinguished by perfections, properly speaking, since they receive all of them, but rather by the degree of intensity to which they possess these common perfections. The seraphim, which are the highest order, are the most perfect celestial spirits, not only in love, but also in knowledge, discernment, and so forth; the cherubim who come after are the spirits who have these perfections to the next highest degree, and so on. So Hugh suggests that seraphim derive their name from their burning love, not because they share in this perfection more than in other perfections, but rather because love is the highest perfection; the cherubim, then, will be named from the gift of wisdom, because this perfection comes second after love, and so forth. The names of various categories of angelic spirits are thus emptied of any proper meaning and become simple markers of intensity.

37 For example, see ‘Vnde patet quia, cum seraphin ad prophetam uolare dicitur et prophetam purgare dicitur, sic conuenienter intelligi potest quod haec operatio per subiectum quidem angelum amministrata est, sed superiori a quo erat attributa,’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ix. xiii, ed. by Poirel, p. 684, 666–69. 38 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, v. v, ed. by Poirel, pp. 542–43, 232–69.

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

The Knowledge of God

In the main, Hugh of Saint-Victor’s core theme in his Super Ierarchiam Dionisii is the way in which the human being can access knowledge of the invisible world and, especially, knowledge of God. Over the course of the commentary, we can see Hugh’s thought evolve gradually, without contradicting itself, by becoming more refined and nuanced through constant contact with Dionysian thought. In this way, it is possible to distinguish three doctrinal theses that are successively affirmed by Hugh. The first appears especially in Books i and ii of Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, the second in Book iii, the third in Book vi. Without being incompatible, the three theses are rather different; each insists on a complementary aspect of the problem posed by the human being’s knowledge of the invisible world. They are: 1) Visible realities signify invisible realities, the angels, and God; 2) God cannot be expressed, or even thought about, apart from visible realities; 3) With respect to approaching God, love goes further than knowledge. These three theses correspond, as it were, to a ‘symbolic theology’, a ‘negative theology’, and a ‘loving theology’. Symbolic Theology

If Hugh chose as his opening quotation in Book i the phrase of Saint Paul — Iudei signa querunt et Greci sapientiam (The Jews seek signs and the Greeks wisdom, 1 Corinthians 1. 22) — it is not only because it is a question of ‘wisdom’ as well as of an opposition which Dionysius the Areopagite manages to overcome between the pagan wisdom of the Greeks and the biblical wisdom of the Jews; it is also because it is a question of signa. Indeed, this second word in the text points to extensive developments in a theory of symbol.39 A core thesis of the Super Ierarchiam Dionisii is that it is impossible to know the invisible realities without going through the mediation of visible realities.40 The visible and invisible worlds make up two halves of a created and uncreated universe that has the human being at its centre, who is also half visible (by virtue of his body) and half invisible (by virtue of his spirit). It is for the human being above all that the visible and invisible realities, far from forming two worlds foreign to each other, are linked by a multitude of relations of signification.

39 See Lenka Karfíková, ‘Symbol und Unmittelbarkeit. Zur Interpretation des dritten Buches In Hierarchiam coelestem Hugos von St Viktor’, in Ex latere. Ausfaltungen communialer Theologie, ed. by Erich Naab, Extemporalia, 12 (Eichstätt: Franz-Sales, 1993), pp. 32–55; see also Dominique Poirel, ‘La notion de symbole dans le Super Ierarchiam’, in Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 395–410. 40 ‘Impossibile enim est inuisibilia nisi per uisibilia demonstrari, et propterea omnis theologia necesse habet uisibilibus demonstrationibus uti in inuisibilium declarationem,’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, i. Prol., ed. by Poirel, p. 403, 107–09; ‘ut nichil scilicet ex omnibus uisibilibus relinqueret quod non aliquam ad inuisibilia significationem habere demonstraret,’ Hugh of SaintVictor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, x. xv, ed. by Poirel, p. 705, 455–56.

161

162

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

The issue of visible signs is, therefore, essential to all theology. These signs or likenesses (signa or simulachra) consist of two kinds: there are the signs of nature, that is, the world and its elements; and the signs of grace, that is, the Incarnate Word and its sacraments.41 Here can be recognized a distinction that was made for the first time in De archa Noe (The Moral Ark), then taken up in De uanitate rerum mundanarum (The Vanity of Worldly Things), and also forms the starting point of the summa De sacramentis.42 How do nature’s signs signify the invisible God? This is the object of De tribus diebus (The Three Days).43 What are the signs of grace, what is their meaning and efficacy? This is more or less the object of De sacramentis. The whole tragedy of ancient philosophy is to have known only the signs of nature and to have despised the signs of grace. So although the pagan sages gathered much useful knowledge about the visible world, an excessive presumption caused them to be misled about the invisible world. On account of this, they made great discoveries in nearly every part of philosophy and gross errors in theology: anthropomorphism, polytheism, and idolatry. The moral root of their failure was pride — an excessive confidence, that is, in their own capacity to know the invisible, and their contempt for humble and base signs, such as the cross of Christ.44 However, their error is also rooted, in part, in the fact of divine transcendence. Hugh insists several times that in God, there is a part that can be known and another part that remains inaccessible to all created intelligences, be they human or angelic.45 The knowable part of God is revealed to the human being through the symbols drawn from the visible cosmos; the unknowable portion, that the human being could not reach by its own strength, has drawn worldly philosophers into presumption and error. In the ascension from the visible to the invisible, beauty plays an essential role because, being present on both sides of reality, it is the feature that most powerfully connects the two worlds, visible and invisible.46 Certainly, there is an important difference between the beauty of visible realities and the beauty of invisible realities. This difference is of

41 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, i. Prol., ed. by Poirel, pp. 402–03, 88–105. 42 Hugonis de Sancto Victore, De archa Noe, Libellus de formatione arche, ed. by Patrice Sicard, CCCM, 176 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), iv. 3, pp. 92–94, 1–71; iv. 6, pp. 101–02, 2–6; iv. 8, p. 108, 91–94; iv. 8, p. 110, 143–59; Hugonis de Sancto Victore, De uanitate rerum mundanarum, Dialogus de creatione mundi, ed. by Cédric Giraud, CCCM, 269 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), ii. p. 160, 635–39; De sacramentis christianae fidei, i. prol., 2–3 (PL 176.183–84), i. 28 (PL 176.203–04); i. 5. 30 (PL 176.260); ii. 1. 1 (PL 176.371). As old as it is, we consider this edition to be preferable to the scrupulous transcription of mediocre manuscripts, one of which (in a private collection), datable about 1160, was wrongly considered as partially autographed: Hugonis de Sancto Victore De sacramentis christianae fidei, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Textus historici, 1 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008). 43 Hugonis de Sancto Victore De tribus diebus, ed. Dominique Poirel, CCCM, 177 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002). 44 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, i. Prol., ed. by Poirel, pp. 399–403, 3–105; p. 409, 257–99. 45 In particular, see Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, vi. vii, ed. by Poirel, pp. 562–64, 251–52; vii. vii*, pp. 593–94, 780–90; vii. vii*, p. 595, 823–40. 46 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ii. i, ed. by Poirel, pp. 435–37, 632–93.

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

an ontological nature: visible beauty is multiple and varied, whereas invisible beauty is simple and uniform. However, the creator has placed between these two forms of beauty a certain affinity, such that visible beauty is an image of the invisible one. When the human being, endowed with a dual (that is, material and spiritual) nature, perceives through his senses the visible beauties around him, the invisible joy he feels in himself causes him to recognize ‘a certain friendly resemblance’, which connects these visible beauties to those that are invisible. In this way, one rises from the first kind of beauty to the second and learns about the second through the first. What is true of sight also applies to the other senses as well. Not only graceful forms, but also harmonious melodies, sweet smells, delicious flavours and delightful textures of bodies: everything speaks to the invisible spirit in the language of a spiritual world, filled with diverse but supreme objects of enjoyment that escape both matter and change. On one important point, however, Hugh unknowingly modifies the Dionysian doctrine. In coming upon the synonymic doublet, symbolice… et anagogice (in a symbolic and anagogical way), he supposes — wrongly — that the use of two different adverbs corresponds in Dionysius to the distinction between two modes of revelation — symbolic and anagogical — through which the invisible world is revealed.47 With respect to human intelligence, these two modes of revelation therefore correspond to two modes of knowledge. The symbolic relies on the mediation of visible realities to discover the invisible realities; in contrast, the anagogical bypasses the visible realities in order to express the invisible realities directly, without any mediation: ‘a symbol is an assemblage of visible forms for the purpose of manifesting the invisible; anagogy is the ascension or elevation of the mind in order to contemplate the realities above’.48 It seems, therefore, that our exegete makes an exception to the law formulated above: ‘Indeed, it is impossible for the invisible to manifest itself except through that which is visible, and this is why all theology must necessarily make use of visible manifestations in order to express the invisible realities’.49 Admittedly, here Hugh thinks above all as an exegete and distinguishes between two modes of writing in the Bible: one allegorical and imagistic, as in the prophecies and prefigurations of the Old Testament or the parables of the New; the other literal and direct, as often seen in the words of Christ or the letters of the Apostles. However, this theory of analogy as a direct access to invisible realities had a broad influence on Richard of Saint-Victor and later theories of contemplation. Negative Theology

Undoubtedly, the writings of Hugh of Saint-Victor express a certain optimism concerning humanity’s ability to know God. However, pseudo-Dionysius’ works forced

47 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ed. by Poirel, pp. 423–34, 262–94. 48 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ed. by Poirel, p. 423, 278–80. 49 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, i. Prol., ed. by Poirel, p. 403, 107–09. ‘Impossibile enim est inuisibilia nisi per uisibilia demonstrari, et propterea omnis theologia necesse habet uisibilibus demonstrationibus uti in inuisibilium declarationem.’

163

1 64

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

him to reflect on the limits of this knowledge, especially in Chapter II of the Celestial Hierarchy, which argues that ‘dissimilar similarities (ἀνομοίους ὁμοιότητας)’ manifest God more correctly than ‘similar similarities’.50 Without disregarding this Dionysian thesis, Hugh softens it in order to achieve an equilibrium. Both are indispensable to the human being: similar images because they indicate God more clearly, dissimilar images because they invite one not to stop with similar images alone. The former prevails with regard to appearance, the latter with respect to signification.51 In the rest of the chapter, the question of knowing of God, which Hugh describes as a magnum sacramentum (great mystery), becomes the subject of a methodical inquiry.52 All human knowledge has its origin either in the external senses or in internal experience — or, as Hugh respectively refers to them, ‘the eye of the flesh’ and ‘the eye of reason’ (oculus carnis, oculus rationis).53 The human being therefore can only think these data, or according to these data — that is to say, according to their likeness — and nothing that is neither they nor according to them can enter his heart. But God escapes both of these modes of knowledge. Take, for example, two durations or two distances: however unequal they may be with respect to each other, they are nonetheless closer to each other than each is to eternity or infinity. In just the same way, the difference is incomparably smaller between even the most dissimilar creatures than it is between any given creature and the creator. Since God neither is nor resembles anything that can be known by human beings, he is absolutely unthinkable. Thus, we cannot say what God is, but only what God is not. However, the limits of natural reason can be expanded by God himself. Drawing on a phrase of St Paul, ‘no one knows what is God’s except the Spirit of God’ (1 Corinthians 2. 11), Hugh concludes out of it that ‘he who has the Spirit of God knows by the Spirit of God what belongs to God’. To the ‘eye of the flesh’ and the ‘eye of reason’, we must therefore add ‘the eye of contemplation’ (oculus contemplationis), which is illuminated by God in order to see what pertains to him. The first eye ‘sees the world and that which is in the world’, the second ‘sees the spirit and that which is in the spirit’, and the third ‘sees God and that which is in God’.54 What God is, then, is unknowable for the first two eyes, but not for the third. In the present state of human sinfulness, the first eye is open, the second is bleary, and the third is closed and blind. Even those who have the Spirit of God sense God present in themselves, but they can neither say nor think what God is. Even the name itself, ‘God’, teaches nothing to the person who pronounces or hears it, since that name alone cannot transmit the knowledge of what is neither

50 Pseudo-Dionysios, La hiérarchie céleste, ii. 4. 37, ed. by Günter Heil and Maurice de Gandillac, SC 58 (Paris: Cerf, 1958), p. 81. 51 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ed. by Poirel, pp. 447–48, 10–63. 52 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, iii. ii, ed. by Poirel, pp. 470–76, 674–832. 53 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, iii. ii, ed. by Poirel, p. 472, 703 ff. 54 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, iii. ii, ed. by Poirel, pp. 472–73, 721–26. ‘Oculo carnis uidetur mundus et ea quae sunt in mundo, oculo rationis animus et ea quae sunt in animo, oculo contemplationis Deus et ea quae sunt in Deo. Oculo carnis uidet homo quae sunt extra se, oculo rationis quae sunt in se, oculo contemplationis quae sunt supra se.’

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

thought nor thinkable by human beings. The traditional etymologies of the word Deus (God) as inspiciens (gazing), ‘running’, or ‘fear’ (currens sive timor) make no progress in the science of God; because without knowing what God is, one cannot understand God’s divine way of seeing, running, or arousing fear.55 Even if we think of God as creator, we have not yet reached the goal; for to think about God as creator is to think about what God has done, not about the one who has done it, namely, God, who is far greater than what he has done.56 All that a human being is able to say or think is therefore inferior to what God is. Nonetheless, this is not a reason to say nothing at all. For even if one cannot attain to what God is, one can at least approach it, until that eternal life when God will be known no longer as an image in a mirror, but face to face, as the truth. In the present time, which is the time of the image — that is, of imperfect representations — the human being must at least do as much as he can and attach himself to the least imperfect representations. For example, among corporeal images some are more elevated and closer to the truth, as when it is said that God is fire or that God is light. This is not the truth, since all visible things are far-removed from God; but it is all the same an image of the truth. Incorporeal comparisons are closer to God, as when we say that God is spirit, wisdom, reason, love; but even they are not exact either, because by ‘spirit’ we still think according to what we know — that is to say, we will think a human or angelic spirit. However, the distance between the divine spirit and any created spirit is infinitely greater than that which separates a created body and a created spirit, since these are creatures, whereas God is the creator. It would thus be right to declare the affirmation ‘God is spirit’ to be false, just as the affirmation ‘a spirit is a body’ is false. However, since nothing else can be said, and something must be said about God, he himself tolerates and concedes the fact that he is said to be a spirit, and even recommends this affirmation to us in Scripture ( John 4. 24), not under the regime of truth, however, but rather of images, until the day when the Truth itself — that is, God — will manifest itself in all its purity.57 These remarks about the impossibility of knowing God adequately in the present life do not stop Hugh elsewhere from asking for the ability that the ‘holy spirits’ possess to see God directly.58 Commenting on Chapter i of the Celestial Hierarchy, he pointedly attacks those who interpret Dionysius’ ‘theophanies’ as likenesses (simulachra) of the hidden divinity, intermediate between humanity and God, and which substitute themselves for God in the knowledge that the human being strives to obtain from God.59 Because, he says, si enim imago sola semper uidetur, ueritas nunquam uidetur, quoniam imago ueritas non est, etiam cum de ueritate est (if one always see the image alone, one never sees the truth because the image is not the truth, even when it is

55 56 57 58 59

Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, iii. ii, ed. by Poirel, pp. 473–74, 746–61. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, iii. ii, ed. by Poirel, p. 474, 761–65. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, iii. ii, ed. by Poirel, p. 474–76, 765–832. Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ii. i, ed. by Poirel, pp. 443–45, 892–945. See Poirel, ‘La métaphysique de la lumière,’ in Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 363–94.

165

166

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

about the truth).60 Thus, Hugh proposes to understand the Dionysian theophanies in a different way, such that there is no screen between God and humanity. His solution consists in identifying these theophanies with the human spirit itself, insofar as the spirit lets itself be illuminated by God and, thus, is assimilated to the divine light. In the corporeal illumination, two distinct realities, light and body, end up as one, the luminous body. This luminous body is, in a certain way, an image of light, in that it shines as light shines. Much the same things occurs in spiritual illumination. Two separate realities, God, who is our light, and the rational spirit, who receives this light, end up as one: the spirit shining spiritually with divine light. This spirit is a theophany of the divine light, because it is shining from the divine light as it itself shines. Interpreted in this sense, the theophany is certainly an image and likeness of God. However, it does not occupy for all that an intermediate place between humanity and God: it is the spirit of the human being as far as he allows himself to be assimilated to God through illumination. Loving Theology

While commenting on one of the passages of pseudo-Dionysius concerning the seraphim, Hugh wrote some of his commentary’s most beautiful and most often quoted pages. These are of special interest to us in that they touch on the question of the relations between love and knowledge, of both of which God is the object. These pages comment on a Dionysian phrase, for which he first of all expresses the most extreme admiration: Si ego quod sentio dicam, primum hoc fateor quia uerba audiui aut non homini dicta, aut non dicta ab homine. Nam per hominem ea dici, tam magnum michi uidetur ut nichil amplius homini dari possit (To say what I feel, I first admit that I have heard words that have neither been spoken to a human being, nor been spoken by a human being. For, the fact that they are spoken through a human intermediary, this seems to me so great that nothing greater can be given to a human being).61 Hugh identifies this passage of the Celestial Hierarchy with a kind of ‘relaying’ through Dionysius the Areopagite of the secret and unspeakable words that his master Saint Paul had received during his ecstasy in the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12. 1–5). In other words, for Hugh this passage unveils an exceptional revelation. It consists in a long sentence which discusses the properties of fire and the way they are suited to the seraphic order.62 Indeed, the Hebrew word that designates the highest angels (i.e., seraphim) means ‘the burning ones’, which Hugh chooses to interpret in relation to the burn of love. Hugh therefore explains this sentence at a third level, that of the love for God which can enflame human beings as well as angels. According to pseudo-Dionysius, the first four properties of fire are as follows:

60 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ii. i, ed. by Poirel, p. 444, 911–13. 61 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, vi. vii, ed. by Poirel, p. 555, 74–77. 62 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, vi. vii, ed. by Poirel, pp. 555–68, 65–485.

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

it is ‘moving’, ‘incessant’, ‘hot’, and ‘sharp’.63 For Hugh, this means that preferential love (dilectio) is life, perpetuity, love, and wisdom. It is life, since ‘he who does not love remains in death’ ( John 3. 14); it is perpetual because ‘charity never passes’ (1 Corinthians 13. 8). As for the ‘hot’ and ‘sharp’ qualities of love, these characteristics signify that love through election (dilectio) is not only perpetual life, but unites love (‘hot’) and knowledge (‘sharp’). ‘Hot’ comes before ‘sharp’, that is love comes before knowledge, as it was the case for the pilgrims of Emmaus: they walked in the ‘moving’ of love and burned with the ‘hot’ of love, but not yet did they have the ‘sharp’ of love, for they did not know yet who accompanied them. As they themselves will say later, ‘Was not our heart burning in us – for Jesus – while he was talking to us on the way?’ They were thus slow to understand, but quick to love, and because they firstly loved, they then understood, such that the knowledge’s ‘sharp’ followed upon the ‘hot’ of love. What else does ‘sharp’ signify but an impulse of love which goes to the beloved in order to enter the place where he is? Without this violent desire to join the beloved, signified by ‘sharp’, love can be ‘hot’, but it is not yet perfect, because true love aspires to see the beloved, to possess him. It is the same amorous impatience that the Song of Songs expresses by the image of the ‘liquid’, equivalent to that of ‘sharp’, when the Bride declares: ‘My soul was liquefied when the beloved talked’ (Song 5. 6). Indeed, like ‘sharp’, the liquid penetrates everything and does not stop until it has reached the inside of what it permeates. For Hugh, this ‘sharp’ or ‘liquid’ quality of love is a trait that makes love superior to knowledge: Plus enim diligitur quam intelligitur, et intrat dilectio et appropinquat ubi scientia foris est. Nec mirum, quia dilectio semper amplius presumit et confidit semper et ingerit se sine cunctatione amori (For dilectio prevails over knowledge and goes beyond intelligence. Indeed, one loves more than one understands, and dilectio enters and draws near to the place where knowledge stays outside. Nor is this surprising, for dilectio is always more daring and confident, and always introduces itself without hesitation to love).64 These last words may have led some to believe that Hugh, like certain Cistercian authors, shared ‘the strange theory of knowledge of God by love’, as if where the intellect stopped in its effort to know God, love took over and obtained additional knowledge.65 In reality, however, this is not what Hugh says here. For Hugh, the two faculties of knowing and loving are related and complementary, but they are distinct. What he means, rather, is that their ability to expand is unequal. For in the place, he says, where the desire to know comes up against its limits, because of both human finitude and divine transcendence, love is not stopped however: for even without knowing more, one can always love more. Earlier, however, Hugh identified ‘sharp’ with knowledge, saying that this ‘sharp’ of knowledge is that which gives love its perfection. Does Hugh contradict himself, 63 For example, see Pseudo-Dionysius, La hiérarchie céleste, ed. by Heil and de Gandillac, cf. PseudoDionysius: The Complete Works, 15. 2, trans. by Colm Luibheid and ed. by Paul Rorem, CWS (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 183–84. 64 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, vi. vii, ed. by Poirel, p. 560, 203–06. 65 Édouard-Henri Weber, trans. and ed., Commentaire de la ‘Théologie mystique’ de Denys le PseudoAréopagite, suivi de celui des épîtres I–V, Sagesses chrétiennes, 16 (Paris: Cerf, 1993), p. 16.

1 67

168

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

then, by now saying that love goes beyond knowledge? Not necessarily, if one can unravel the several different perspectives that alternate in the passage summarized above. In expounding Dionysius, Hugh must make a good case for his doctrine that the highest order is not that of cherubim, associated with wisdom, but that of seraphim, associated with an ardor that Hugh interprets as burning love. Even regardless of Dionysius, Saint Paul considers charity as the most excellent gift.66 Hugh certainly admits all of this; however, his theological tendency rather consists in insisting on the necessary complementarity between the two faculties of knowing and loving, in a sort of spiral movement: the more we know God, the more we love God; and the more we love God, the more we aspire to know God. Therefore, the two affirmations are not incompatible, even if from one passage to another the term ‘sharp’ has changed, if not in meaning, then at least in its referent. If it always signifies an irresistible aspiration to come ever closer to the beloved to unite itself with him, here this aspiration takes the form of a desire to join the beloved through knowledge, there of a desire to join him at all costs, even when there can be no new knowledge. This point required clarification, because Hugh’s assertion that dilectio prevails over knowledge was later taken up and reinforced, first in the school of Saint-Victor itself, where Thomas Gallus, always in reference to the order of the seraphim, speaks of a step in the ascent to God where the intellectus fails and where the affectus is allowed to rise even up to the ‘supraintellectual reachings-out’ and ‘the principle affection’, which consists in a deifying union with God through the total suspension of all human faculties, especially the cognitive ones.67 After that, even outside Saint-Victor, this reading of Dionysius was destined to feed, among the Carthusians especially, an anti-intellectualist tendency according to which the cessation of intellectual activities is a precondition to tasting union with God in love. Even if Hugh’s statement regarding the primacy of dilectio could, when taken out of context, provide a support for the proponents of an anti-intellectual mysticism, nothing could be more removed from the balance that Hugh carefully sought to maintain between the two faculties of knowing and loving than this.

Influence The influence exerted by Hugh’s commentary is immense.68 The study of vocabulary and the study of manuscripts agree in showing that, before the middle of the twelfth

66 1 Corinthians 12. 31: ‘Et adhuc excellentiorem uiam uobis demonstro.’ 67 On Thomas Gallus, see Explanatio in libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011); Glose super angelica Ierarchia. Accedunt indices ad Thomae Galli opera, ed. by Declan Lawell, CCCM, 223A (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011). 68 See Roger Baron, ‘L’influence de Hugues de Saint-Victor,’ RTAM, 22 (1953), 56–71; Csaba Németh, ‘The Victorines and the Areopagite’, in L’école de Saint-Victor. Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à la Renaissance. Colloque international du C.N.R.S. pour le neuvième centenaire de la fondation (1108–2008), ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 333–83, and in particular, pp. 335–54.

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

century, the Dionysian corpus had been read by only a small number of Latin readers: in the ninth century, Hilduin, the abbot of Saint-Denis who organized the first translation; above all, Eriugena, who revised it at the request of Charles the Bald; Anastasius Bibliothecarius, who annotated it soon after Eriugena’s version; Hincmar of Reims, Rabanus Maurus, and Paschasius Radbertus, who only provide one or two quotations, and, in the eleventh century, so do Othlo of Saint-Emmeran and Gerard de Csanad.69 All the other writers who mention Dionysius the Areopagite borrow in fact to either the Acts of the Apostles (‘Some men became attached to him and believed, among which Dionysius the Areopagite…’ Acts 17. 34), or the eulogy of Gregory the Great (‘… Dionysius the Areopagite, that old and venerable Father …’ Homiliae in Evangelia, ii, 34), or an approximate though pompous summary of pseudo-Dionysius’ writings in the Passio Dionysii of Hilduin of Saint-Denis.70 Apart from Eriugena, prior to Hugh of Saint-Victor the principal Latin thinkers, from Boethius to Peter Abelard through Anselm of Canterbury, Anselm of Laon, Bernard de Chartres, and Gilbert de la Porrée, did not read the Dionysian corpus, whose manuscripts were very few in number, especially in France, and the text too difficult and too foreign to Latin teaching. With the Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, the situation changes radically. First of all, for one simple reason: like other of Hugh’s works, his commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy is the object of a vast manuscript diffusion, orchestrated largely by Abbot Gilduin after Hugh’s death in 1141. While it may be speculated that a significant proportion of manuscripts are now lost, those which remain give us an idea of the success of the work according to century and region.71 For the twelfth century, thirty-six manuscripts survive, mainly in northern France (fourteen) and in some neighbouring countries in the northern half of Europe: Austria (ten), Germany (five), Italy (two), England and Belgium (one). The manuscript tradition is then divided in three main families, corresponding to three slightly different redactions: Φ, the redaction of Hugh himself, which is diffused especially in northern France; X, its revision at Clairvaux, which spreads in the North-East of France and reaches the Empire; and lastly Ψ, a German revision of the Cistercian redaction, which spread most especially in Austria, in the Danube valley. In the thirteenth century, copying remained abundant in France (twelve), it increased in England (seven), Germany (five), and in Southern Europe (Italy three, Spain one), but dried up in Austria. After a decline in the fourteenth century, the Super Ierarchiam Dionisii enjoyed a new revival of interest in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially in the Holy Roman Empire, under the influence of both the Devotio Moderna and the new universities of Europe in the East. In total, 121 attested manuscripts have survived, not to mention the eight printed editions that take over from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the present

69 See Dominique Poirel, ‘Le chant dionysien, du ixe au xie siècle,’ in Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 243–70. 70 See Poirel, ‘Le mirage dionysien’ in Des symboles et des anges, pp. 271–92. 71 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ed. by Poirel, pp. 39–94.

169

170

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

day: Strasbourg: Hugh of Strasbourg, 1502–1503; Rouen: Thomas Laisné, 1520; Paris: Josse Bade and Jean Petit, 1526 (with the assistance of the Abbey of Saint-Victor); Mainz and Cologne: Johannes Volmarus, 1617; Rouen: Jean Berthelin, 1648; Paris: Jean-Paul Migne, 1854; Turnhout: Dominique Poirel, 2015.72 After the influential medieval ‘edition’ of Hugh’s opera omnia by the abbot of SaintVictor, Gilduin (d. 1155), the Super Ierarchiam Dionisii also owes some of its success to another edition, this time of the Dionysian corpus, made in Paris at the turn of the thirteenth century, probably in close connection with Saint-Victor.73 This edition is like a Glossa Ordinaria, as it were, on all the works of pseudo-Dionysius, surrounded by the explanations that have been set forth for it. To take only the Celestial Hierarchy, the first of Dionysius’ writings in this corpus, Eriugena’s version is transcribed in large characters in a central column, then surrounded by interlinear or marginal glosses, short or long, which first give the notes of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, then scholia (interpretative glosses), translated by the latter, of the Greek Fathers Maximus the Confessor and John of Scythopolis, and finally the more extensive extracts of the first three Latin commentaries on the Celestial Hierarchy: Eriugena, Hugh of Saint-Victor, and Jean Sarazin, with Hugh’s being placed at the head of the two others, probably because of its pedagogical virtues. It would be difficult to list all the quotations from the Super Ierarchiam Dionisii that appear in the works of later writers: we have found substantial ones in Richard and Gautier of Saint-Victor, Otto of Freising, Werner of Saint-Blaise, and Alan of Lille in the twelfth century.74 Then, in the following centuries, there are quotations in almost all the scholastic writers, notably among the Franciscans, or devotional writers, the Carthusians in particular. It is not certain, however, that this list would be an effective metric for gauging the extent to which the Super Ierarchiam Dionisii was read by later generations. Very probably, this work served mainly as a ‘companion’, which was used to understand the difficult passages of the Celestial Hierarchy. This utilitarian use, which explains the compilation of the aforementioned Dionysian

72 On the manuscripts of Hugh, see Rudolf Goy, Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos von St Viktor. Ein Beitrag zur Kommunikationsgeschichte des Mittelalters, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, 14 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1976), to be completed by Patrice Sicard, Iter Victorinum. La tradition manuscrite de Hugues et Richard de Saint-Victor. Répertoire complémentaire et études, BV, 24 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015). 73 See Hyacinthe François Dondaine, Le corpus dionysien de l’université de Paris au xiiie siècle (Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1953), pp. 35–66; Timothy R. Budde, ‘The three recensions of the Versio Dionysii’, Journal of Medieval Latin, 17 (2008), 253–72; Timothy R. Budde, ‘The ‘Versio Dionysii’ of John Scottus Eriugena: A Study of the Manuscript Tradition and Influence of Eriugena’s Translation of the ‘Corpus Areopagiticum’ from the 9th through the 12th Century’ (unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Toronto, 2011) available online: https://www.academia.edu/1916285/; see also, Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ed. by Poirel, pp. 341–96. 74 See my article, ‘Alain de Lille, héritier de l’école de Saint-Victor?’ in Alain de Lille, le docteur universel. Philosophie, théologie et littérature au xiie siècle. Actes du xie Colloque international de la Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale, Paris, 23–25 octobre 2003, ed. by Jean-Luc Solère, Anca Vasiliu, and Alain Galonnier, Rencontres de philosophie médiévale (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 59–82.

h u g h ’s co m m e n tary o n t he ce le st i al hi e rarchy

edition is unlikely to leave any trace. The rare cases where this kind of dependence on the Victorine is apparent are those in which the reader adopts a typically Hugonian interpretation of the Dionysian treatise. This is the case, for example, among a whole series of theologians, including Alain of Lille and Bonaventure, who follow the Victorine in speaking of ‘three hierarchies’ — divine, angelic, human — whereas pseudo-Dionysius carefully applies the notion of hierarchy for created spirits alone, and distinctly reserves for God that of ‘thearchy’ (θεαρχία).75 One of the most frequently quoted places in Hugh’s commentary is that which was discussed just above, where Hugh affirms a certain superiority of love over knowledge: ‘for dilectio prevails over knowledge and goes beyond intelligence. Indeed, one loves more than one understands, and dilectio enters and draws near to the place where knowledge stays outside’.76 Probably relayed by the Summa of Alexander of Hales and his school, this passage is the one which the scholastic authors most frequently quote. In Thomas Aquinas, for example, we have spotted it four times out of the six explicit references that he makes to Hugh’s commentary. This selective reading could well explain how at the end of the Middle Ages, in the course of the Devotio Moderna, Hugh and all of his works are conscripted in support of an anti-intellectualist spirituality, in spite of the clearly humanist positions of the Didascalicon. Another possible influence of Super Ierarchiam Dionisii has been the subject of debate: was this commentary read by Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis and, if so, did it play a role in the birth of a Gothic style? As is often the case when the history of texts and the history of art intersect, the answer to this question can only be complicated.77 On the one hand, there is a certain common ‘spirit’ between Hugh of Saint-Victor’s thought, especially in his Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, and the new style inaugurated by Suger in his basilica of Saint-Denis: exaltation of light, decompartmentalization of space, an obsession with triadic structures. However, the indications, present but rare, that Suger had read pseudo-Dionysius, probably alongside Hugh’s commentary, do not allow one to conclude that the new architecture translates into stone and glass the concepts of pseudo-Dionysius. It is not enough to detect the presence of certain themes, even Neoplatonic, to conclude from this an influence of the Dionysian corpus. For example, the exaltation of light is surely fed by more traditional sources in the Latin world than the negative theology of pseudo-Dionysius. To the contrary, the superiority asserted by the latter of dissimilar symbols over similar symbols would

75 See, for example, Divine Names, 13. 3, in Corpus Dionysiacum, ed. by Beate Suchla, Günter Heil, and Adolf Ritter, Patristische Texte und Studien, 33, 36, 62 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990–), i. 76 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ii. i, ed. by Poirel, p. 444, 911–13. See above, n. 59: ‘… dilectio supereminet scientiae et maior est intelligentia. Plus enim diligitur quam intelligitur, et intrat dilectio et appropinquat ubi scientia foris est.’ 77 See my article, ‘Symbolice et anagogice: l’école de Saint-Victor et la naissance du style gothique’, in Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 475–502, taken from an entire conference devoted to this question: Dominique Poirel, ed., L’abbé Suger, le manifeste gothique de Saint-Denis et la pensée victorine. Actes du Colloque organisé à la Fondation Singer-Polignac (Paris) le mardi 21 nouembre 2000, Rencontres médiévales européennes, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001).

17 1

172

D o m i n i q ue P o i r e l

more justify the grotesques of Romanesque capitals than the Gothic aspiration toward a spiritualization of matter and toward an exaltation of light. It is therefore not impossible that Dionysius’ writings may have had a certain influence on the new architectural style through Hugh of Saint Victor, but it is surely a constrained, reinterpreted, and paradoxical influence. More securely, Hugh’s Super Ierarchiam Dionisii played a decisive role in the revival of Dionysian studies in the West. It is thanks to Hugh’s commentary and its pedagogical virtues that pseudo-Dionysius, until then a respected but almost unreadable author, became a first-rate auctoritas among scholastic theologians as well as among spiritual writers, the Franciscans and Carthusians in particular.78 Thanks to him, the triumphant Aristotelianism of the thirteenth century is enriched in Albert, Bonaventure, and Thomas himself by an important Neoplatonic current, while awaiting the Dionysian writings to spur new ideas like those of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, who owned a copy of Hugh’s commentary in his library.79 Perhaps it is the case that even without Hugh’s commentary, Latin theologians would have ended up reading the Dionysian corpus. Nonetheless, it was Hugh’s Super Ierarchiam Dionisii which first made it widely accessible, thanks to Hugh’s triple talent as an exegete, theologian, and pedagogue. This partly explains the less apophatic, more symbolic, and more affective colouration that the writings of pseudo-Dionysius took on among many of their Latin readers up to the end of the Middle Ages and beyond.

78 On the influence exerted by Hugh’s commentary, see L’école de Saint-Victor de Paris, ed. by Poirel, pp. 5, 11, 14, 20–22, 38–39, 43, 48, 237, 264, 309, 333–83, 392–93, 402, 509, 511 n. 35, 521, 528, 547–50, 553, 560, 573–74, 577–79, 581–82, 649, 656–58; Németh, ‘The Victorines and the Areopagite’, pp. 333–83. 79 It is Bernkastel-Kues, Hospitalbibliothek, 45 (xve s.), fol. 89v–180v.

Richard

Ineke van ’t Spijker

After the Manner of a Contemplative, According to the Nature of Contemplation Richard of Saint-Victor’s De contemplatione

Introduction Richard of Saint-Victor has long been seen as a master of contemplation. Bonaventure is often quoted because he considered him to be a follower of [Pseudo-] Denys and a teacher of the contemplative life; Dante has Thomas Aquinas call him ‘in contemplation more than human’ (che a considerer fu più que viro).1 These views are soundly based on Richard’s works, of which De contemplatione (On Contemplation) is one of the most famous.2 Richard of Saint-Victor came to the community of Augustinian canons of SaintVictor just outside Paris in the late 1140s or early 1150s, after the death of Hugh of Saint-Victor, whose works influenced him deeply. We do not know much about his

1 Bonaventura, De reductione artium ad theologiam, in Opera: v: Tria opuscula. Breviloquium, Itinerarium mentis in Deum et De reductione artium ad theologiam, ed. by Collegium S. Bonaventurae (Roma: Quaracchi, 1890), p. 321: Richardus sequitur Dionysium […] in contemplatione; Dante, Paradiso 10, 131, ed. and trans. by Robert. M. Durling, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 2 I use the new edition of De contemplatione by Jean Grosfillier: L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor 1: De contemplatione (Beniamin maior), ed. by Jean Grosfillier, Sous la Règle de saint Augustin, 13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013). Though not a critical edition, this is a further improvement of the edition by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL 196, cols 63–192, after an earlier edition with amendments to the PL edition by Marc-Aeilko Aris, Contemplatio. Philosophische Studien zum Traktat Benjamin Maior des Richard von St Victor. Mit einer verbesserten Edition des Textes (Frankfurt am Main: Josef Knecht, 1996). There is an English translation of the work by Grover A. Zinn, Richard of St.Victor: The Twelve Patriarchs. The Mystical Ark. Book Three of The Trinity, CWS (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), pp. 149– 43. Translations in this article are mine, for the first three Parts from a new translation, in preparation in the series Victorine Texts in Translation, Spiritual Formation and Mystical Symbolism: A Selection of Works of Hugh and Richard of St Victor, and of Thomas Gallus, ed. by Dale Coulter and Grover A. Zinn, VTT, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming). Ineke van ’t Spijker  •  ([email protected]) is an affiliated lecturer at the Faculty of History of the University of Cambridge. Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus, ed. by Robert J. Porwoll and David Allison Orsbon, CURSOR 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 175–195 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.122086

176

in e k e va n ’t s p i j ke r

life.3 He probably came from the British Isles. He himself became a master, subprior, and then prior of the community. He died in 1173. Apart from his De contemplatione, he wrote an encyclopedic work, Liber Exceptionum, following in the footsteps of Hugh’s Didascalicon — thus explaining, among other things, the various levels of biblical interpretation: the historical, allegorical, and tropological reading.4 The work includes historical overviews of secular and biblical times and short sermons. Richard wrote more sermons, and tropological-exegetical works such as Psalm commentaries and an extensive commentary on the Book of Revelations; but he also ventured into a literal exegesis of the temple of Ezechiel, and in De Emmanuele countered a literal interpretation by Andrew of Saint-Victor that in his view came too close to the Jewish interpretation.5 He also wrote short treatises on theological questions, and other devotional treatises, or rather guides to the life of the canons of Saint-Victor, often in the form of an extended exegesis of a biblical text, and including the contemplative stages of this life. The most famous of these, apart from On Contemplation, are his Beniamin minor or On the Twelve Patriarchs;6 and De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis (Four Degrees of Violent Love).7 A work on the Trinity qualified him as a theologian influencing later scholastic theology, as well as a devotional author.8

Richard of Saint-Victor and Hugh of Saint-Victor Man’s dual orientation as rational and affective, his dual goal and path of virtue and knowledge is fundamental in Richard as it was in Hugh. It is connected with man’s





3 For the following see Dale M. Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia: Theological Method in Richard of Saint-Victor (d. 1173), BV, 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 21–22, and the Introduction in Grosfillier, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 14–15. 4 Richard of Saint-Victor, Liber Exceptionum, ed. by Jean Châtillon, TPMA, 5 (Paris: Vrin, 1958). For Victorine exegesis, see the article by Andrew Salzmann in this volume. See for a discussion of the authenticity and the dating of Richard’s works, Pierluigi Cacciapuoti, ‘Deus Existentia amoris’. Teologia della carità et teologia della trinità negli scritti di Riccardo di San Vittore († 1173), BV, 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998). 5 Richard of Saint-Victor, Sermones Centum (PL 177.899–1210); Mysticae Adnotationes in Psalmos (PL 196.265–402); In Apocalypsim Joannis libri septem (PL 196.683–888); In visionem Ezechielis (PL 196.527–600); De Emmanuele (PL 196.601–66). 6 Richard of St Victor, Beniamin minor, ed. by Jean Châtillon and Monique Duchet-Suchaut, Richard de Saint-Victor. Les Douze Patriarches ou Beniamin minor, SC, 419 (Paris: Cerf, 1997); cf. the edition in Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor (PL 196.1–64). 7 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, ed. by Gervais Dumeige, in Ives Épître à Séverin sur la charité. Richard de Saint-Victor Les quatres degrés de la violente charité, TPMA, 3 (Paris: Vrin, 1955), pp. 126–77. 8 Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, ed. by Jean Ribaillier, Richard de Saint-Victor De Trinitate, TPMA, 6 (Paris: Vrin, 1958). On De Trinitate, see Nico Den Bok, Communicating the Most High: A Systematic Study of Person and Trinity in the Theology of Richard of St Victor († 1173), BV, 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996); as well as Den Bok’s article in this volume.

R i c h ar d o f S ai n t-V i cto r’s De cont empl at ione

being made in the image and likeness of God. Thus, Richard writes in the Liber exceptionum: Deus […] fecit creaturam rationalem […] Fecit autem eam ad imaginem et similitudinem suam: ad imaginem suam secundum rationem, ad similitudinem suam secundum dilectionem. Ad imaginem suam secundum cognitionem veritatis, ad similitudinem suam secundum amorem virtutis. Ad imaginem suam secundum intellectum, ad similitudinem suam secundum affectum. God […] made this creature after his image and likeness: after his image according to reason, after his likeness according to love. After his image according to the knowledge of truth, after his likeness according to the love of virtue. After his image according to intellect, after his likeness according to affect.9 Richard followed Hugh in many respects, and called him ‘the most eminent theologian of our time’ (precipuo illi nostri temporis theologo).10 Yet, after Hugh of Saint-Victor’s unified and comprehensive view of man and of his place and goal in the world and in the universe, in Richard a contraction of this world to the reader’s inner life is unmistakable. Henri de Lubac, in his Exégèse médiévale, points out how Richard’s work, while remaining attached to the mystical reading (mystica lectio), for example, in his On Contemplation, fits into the development of a genre of spiritual literature that became increasingly distinguished from the developing discipline of theology.11 Although Richard still very much works in an exegetical way in many of his treatises and does not lose sight of the comprehensive frame of salvation history,12 one cannot escape the sense of a certain narrowing of perspective compared with Hugh. Dominique Poirel has explained such fragmentation of Hugh’s views by Richard and other students of Hugh by a development in learning to which de Lubac had pointed already: the increasing dissociation between the theology of the schools and a separate devotional culture; but also to an intrinsic character of Hugh’s work. For Hugh, writing was a spiritual exercise, a meditation in action, in a search for unity and underlying principles in whatever subject he investigated, a search that is by definition never finished.13 In Richard’s systematization of the contemplative life something of the unity maintained by Hugh between knowledge and love, contemplation and action, was lost.14 Indeed, although Richard followed Hugh in emphasizing e.g. the dual aspect of reason and love in man, in his treatment the two elements became more distinct. Yet they are not severed from each other. In Beniamin minor Richard 9 Richard of Saint-Victor, Liber exceptionum, 1. 1. 1, ed. by Châtillon, p. 104. Cf. Hugh of Saint-Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei, 1. 6. 2, col. 264CD (PL 176.173–618). 10 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 4, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 96, 6–7. 11 See Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale: les quatre sens de l’Ecriture, 4 vols (Paris: Cerf, 1959–1964; repr. Desclée de Brouwer, 1993), iii, 429. 12 See Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, p. 44. 13 Dominique Poirel, ‘L’Unité de la sagesse chez Hugues de Saint-Victor. Un équilibre précaire’, in Vers la contemplation. Études sur la syndérèse et les modalités de la contemplation de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance, ed. by Christian Trottmann (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2007), pp. 81–119, at pp. 118–19. 14 Poirel, ‘L’Unité de la sagesse chez Hugues de Saint-Victor’, p. 113.

17 7

1 78

in e k e va n ’t s p i j ke r

sees affect and reason not as separate but as twin powers.15 And they remain framed by the monastic-canonic context of the life in Saint-Victor. In an overview article Jean Châtillon distinguished several genres in Richard’s writings, but also pointed to the difficulty of separating the theological and spiritual writings.16 Indeed, the devotional works are based on theology and exegetical theories; the exegetical and theological works never lose sight of the devotional aspect. Scholars have, for a long time, seen the devotional and theological aspects of Richard’s works as not so much distinct as interwoven. In this perspective, for example, Richard’s probing of the divine mysteries in De Trinitate can be seen, not as an isolated theological work, but as the summit of the contemplative process, an exercise in contemplation.17 And where De contemplatione explores the contemplative process from an epistemological perspective, De quatuor gradibus is approaching the same process from an affective angle. Thus, perhaps indeed these aspects, as they are treated in separate works, seem to become more apart. However, the impression that could easily follow, that in De contemplatione Richard is offering a systematic account of an exclusively individual contemplative life, as separate from others, and from the active life (vita activa) with which in Hugh’s thought it was always intricately bound up, would be false. Perhaps Richard was inclined to distinguish more clearly these various aspects — an inclination for systematization that he shared with contemporaries, and of which De contemplatione is an example. But in emphasizing the systematic aspects, something less tangible is lost. Even this — on the surface — exclusively contemplative life of individual brothers, though much more withdrawn into itself than in Hugh, is, as we shall see, embedded in the community, and implies the vita activa as well, and it is filled with affect. Its sometimes almost frantic listings are shot through with the poetry of biblical and natural images (nature being God’s book as well as Scripture), and even the all too short modulations of joy are not far-removed from a key of longing in which the work is set.

De contemplatione in Recent Scholarship Richard’s work has long been the subject of scholarship. Apart from the scholars mentioned in the previous paragraph, Grover A. Zinn in the introduction to his translation of this and other works placed Richard’s work in the context of

15 Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, 3, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaut, p. 96, 3–5: ‘Omni spiritui rationali gemina quaedam vis data est ab illo Patre luminum […] Una est ratio, altera est affectio’. 16 Jean Châtillon, ‘Richard de Saint-Victor’, Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, 13 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1988), cols 593–654, at col. 604. See also Gervais Dumeige, Richard de Saint-Victor et l’idée chrétienne de l’amour (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1952), p. 159, about the impossibility to classify Richard’s works as either theological or spiritual. 17 See Dumeige, Richard de Saint-Victor et l’idée chrétienne de l’amour, p. 73; Den Bok, Communicating the Most High, p. 104. Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, p. 35; Hideki Nakamura, ‘Amor invisibilium’ Die Liebe im Denken Richards von Sankt Viktor († 1173), CV, Instrumenta, 5 (Münster: Aschendorf, 2011), p. 336.

R i c h ar d o f S ai n t-V i cto r’s De cont empl at ione

twelfth-century spirituality, with its increasing attention to and detailed analysis of the ascetic and contemplative life.18 Two more recent editions also include detailed introductions to the work. Mark-Aeilko Aris offered in 1996 a thorough philosophical reading, indicating the Neoplatonic and Augustinian background of much of Richard’s thinking.19 In his new edition and translation Jean Grosfillier pays attention to what despite the efforts of systematization remains the open and fluid nature of Richard’s thinking and provides a wealth of detail on Richard’s sources, vocabulary, and style and discusses broader issues, to some of which we shall return.20 In recent scholarship De contemplatione is seen as part of a comprehensive Ricardian project. Dale Coulter emphasizes the unity in Richard’s thought and method, and discusses On Contemplation in his exploration of Richard’s theological method and his project of reading God’s book of creation and Scripture to proceed ‘from the visible to the invisible’.21 Hideki Nakamura, trying to see Richard’s theory and praxis of interpretation of Scripture in connection with his overall ideas, gives a profound analysis of the work and its place within Richard’s oeuvre seen as governed by the idea of love, as ultimately a ‘selfless turning’, learned on the way to God, the goal of man’s existence.22 Csaba Németh analyzes the work as part of his project to bring out a twelfth-century Victorine view as distinct from other contemporary thought as well as from later scholastic ideas, whose shadows often led to an anachronistic reading of the twelfth-century Victorines on the basis of later categories. He argues that a distinctive Victorine anthropology and epistemology was discarded in later ages.23 Elsewhere I have discussed the work as part of canonic-monastic self-fashioning, in the case of Richard often taken as an enactment of an exegetical trajectory.24 Some general trends are clear in these recent studies. They place the work in the context of Richard’s oeuvre, and they pay great attention to Richard’s exegetical approach: by following Richard’s work, the reader would have been able to learn to read the hidden meanings of Scripture, and of creation — mostly as it figures in Scripture.25 Thus, to use the phrase from Richard’s conclusion to Part One of On

18 Zinn, Richard of St.Victor, p. 2. 19 Aris, Contemplatio, p. 6. At p. 65 Aris says he offers an analysis of the concept of contemplation from the perspective of a history of ideas (Begriffsgeschichte). 20 Grosfillier, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor (p. 10: ‘lecture ouverte’). 21 Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, see e.g. p. 84; p. 92. 22 Nakamura, ‘amor invisibilium’, p. 14. 23 Csaba Németh, ‘Contemplation and the Cognition of God. Victorine Theological Anthropology and its Decline,’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Central European University, Budapest, 2013). I would like to thank Csaba Németh for allowing me to quote from his thesis. See now also Csaba Németh, Quasi aurora consurgens: The Victorine Theological Anthropology and its Decline, BV, 27 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021) 24 Ineke van ’t Spijker, Fictions of the Inner Life: Religious Literature and Formation of the Self in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), Chapter Three, pp. 129–84. 25 The interpretation of the Ark also has a heuristic function, to systematize the process of contemplatio, symbolized by the Ark. Cf Aris, Contemplatio, p. 44.

17 9

1 80

in e k e va n ’t s p i j ke r

Contemplation, ‘slowly, in the manner of a contemplative’ (contemplantis more), he would build his Ark of contemplation.26 Often scholars have seen De contemplatione as one of the first systematizations of mysticism and the work figures prominently in discussions of Richard in handbooks on mysticism.27 Yet, one might hesitate to call Richard a mystic in the sense that that word came to have from the later Middle Ages onward.28 The word ‘mystical’ itself, as used in the first words of Richard’s work (‘Misticam illam Moysi arcam libet […] ad aliquid reserare’; That mystical Ark of Moses, I would like to unlock it a little bit), and throughout the work, does not denote our current ideas of mysticism as an extraordinary state of union with the divine, but is used in its exegetical meaning: Richard tries to uncover the mystical, i.e. hidden meaning of Moses’ words when he describes the Ark of the Covenant, and how it was to be built according to divine commandments. After others have already unveiled the allegorical, Christological meaning, Richard will, he announces in the first chapter of Part One, try to say something moraliter, referring to the tropological meaning, which contains quid… faciendum (what is to be done).29 If there is mysticism, it remains closely connected to an exegetically guided epistemological trajectory, anchored in the monastic-canonic context and its scriptural-textual framework.30 De contemplatione could be seen, in Coulter’s words, as ‘a kind of textbook on the skills of the contemplative life needed to direct one’s efforts toward mining Scripture and the liturgy of the church in the ultimate goal of contemplative vision’.31

26 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 12, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 128, 42–43. 27 Joseph Ebner Die Erkenntnislehre Richards von St Viktor, Beiträge zur Geschich­te der Philosophie des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen, 19, 4 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1917), p. 120. Bernard McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, 2 (London: SCM, 1995), pp. 395–418; Kurt Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik 1: Die Grundlegung durch die Kirchenväter und die Mönchstheologie des 12. Jahrhundert (München: Beck, 1990), pp. 381–406. 28 Michel de Certeau, La fable mystique. xvie – xviie siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1982), p. 28, writes that a tradition of mysticism, claiming earlier writings for itself, was construed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. See Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, 1 (London: SCM, 1992), pp. xiii–xx, for a discussion of some of the problems concerning the word ‘mysticism’. 29 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 1, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 84, 11–14. Cf Richard of SaintVictor, Liber Exceptionum, 1. 2. 3, ed. by Châtillon, p. 115, 7–8: Tropologia est cum per id quod factum legimus, quid nobis sit faciendum agnoscimus. Richard quotes from Hugh’s De sacramentis christianae fidei, Prologue 4, cols 184D–185A (PL 176.173–618). Of the many times Richard uses the word, see e.g. Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 2. 14, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 190, 51, where Richard speaks about mistica intelligentia; Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 2. 27, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 234, 6: mistica descriptione. See also Grosfillier’s note 2, p. 130. 30 Cf. McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism, p. xii, where he points out the determining influence of monasticism on mysticism well into the twelfth century. 31 Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, p. 36.

R i c h ar d o f S ai n t-V i cto r’s De cont empl at ione

De contemplatione De contemplatione is also known as De arca mystica, after its first words; or Beniamin Maior,32 to distinguish it from the text that often precedes it in manuscripts and in the earliest editions of Richard’s works, Beniamin minor (so-called after the first words from (Vulgate) Psalm 67. 28: ‘Beniamin adolescentulus in mentis excessu’). This latter treatise contains an allegorical discussion of Jacob, his wives, their servants and all their children as representing the virtues necessary for contemplation.33 As one of its alternative titles, De praeparatione animi ad contemplationem, indicates, it is a work meant to actually prepare for the school of contemplation.34 This contemplation is treated elaborately in On Contemplation, a tropological, or as Richard calls it mystical interpretation of the Ark of the Covenant, for which Moses was instructed by the Lord and as it was built by Bezalel, according to Exodus 25 and 35. In its exploration of this architectural image, De contemplatione fits into a long tradition of representing the spiritual life as based on an exegetical process comparable to the making of a building, or other structure. Hugh of Saint-Victor’s De arca Noe, on the Ark of Noah, is an immediate example.35 Such ‘visual exegesis’36 exploits all the visual and imaginary potential and the textual richness of the Bible as it was known through and through to Richard’s readers, and listeners.37 Thus in the first two chapters of Richard’s work, the Ark, as the Arca sanctificationis (Psalm 131. 8), which sanctified anyone touching it (Exodus 29. 37), is first understood to be the grace of contemplation, gratia contemplationis.38 It is then also considered as the Ark of the Covenant, arca federis, a treasure-chest holding the treasure of wisdom, as such nothing else than human understanding or human insight (humana intelligentia): ‘hec autem arca diuino magisterio fabricatur et deauratur, quando humana intelligentia diuina inspiratione et reuelatione ad contemplationis gratiam promouetur’ (this Ark is built and gilded under divine guidance, when human insight by divine inspiration and revelation advances to the grace of contemplation).39 De contemplatione consists of five Parts or Books.40 In Part One, Richard presents an overview of what he distinguishes as six kinds (genera) of contemplation. First,

See Grosfillier, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor, p. 23. See David Orsbon’s article ‘Restoration through Experiential Exegesis’, in this volume. Most recently this has been shown by Nakamura, ‘Amor Invisibilium’. See Patrice Sicard, Diagrammes médiévaux et exégèse visuelle. Le Libellus de formatione arche de Hugues de Saint-Victor, BV, 4 (Paris: Brepols, 1993); see also Sicard, ‘Du De archa Noe de Hugues au De arca Moysi de Richard de Saint-Victor: Action, contemplation et sens scripturaires chez deux théoriciens maquettistes’ in Patrice Sicard, Théologies Victorines. Études d’histoire doctrinale médiévale et contemporaine (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2008), pp. 57–106’; Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 36 Sicard, Diagrammes médiévaux, pp. 141–54. 37 Grosfillier, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor, pp. 51–55, points to the oral character of De contemplatione. 38 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 1, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 88, 68–69. 39 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 2, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 88, 11–13. 40 See the remark on these words in Grosfillier, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor, p. 28.

32 33 34 35

181

1 82

in e k e va n ’t s p i j ke r

however, following a distinction Hugh had made in his Homiliae in Ecclesiasten,41 Richard distinguishes contemplation, meditation and cogitation as three mental activities which each in their own way can be concerned with the same things, connecting each with a different power, or sense, of the soul. Cogitation is a free and aimless moving from one thing to the other, based on imagination. Meditation is a concentrated attention on one thing, based on reason. Contemplation is ‘libera mentis perspicacia in sapientiae spectacula, cum admiratione suspensa’ (a free and penetrating gaze into the sights of wisdom, hovering with wonder), and is based on understanding, or insight (intelligentia).42 Each of them can be thought of as a way of seeing, an ‘aspectus animi’.43 Contemplation can be divided in six kinds, depending on the involvement of imagination, reason, and insight or their combination, and on its objects of sensibilia, intelligibilia, and intellectibilia, a Boethian division of, respectively, visible things accessible to the corporeal senses; invisible things accessible to reason; and invisible things accessible to insight (intelligentia).44 These powers are not the later ‘faculties’ or potencies,45 but rather they are ‘senses’ of the mind, as Richard sometimes calls them.46 The higher sense comprehends all that the lower one can fathom. Thus, reason comprehends the results of imagination, and insight those of imagination and reason.47 Each of the stages of contemplation is represented, in Richard’s interpretation, by a stage of the building of the Ark. They are also compared to the different patterns of birds’ flight:48 thus Richard introduces an equally important metaphor of flying that will later be connected to the text of the Psalm (54. 7): ‘Who will give me the wings 41 Hugh of Saint-Victor, In Salomonis Homiliae XIX in Ecclesiasten, Homilia 1, cols 116D–118 (PL 175.113–256). Hugh further distinguishes contemplatio and speculatio, as does Richard later in Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione (e.g. 5. 15, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 558, 104–18). See on this distinction Dale M. Coulter, ‘Contemplation as ‘Speculation’: A Comparison of Boethius, Hugh of Saint-Victor, and Richard of Saint-Victor’, in From Knowledge to Beatitude. St.-Victor, Twelfth-Century Scholars, and Beyond. Essays in Honor of Grover A. Zinn, Jr., ed. by W. Ann Matter and Lesley Smith (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), pp. 204–28. 42 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 3–4, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 92–98. Quotation in 1. 4, p. 96, 5–6. 43 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 4, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 96, 13–14. 44 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 7, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 108, 3–6. See Aris, Contemplatio, p. 58. 45 Cf. Aris, Contemplatio, p. 94 n. 501. See also Pierre Michaud-Quantin, ‘La classification des puissances de l’âme au xiie siècle’, Revue du moyen âge latin, 5 (1949), 15–34. 46 e.g. Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 3, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 92–94, 24–27. In Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 4, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 284, 36–37, Richard talks of sensus sui exiguitas (with a reference to Philippians 4:7); in Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 9, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 298, 4, Richard writes about the ‘eye of intelligentia’ as the sense with which we see invisible things; cf Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 14, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 314, 27–28: quantumcumque in hac parte sensum tuum dilataueris. 47 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 3, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 92–94; for the knowledge of the lower senses as comprehended by the higher ones, a thought which derives from Boethius, see Ebner, Die Erkenntnislehre Richards von St Viktor, p. 39; Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, p. 139. 48 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 5, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 98–100.

R i c h ar d o f S ai n t-V i cto r’s De cont empl at ione

of the dove, and I shall fly away and find rest’.49 Richard then explores the relations between the different kinds. Thus, Part One is, Richard says, a summary for those in haste. These may be preachers and scholars for whom determinando (determining) and diffiniendo (defining) the proprium… contemplationi (characteristic properties)50 of the various kinds of contemplation would be a familiar practice.51 But it is also a framework for the following Parts, in which Richard continues to make distinctions and divisions, as many devotional authors did in their distinctiones.52 In its circling around the relations and properties, it offers a foretaste of what Richard will do in the remaining parts: ‘Sed quia otiosi sumus et otiosis loquimur […] Contemplantis itaque more contemplationisque tenore de contemplatione agamus’ (But as we are people of leisure and address people of leisure […] let us treat contemplation, not in haste, but slowly, after the manner of a contemplative, according to the nature of contemplation).53 In Part Two Richard elaborates on the first three kinds of contemplation, commenting on the Ark’s materials and dimensions as all representing some hidden meaning. The first kind of contemplation is ‘in imaginatione secundum imaginationem’ (in imagination according to imagination), the building of the wooden Ark. Here the mind considers reality, consisting of things, works, and institutions. The second is ‘in imaginatione secundum rationem’ (in imagination according to reason), the guilding of this wooden structure, when reason is engaged in investigating the ‘reason’ of the same things, works, and institutions. The third is ‘in ratione secundum imaginationem’ (in reason according to imagination), represented by the fashioning of the golden crown. Reason draws similitudes from things and thus, for the first time, man is able to go from the visible to the invisible and ‘become spiritual’.54

49 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 10, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 118–22. Quotation of Psalm 54 (Vulgate) on p. 118, 9–10. See Aris, Contemplatio, pp. 61–63; Christel Meier, ‘Malerei des Unsichtbaren. Über den Zusammenhang von Erkenntnistheorie und Bildstruktur im Mittelalter’, in Text und Bild, Bild und Text, ed. by Wolfgang Harms, Germanistische-Symposien-Berichtsbände, 11 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1990), esp. p. 41, points to the comprehensive view (contuitus) which such flight allows. 50 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 3, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 92, 5–7: debemus prius quid ipsa [i.e. contemplatio] sit determinando uel diffiniendo querere; 1.4, p. 98: proprium itaque est contemplationi. See also the philosophical vocabulary in Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 5, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 100, as well as Richard’s reservations about such use of ‘human philosophy’ (46): sed ne verba nostra humanam philosophiam uideantur redolere. 51 Németh, ‘Contemplation and the Cognition of God’, p. 97: Part One was written for scholars in a contemporary ‘school’- manner, with divisions and distinctions. The Victorine scholars could well include those engaged in the vita activa of preaching, see below, note 107. 52 See on this aspect of much medieval literature, an instrument in memorizing, Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 53 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 12, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 128, 37–38; 42–43. 54 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 2. 13, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 186, 4–5. Cf. Richard of SaintVictor, De contemplatione, 1. 6; Németh, ‘Contemplation and the Cognition of God’, pp. 110–11 explains how Richard here does not just present ‘possible ways of exegesis’, but uses biblical examples to show how similitudes can be created by author and readers. See on Richard’s use of similitudines also Ritva Palmén, Richard of St Victor’s Theory of Imagination (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 181–201.

183

1 84

in e k e va n ’t s p i j ke r

The basis of Richard’s contemplative trajectory is the Victorine epistemology, which — referring back to Romans 1. 20 — proceeds ‘per visibilia ad invisibilia’ (through visible things to invisible things).55 This is connected to the view of the relation between words and things as it was developed by Hugh, but which Richard adopted as well. In Scripture, unlike in secular literature, not only words, but also things, as created by God, signify.56 In this view things, as God’s language, in themselves are worthy of contemplative admiration, in the first stage of the building of the Ark. Next, for the investigative mind, they exhibit their ‘reasons’, and then, on the basis of the ontological correspondence between visible and invisible realities, they are taken as similitudes (similitudines).57 The similitudes that Richard offers as examples are all drawn from biblical texts, confirming the work’s nature as providing a hermeneutics of Scripture. In a long digression Richard uses the simile of inner and outer man, where the outer man, i.e. imagination, leads the inner man, i.e. reason, by manuductio (by the hand) to where he cannot go himself.58 From there on, however, in the fourth contemplation considered in Part Three, imagination is left behind. Turning inward, to one’s own soul, as image of God, considering one’s being, knowing, and willing, is the pivot of the whole process, and Part Three is the centre of the whole work. This fourth contemplation is in reason according to reason, symbolized by the making of the propitiatory. The two last kinds of contemplation, the subject of Part Four, are figured by the forging of the two cherubim. The fifth is above reason but not beyond reason, and has as its object divine unity; the sixth is above reason and beyond reason, as it deals with the divine Trinity. In the last two kinds of contemplation, when the divine mysteries are the object of contemplation, the reader depends on revelation and authority to develop an ever-greater insight or intelligentia.59 Finally, in Part Five Richard discusses three modes in which these kinds of contemplation may occur.60 Dilatatio is a widening of the mind, due to man’s own efforts, when he acquires the art of contemplation, getting more and more exercised and attentive in it.61 Sublevatio happens when the ‘liveliness of insight’ is divinely irradiated and man transcends the borders of his own efforts and his own or even

55 Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia. See for Richard’s epistemology also Ebner, Die Erkenntnislehre Richards von St Viktor. 56 Hugh of Saint-Victor, e.g. De sacramentis christianae fidei, Prologus 5, col. 185A-C (PL 176. 173– 618). Richard of Saint-Victor, e.g. Liber Exceptionum, 1. 2. 3, ed. by Châtillon, p. 115, 8–10. See Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, esp. Chapter Two, pp. 61–124. 57 Aris, Contemplatio, p. 76, points to the underlying view of an ontological correspondence between the visible and the invisible as the ground for these similitudines, requiring the Victorine hermeneutics of symbolic knowledge. 58 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 2. 17, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 200–08. 59 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 2, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 378, 15–16. 60 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 2, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 508. See on these three modes Jean Châtillon, ‘Les trois modes de la contemplation selon Richard de Saint-Victor’, Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique, 41 (1940), 3–26. 61 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 3, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 512, 6–11.

R i c h ar d o f S ai n t-V i cto r’s De cont empl at ione

human knowledge.62 Mentis alienatio or excessus can be provoked by the magnitude of devotion, the magnitude of admiration, or the magnitude of exultation, when the mind no longer can contain itself.63 In the end, in the mentis excessus, intelligentia is not so much transcended, but is absorbed by divine illumination just as the light of dawn is absorbed by daylight.64 These three modes do not exactly map unto the six kinds of contemplation, and they all can occur in each of the six kinds of contemplation, even when alienatio mentis occurs mostly in the two last kinds.65 Richard speaks of six kinds of contemplation, but there is also an increasing degree of difficulty and the six kinds are thus six stages as well, associated with a cognitive ascent from imagination via reason to insight. A similar ascent characterizes the three modi. Richard, moreover, incorporates the relative role of human industry and divine grace. Where Moses receives his knowledge by divine revelation, Bezalel is able to construct the Ark himself, be it on the basis of the knowledge imparted to him.66 (Richard identifies his own role as that of Bezalel.67) In a further elaboration, Richard explains how some receive an excessus mentis ‘by the calling of grace alone’ (ex sola vocante gratia), others — in cooperation with grace of course — do all they can to acquire it: where Moses is completely dependent on divine revelation, Aaron can enter into the holy of holies when he wishes.68

The Epistemological Process and its Senses The senses of the mind, aspects of the epistemological process, become themselves the subject of admiring contemplation within the inward turn of Part Three, when as part of a consideration of the soul’s realities Richard considers man’s cognitive powers.69 First there is thought, cogitatio, exhibiting the same features as in Richard’s introductory considerations about thought, meditation and contemplation in Part One: rapidity, restlessness, running through endless things, places, and times.70 Next, the agility of imagination is the object of admiration. It is not our modern psychological faculty which we associate especially with an artistic process, and whose results as fiction can be opposed to reality.71 Medieval imagination has definitely a creative aspect, and in Richard’s admiring contemplation of the mind’s powers, 62 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 2, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 508, 10–13; 5. 3–4, pp. 512–18. 63 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 5, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 520, 4–8. 64 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 9, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 532–34, 21–42, esp. 35–39: Et sicut matutina lux crescendo desinit non quidem esse lux, sed esse lux matutina, ut ipsa aurora iam non sit aurora, ita humana intelligentia ex dilatationis sue magnitudine quandoque accipit ut ipsa iam non sit ipsa, non quidem ut non sit intelligentia, sed ut iam non sit humana. 65 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 22, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 460, 4–8. 66 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 22, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 462–66. 67 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 1, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 506, 34–36. 68 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 23, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 466. 69 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 21, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 332–36. 70 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 21, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 332–34, 10–18. 71 On imagination in Richard see Palmén, Richard of St Victor’s Theory of Imagination.

185

186

in e k e va n ’t s p i j ke r

imagination is said to be wonderful as it creates new heavens and earths and then undoes them again: Quale, queso, est tot rerum atque tantarum in momento in ictu oculi picturas efficere, et iterum easdem eadem facilitate delere, uel alio atque alio modo multipliciter uariare? Nonne per imaginationem animus cotidie nouum celum, nouam terram cum uoluerit creat, et in illo fantastico mundo quasi alius quidam creator quantaslibet eiusmodi generis creaturas omni hora actitat, et pro arbitrio format? Of what nature is it, I ask, to produce pictures of so many things and of so many different things in an instant, in a blink of the eye, and then again to erase them with the same easiness or to vary them in manifold ways in one way or another? Does not the mind through the imagination daily create when it wishes a new heaven, a new earth, and every hour act out and fashion as it pleases in that fantastical world however many such creatures it likes, as if it were another creator?72 This explicit reference to divine creation is reflected later when Richard, relating the last two contemplations to the fourth one, tries to explain divine creation by referring back to imagination.73 However, throughout the work, much more important than this creative power is imagination’s narrowly defined role in the cognitive process: on the basis of what the bodily senses offer, imagination keeps and restores bodily images and can build new images, which it in its turn offers to reason or which can be recalled by reason for further investigation. In this way, imaginatio absorbs the role of memoria. Richard does not pay much attention to memoria although it figures in his praise of human cognitive powers.74 It is because of the association between imagination and the bodily senses that, in the later stages of the contemplative process, imagination has to be left behind. In the fourth kind of contemplation, where the propitiatory is made out of pure gold, Richard addresses a personified imagination: what role has it here? Yet, there is a certain paradox. In the later kinds of contemplation, concerned as they are with the invisible, imagination of visible things as an epistemological tool is absent. However, in the explanation of these stages, similitudes that can only be said to be formed, or drawn (similitudinem trahere often recurs) on the basis of bodily things and their images appear again and again, whether they are based on biblical stories or natural phenomena. Even the highest kinds of contemplation can be represented only by the similitude of the forging of the cherubim. And starting to explain the measures of the propitiatory, Richard says we can learn from bodily things how to start investigating the contemplation of the spiritual. Thus length, width, and

72 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 21, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 334, 25–31. 73 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 20, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 452, 23–29. 74 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 21, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 334–36, 43–53. See Châtillon, ‘Richard de Saint-Victor’, col. 635; Palmén, Richard of St Victor’s Theory of Imagination, p. 62; p. 122.

R i c h ar d o f S ai n t-V i cto r’s De cont empl at ione

height refer to beginnings, progress, and perfection respectively.75 We have already seen another example when the failing of insight was compared to the light of dawn being absorbed by daylight.76 Discussing the second mode of the mind’s excessus, and the different ways in which it happens in different people, Richard appeals to visible things to see what we must think of invisible things, and uses the example of sunlight striking a glass of water. The water will reflect the light, but not necessarily the warmth. The water is like man’s thought, it would flow down unless contained by meditation; the ray of light is divine revelation, which reflected by the water, makes human thought capable of going where it otherwise would not be able to go, and the water impresses some of its state, peaceful or unquiet, on this thought: ‘Iuxta hanc sane similitudinem, cum inaccessibilis illius et eterni luminis reuelatio cor humanum irradiat, humanam intelligentiam supra semetipsum immo supra omnem humanum modum leuat’ (According to this similitude, when the revelation of this inaccessible and eternal light irradiates the human heart, it lifts human insight above itself and even above the human mode).77 Thus, throughout the discussions of the later contemplations, similitudes are used. It is true that they function differently here; they are not drawn from visible things to lead to knowledge of other visible things or even to that of invisible things, as in the earlier kinds of contemplation. Rather, to start with the highly evocative way in which a personified imagination is told that it has no business from now onwards, that it does not have the pure gold required in the higher stages, these similitudes are used to explain, in a comparative way, the processes that the reader goes through in the later stages of contemplation.78 Yet, in this way they keep the reader/listener somehow attached to the realm of imagination which he tries to transcend in the fourth kind of contemplation ‘in reason according to reason’. Reason, as Richard had explained, is concerned with created invisibilia, in Boethius’ words the intelligibilia. In the second and third degrees of contemplation it was linked to imagination: after the first contemplation it seeks, in the second degree, the reasons in visible things and intervenes to try to penetrate the reasons that motivated the divine wisdom in creating this world of the senses.79 Then in the third degree by reasoning it infers from one thing to the other about invisible things. Reason is thus firmly grounded in imagination, using, as we saw, the ‘outer man’ of imagination

75 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 11, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 306, 7–11. 76 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 9, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 532–34, 21–42. The context is the Canticle text: Quae est ista que progreditur quasi aurora consurgens (Canticle 6. 9). See above, n. 64. 77 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 11, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 536–38, quotation at p. 538, 31–33. 78 Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, pp. 149–61. Aris, Contemplatio, p. 98, writes about the similitudines in these stages as making the knowledge gained from faith, and reasoned through as far as possible, more plausible. They are (n. 528) expressions to be taken metaphorically for what in itself is inexpressible. Cf also Grosfillier, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor, Notes complémentaires 1, p. 595; Palmén, Richard’s Theory of Imagination, pp. 245–54. 79 Cf. Dumeige, Richard de Saint-Victor et l’idée chrétienne de l’amour, p. 37.

187

188

in e k e va n ’t s p i j ke r

to lead it, the ‘inner man’ to where imagination cannot go. Richard talks about the ‘oculo rationis, quo occulta et absentia per investigationem quaerimus et invenimus, sicut saepe causas per effectus vel effectus per causas, et alia atque alia quocumque ratiocinandi modo comprehendimus’ (The eye of reason, with which through investigation we seek and find things hidden and absent, as often as we comprehend causes by their effects or effects by their causes, and again many other things by whatever way of reasoning).80 Reason cannot penetrate some of the invisible things of human spirit,81 such as the soul’s substance.82 Yet, some of the things pertaining to the realm of the uncreated and invisible are accessible to reason,83 as is shown in the treatment of the last contemplations. In his praise of what pertains to human cognition, Richard includes not ratio but an equivalent word, ingenium, which one could translate as man’s natural intelligence: Vide quam multa immo pene infinita humano ingenio peruia sunt, que nullo unquam corporeo sensu attingi possunt. Vide quomodo illud humani ingenii acumen soleat profunda inuestigare, intima queque penetrare, inuoluta, perplexa, obscura et in tenebris posita euoluere, enodare, illustrare et in lucem euocare. See how many, even almost endless things which cannot ever be touched by any corporeal sense are accessible to human intelligence. See how that acumen of human intelligence is used to investigate deep things, to penetrate into some most inner things, to unroll, unfold, illuminate and bring into light things wrapped up, confused, obscure and placed in darkness.84 After the praise of memoria’s capacity mentioned above,85 finally there is the liveliness of intelligentia, insight. As we saw before, intelligentia comprehends everything that the other, corporeal and cognitive senses have taken in. It is correct, Richard says, to use the word intelligentia in all these stages.86 It implies an immediate presence of its objects: this insight is the intellectual sense with which, just as we see the visible with our bodily eyes as present, we see the invisible as present and in its essence.87 This eye of insight regards both the invisible divine realities and the invisible things that are in ourselves.88 It can be taken as including man’s reasoning,89 but also as the contemplative sense par excellence. In the contemplative

80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 9, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 298, 5–8. Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 7, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 110, 17–18. Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 14, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 314, 15–18. Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 7, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 110, 21–22. Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 21, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 334, 33–38. See Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, p. 137, on this use of ingenium for ratio. See note 74. Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 3, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 94, 49–54. Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 9, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 298, 8–10: sicut corporalia corporeo sensu uidere solemus, uisibiliter, presentialiter atque corporaliter, sic utique intellectualis ille sensus inuisibilia capit, inuisibiliter quidem sed presentialiter, sed essentialiter. Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 9, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 298–300, 22–35. See Ebner, Die Erkenntnislehre Richards von St Viktor, p. 40.

R i c h ar d o f S ai n t-V i cto r’s De cont empl at ione

admiration of what pertains to man’s cognitive powers, Richard emphasizes this role in contemplation: Non minus mirabilis intelligentie uiuacitas […] Quidquid enim sensus attingit, cogita­tio parit; quidquid imaginatio format, ingeni­um investi­gat, memo­ria conservat. Horum omnium notitiam intel­li­gentia capit et, cum libuerit, in considerationem admittit vel in contempla­tio­nem adducit. No less wonderful is the liveliness of insight […] For whatever sense touches, thought brings forth; whatever imagination fashions, natural intelligence investigates, memory retains. Of all these things insight takes notice and, when it pleases, it admits them in its reflection and brings them into contemplation.90 Intelligentia is, of course, also insight resulting from divine illumination, in which, in the mode of excessus mentis, it seems to be surpassed by this illumination, but it would be more appropriate to say that it is absorbed in it.91 It is this illumination, especially in the last two kinds of contemplation and in the last modus, the alienatio or excessus mentis, for which Richard has been considered a mystic. However, as we discussed before, there is a strong link with Richard’s exegetically guided trajectory. From this perspective, as Dale Coulter has argued, the wisdom of God coming to man once he has become ‘spiritual’ can be equated with the reader discovering the analogies between the visible and the invisible, by drawing similitudes from visible things: ‘the fruit of the skill and technique as a result of a person’s meditative effort to find connections between the properties of material res and their immaterial counterparts’.92 We should keep this perspective in mind when in the later stages and modes the reader is more and more dependent on revelation. Such revelation, rather than a feeling of unity, is the source of joy. It is often related to the divine judgements (divina iudicia). Insight in the way the world was made according to divine judgements distinguished, in an earlier stage, the Christian contemplator from the ‘wise of this world’ (huius mundi sapientes).93 In the later stages, the reader is, like Moses on the mountain, ‘admitted to a conversation with the Lord when he is introduced by divine inspiration and revelation into the abyss of divine judgements’ (ad colloquium Domini Domino uocante admittitur, quando ex diuina inspiratione et reuelatione in illam diuinorum iudiciorum abyssum intromittitur).94 Although things to be contemplated may be ‘beyond and even against reason’, this is from a human perspective: they still correspond to divine reasons, which Richard, his declarations about what is beyond reason notwithstanding, will explore as ‘necessary reasons’ (necessariae rationes) in

90 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 21, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 336, 54–59. 91 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 9, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 532–34, 27–42. See above, n. 64. 92 Coulter Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, p. 57. 93 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 2. 8–9, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 170–76. Cf Aris, Contemplatio, p. 71; p. 82. 94 Richard of Saint-Victor, De Contemplatione, 4. 22, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 462, 41–43.

189

1 90

in e k e va n ’t s p i j ke r

his De Trinitate.95 De Trinitate, in its effort to ‘understand, as far as we can, what we believe’ (satagemus, in quantum possumus, ut intelligamus quod credimus) and to ‘comprehend by reason what we hold by faith’ (comprehendere ratione quod tenemus ex fide)96 could be seen as the enactment of the last two kinds of contemplation, going above and even beyond reason.97 And as we saw human insight, when it falls short at the end, is not annihilated, but absorbed by divine enlightenment.98 The alienatio mentis or excessus mentis does not imply anything irrational, as it may do in later ages.99 It is seen as a state where the mind forgets itself, but this excessus remains framed within textual images and their exegesis; images of, in this case, the Canticle, the bride ‘leaning on her beloved’ (Canticle 8. 5). Thus, in the last stages a certain receptiveness prevails indeed. However, this receptiveness does not exclude an element of intentionality.100 The building of the Ark, of one’s intelligentia as a treasure-chest to hold wisdom, is a work of much effort until the end: ‘Ecce iam quanto labore sudauimus […] ut cherubim nostri alas suas sufficienter expanderent, et propitiatorio nostro, quale oportet, obumbraculum obtenderent’ (See with how much labour we have toiled […] that our cherubim would sufficiently spread their wings and stretch as is fitting their protective shadow over our propitiatory).101

Contemplatio and Actio If De Trinitate can be seen as an enactment or a result of the last two kinds of contemplation, meanwhile, another sequel to contemplation may be seen as this

95 De Trinitate, 1. 4, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 89, 4–6: Erit itaque intentionis nostre in hoc opere ad ea que credimus, in quantum Dominus dederit, non modo probabiles verum etiam necessarias rationes adducere. Cf Aris, Contemplatio, p. 119: Der mögliche Einwand der Irrationalität einer ausserordentlichen Offenbarung verfängt im Sinne Richards nicht, da der sich Offenbarende in einer die Kategorialität des menschlichen Denkens transzendierenden Weise als ganz von der ratio bestimmt gedacht werden muss. 96 De Trinitate, Prologus, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 81, 32–33; 43–45: satagemus, in quantum possumus, ut intelligamus quod credimus […] Nitamur semper, in quantum fas est vel fieri potest, comprehendere ratione quod tenemus ex fide. 97 See above, n. 17. 98 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 11, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 532–34, 27–42. See above, note 64. 99 Cf however Notes complémentaires 3 in Grosfillier, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor, pp. 603–10, where the author points to the similarities through the ages. Steven Chase Angelic Wisdom: The Cherubim and the Grace of Contemplation in Richard of St Victor (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), argues that Richard follows a Dionysian apophatic theology/Christology. As the quotation from Bonaventure (see n. 1) shows, the view of a Dionysian influence on Richard has a long history. See Chase for this tradition. This view is not undisputed, see e.g. the discussion in Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, pp. 161–71. 100 Aris, Contemplatio, p. 5, explains that he translates contemplatio as ‘Betrachtung’, implying an element of intentional consideration, rather than passive ‘seeing’. See in this context Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, pp. 14–16, about intentio. 101 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 16, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 434, 80–83.

R i c h ar d o f S ai n t-V i cto r’s De cont empl at ione

contemplation is explored in some other works in which Richard discusses the contemplative trajectory as well. Or perhaps it would be more fitting to say that he suggests more scripts for this trajectory in these works, whether by way of an exegesis of Nebukadnezzar’s dreams and their interpretation, in De eruditione interioris hominis; of the transition from Egypt, across Jordan, into the promised land in De exterminatione mali et promotione boni; or of the Canticle texts in De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis. Both in De quatuor gradibus and in De exterminatione, after having guided the reader to the contemplative excessus mentis, the sleep or death of contemplation,102 this reader is then led back to a state of impassibilitas, where his will is completely absorbed by the divine will; and back to the life with the brothers.103 Given Richard’s purpose in De contemplatione to explain the contemplative process, it is not surprising that he concentrates on the epistemological trajectory. Richard associates the contemplative grace with the ‘best part’ chosen by Mary, which consists in ‘being free and seeing how sweet is the Lord’ (Psalms 33. 9).104 However, even in this highly ‘theoretical’ perspective, and even in the final stage of contemplation, the daily practice of the canon’s life and his life in a wider community resonate, not only in the work of compunction that helps to hammer out the form of the cherubim,105 but also in the references, even negative ones, to the relation with others, to what pertains to the vita activa. Thus the human mind that wishes in the last two contemplations to be transfigured into the ‘celestial and winged beings’ should first get used ‘ad terrena negotia exteriorumque curam nisi pro solo obedientie debito caritatisue officio nunquam descendere’ (not to descend to earthly business and the concern for outer things unless out of obedience or for the sake of charity).106 Such a requirement may confirm the image of the readers as the otiosi whom Richard addressed at the end of Part One. They distinguish themselves from others by their religious life, as having no other officium than that of ‘reading, singing psalms, and praying, meditating, speculating, and contemplating, being free and seeing “how sweet is the Lord”’ (legere, psallere, et orare, meditari, speculari et contemplari, uacare

102 See Dumeige, Richard de Saint-Victor et l’idée chrétienne de l’amour, p. 144 n. 1, on the vocabulary of excessus/alienatio mentis, extasis, somnium, sopor. Cf also the Notes complémentaires 3 in Grosfillier, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor, pp. 603–20. 103 See Richard of Saint-Victor, De exterminatione mali, 3. 18, col. 1116AB (PL 196.1073–1116); Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus, 45–46, ed. by Dumeige, pp. 173–75. On this absorbtion of the will in the divine will in De quatuor gradibus, see Dumeige, Richard de Saint-Victor et l’idée chrétienne de l’amour, p. 146. Dumeige points out that at this stage it is difficult to distinguish between knowledge, love and joy. Cf Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 22, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 462, 37–41, where the transcending (excedere) of human passibility is explained as tranquillity (tranquillitatem). 104 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 1, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 86, 51–59. See Luke 10. 38–42. In a long tradition, Mary represents the contemplative life, while her sister Martha represents the active life. See Giles Constable, ‘The Interpretation of Mary and Martha’, in Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 1995), pp. 1–141. 105 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 6, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 388, 6–10. 106 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 6, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 390, 41–45 [Italics added].

191

1 92

in e k e va n ’t s p i j ke r

et uidere quam ‘suauis est dominus’).107 This list of the readers’ or hearers’ occupations is immediately connected, however, with their exegetical efforts, where they ‘receive messengers of our beloved as often as we dig out new insights from the recesses of Scripture’ (quotiens ex abditis scripturarum recessibus nouos intellectus eruimus, quid aliud quam quosdam dilecti nostri nuntios excipimus).108 As interpreters of Scripture, the canons who might be engaged in this contemplative trajectory, might also be the ones whose competence enables them to preach to others.109 Later Richard directly connects contemplation with aspects of the active life: Qui igitur Moysi offcium gerit, qui curam pastoralem suscepit, cui denique ex dominico precepto incumbit populum Domini de domo seruitutis educere (Exodus 13. 14) […] debet utique inter predicta illa tria contemplationum genera libera uolatu circumferri. Thus whoever has the office of Moses, who takes on the pastoral care, to whom on divine orders it falls to lead the people of the Lord from the house of servitude […] he must surely let himself be carried around in a free flight between the three last contemplations.110 These almost casual resonances of another aspect of the canon’s life nuance the view of the otiosi and the contemplativi whom Richard is addressing. The task of the preacher or more general of the cura animarum (care of souls) is more explicit in some of Richard’ sermons,111 but aspects of the vita activa shine through even in this most contemplative treatise.112

107 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 14, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 422, 21–23; Ps 33:9. 108 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 14, ed. byGrosfillier, p. 422, 28–29. 109 On the task of preaching of the canons of Saint-Victor see Jean Longère, ‘La fonction pastorale de Saint-Victor à la fin du xiie et au début du xiiie siècle’, in L’Abbaye parisienne de Saint-Victor au Moyen Age, Communications présentées au XIIIe Colloque d’Humanisme médiéval de Paris (1986–1988), ed. by Jean Longère, BV, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991), pp. 291–313. See also Hugh Feiss, ‘Preaching by Word and Example’, in From Knowledge to Beatitude: St.-Victor, Twelfth-Century Scholars, and Beyond. Essays in Honor of Grover A. Zinn, Jr., ed. by W. Ann Matter and Lesley Smith (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), pp. 153–85. 110 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 21, ed. by Grosfillier, p 460, 50–54. 111 See e.g. in the Sermones Centum, sermo 35, cols 982–83; sermo 50, col. 1042B-D (PL 177.899–1210). See also In Apocalypsim Joannis libri septem, 7. 6, col. 871B; 871D for a return to the brothers (virtus fraternae condescensionis) comparable to that mentioned above, see note 103. Richard of Saint-Victor, In Apocalypsim Joannis libri septem, 7.8, col. 883A (PL 196.683–888), voices criticism of those who grasp much of the divine secrets but then neglect to give it to others. See on these and other sermons Feiss, ‘Preaching by Word and Example’; Ineke van ’t Spijker, ‘Beyond Reverence: Richard of SaintVictor and the Fathers’, in La réception des Pères de l’Église au Moyen Âge. Le devenir de la tradition ecclésiale, Congrès de Centre Sèvre – Facultés jésuites de Paris (11–14 juin 2008), ed. by Rainer Berndt and Michel Fédou, Archa Verbi Subsidia 10, 2 vols (Münster: Aschendorf, 2013), i, 439–63. 112 See on the relation between vita activa and vita contemplativa in Richard as compared to Hugh of Saint-Victor, Sicard, ‘Du De archa Noe de Hugues au De arca Moysi de Richard de Saint-Victor’; Poirel, ‘L’Unité de la sagesse chez Hugues de Saint-Victor’.

R i c h ar d o f S ai n t-V i cto r’s De cont empl at ione

Knowledge and Feeling Together, both roads after contemplation as it is explored in Richard’s De contemplatione — further reasoning, and return to the brothers — could be seen as corresponding not only with the vita contemplativa and the vita activa, but also with the two aspects of man, reason and affect, mentioned at the beginning of this article. Richard explored them explicitly in Beniamin minor as symbolized by the two wives of Jacob, their servants and his offspring, but they are also always present in his other works, including De contemplatione. The question of their relative importance in Richard has often been posed.113 Richard’s work has been seen as emphasizing an intellectual approach. It is indeed different in tonality from that of other twelfth-century authors such as Bernard of Clairvaux or William of Saint-Thierry, in whose works affects have a more prominent role and who seem more suspicious of the role of human cognitive powers and ambitions.114 For William of Saint-Thierry, it is through an imaginative and affective identification with the stories about Jesus, for example, that the reader gradually proceeds towards an affective understanding, expressed by William in words similar to those of Gregory the Great: ‘amor ipse intellectus est’ (Love itself is understanding).115 Affectus here attains the equivalent or even a superior position to that of the ‘cognitive’ power of reason or insight, once, in the last stages of reaching for the divine, human cognition can only fail.116 However, the dichotomy and even opposition between affect and reason supposed by such emphasis on affect is alien to the work of Richard, as it was to that of Hugh. In Richard, as in Hugh, the role of affect is different, though no less important.117 As far as the contemplative process is concerned, the affects are always operating together with understanding, but do not take understanding’s place. Recently Nakamura concluded that love is the central and crowning concern of Richard’s undertaking, not as opposed to reason and understanding, but as its structuring principle.118 In a

113 Boyd Taylor Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, Modern Theology, 24 (2008), 615–32 (p. 615), calls the relation between love and knowledge as important, both for medieval people as for modern scholars, as that between between faith and reason. 114 Cf Ineke van ’t Spijker, ‘Ad commovendos affectus: Exegesis and the Affects in Hugh of Saint-Victor’, in Bibel und Exegese in der Abtei Saint- Victor zu Paris. Form und Funktion eines Grundtextes im europäischen Rahmen, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Instrumenta, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2009), pp. 215–34, pp. 215–16. 115 William of Saint-Thierry, Epistola Domni Willelmi ad Fratres de Monte Dei, 173, ed. by Jean Déchanet, Guillaume de Saint-Thierry. Lettre au frères du Mont-Dieu, SC, 223 (Paris: Cerf, 1985), p. 282, 8–9; cf. Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelium, 27. 4, ed. by Raymond Etaix, CCSL, 141 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), p. 232, 83: quia amor ipse notitia est. See on William of Saint-Thierry, Van ’t Spijker, Fictions of the Inner Life, Chapter Four. 116 As has been argued by Németh, ‘Contemplation and the Cognition of God’, pp. 178–81. 117 See also Notes complémentaires 4 in Grosfillier, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor, pp. 620–24. 118 Nakamura ‘amor invisibilium’, p. 15. Dumeige, Richard de Saint-Victor et l’idée chrétienne de l’amour, p. 125, also argues for their mutual dependence, but love and knowledge are not identical.

193

1 94

in e k e va n ’t s p i j ke r

first stage, reason, in the form of discretio, has to order man’s affects and his love;119 in its turn rightly ordered love leads reason and understanding. De contemplatione is obviously concentrating on the mind’s powers of reasoning and understanding. Yet the cognitive and contemplative process itself is suffused with affect all the way. In the very first paragraphs of his work Richard sets out to make his explanation affectively attractive: ‘Verumtamen ut huius nobis materie studiosa pertractatio amplius dulcescat nostrumque desiderium in eius admirationem uehementius trahat’ (so that an assiduous treatment of the matter may be the sweeter for us and attract our desire more ardently towards its admiration […]).120 Admiration is the desired affective attitude throughout.121 Admiration and desire fire the cognitive power into activity, and are in their turn furthered by knowledge.122 Especially in the last kinds and modes of contemplation the vocabulary reflects an increasing engagement of the affects, which parallels an increasing insight. What prevails, in the affects’ involvement in the cognitive process, is the mutual interdependence of affect and knowledge. Thus for example in the second way of the excessus mentis, the one ‘surging from the magnitude of admiration’ (crescit itaque ex admiratione attentio), by admiration one’s attention increases and then one’s knowledge.123 Richard tells his readers that whereas the earlier way, when devotio was at the origin of the excessus, this ‘rises up from an excessive desire for truth’ (excessus ex nimio ueritatis desiderio ad ueritatis contemplationem assurgitur), now ‘through the revelation of truth and its contemplation, the mind is inflamed to devotion’ (ex ueritatis reuelatione eiusque contemplatione ad deuotionem animus inflammatur).124 ‘The more wholly pure the mind is and the more widely spread in its love, the more penetrating, the more capable it is found of the contemplation of superworldly and supercelestial realities’ (Et procul dubio quanto purior ad integritatem, quanto diffusior ad karitatem, tanto perspicacior, tanto capacior inuenitur ad supermundanorum et supercelestium contemplationem).125 Just as birds ready to fly spread their wings, so, Richard appeals to his readers, ‘should we extend the wings of our heart by desire’ (sane debemus et nos cordis nostri alas per desiderium extendere )126 and be ready at any moment for the hour of divine revelation, not only regarding what we can

119 On discretio cf Beniamin minor, 66–71, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaut, pp. 280–96. See Dumeige, Richard de Saint-Victor et l’idée chrétienne de l’amour, pp. 62–64. On the affects and the will — in their state before discretio has done its work — as object of the fourth kind of contemplation, see Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 3. 22, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 336–38. 120 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 1. 1, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 84, 15–17. See on the rhetorical background of this appeal to affect Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, e.g. pp. 132–33; Palmén, Richard’s Theory of Imagination, p. 121; on the role of admiration Palmén, Richard’s Theory of Imagination, pp. 145–46. 121 Cf Aris, Contemplatio, p. 50. 122 Cf Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia, pp. 35–36. 123 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 9, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 532, 20–21. 124 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5. 10, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 534, 5–10. 125 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 5.11, ed. by Grosfillier, p. 538, 43–46. 126 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 10, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 404, 10–11.

R i c h ar d o f S ai n t-V i cto r’s De cont empl at ione

have in this life, but also for the ‘spectacle of divine contemplation’ in the next. For insight in eternal realities is infused therefore that we know what we should seek tirelessly by our zeal, or sigh for by desire. Otherwise the abundance of divine knowledge grows in us in vain, unless it increases in us the flame of love. Always, therefore from knowledge our love should grow, and no less from love our knowledge.127 Ad hoc […] infunditur eternorum intelligentia, ut sciamus quid indefesse debeamus per studium querere uel per desiderium suspirare. Alioquin frustra in nobis diuine cognitionis abundantia crescit, nisi diuine in nobis dilectionis flammam augescat. Debet itaque in nobis crescere semper et ex cognitione dilectio, et nichilominus ex dilectione cognitio.

Conclusion Richard never tires of making the distinctions between love and knowledge, affect and reason, the life of contemplatio and that of actio, and making distinctions and listings within every stage of contemplation, mapping them on to the various parts and dimensions of the Ark. They help the readers to fix them in their memory, and thus to keep ‘a sort of presence’.128 They are based on Richard’s theology and anthropology, which he shared with Hugh. However, the theological and epistemological content, and the systematization of contemplation are subject to his overall purpose of providing himself and his listeners and readers with a script for a performative enacting of a cognitive-affective trajectory; a trajectory in which cognition and affects may be distinguished but cannot be separated. Embedded in the imagery of the Ark, of the Canticle and of other biblical and natural stories, appealing to and invoking the reader’s affects as well as the wish to know, De contemplatione keeps the reader on track to ‘that one movement in which memory and desire vanish in each other, finding those moments, and losing them’.129

127 Richard of Saint-Victor, De contemplatione, 4. 10, ed. by Grosfillier, pp. 404–06, 24–33. 128 Dumeige, Richard de Saint-Victor et l’idée chrétienne de l’amour, p. 142: La vie dans le souvenir réalise une sorte de présence. 129 Translated from Rutger Kopland, ‘Die Kunst der Fuge III’, Voor het verdwijnt en daarna (Amsterdam: Van Oorschot, 1985), p. 21.

195

David Allison Orsbon

Restoration through Experiential Exegesis A Study of Richard of Saint-Victor’s Benjamin minor

Introduction Likely written between 1153 and 1162,1 Richard of Saint-Victor’s Benjamin minor — or, as it was commonly titled in the manuscript tradition, The Twelve Patriarchs (De duodecim patriarchis) — is both a work of scriptural exegesis and a systematic, practical introduction to mystical contemplation. Though it touches on a number of different episodes from scripture, the main focus of Richard’s Benjamin minor can be best described as an extended, spiritual meditation upon the biblical narrative of Jacob and his family as described in Genesis.2 In this meditation, Richard seeks above all to unfold how the biblical account of Jacob, his marriages to Leah and Rachel, and the birth of his children present the reader of scripture with nothing less than a divinely-authored paradigm to which the reader is urged to conform his or her pursuit of virtue and truth. As such, Richard’s Benjamin minor serves as a kind of propaedeutic — or, as Bernard McGinn has aptly described it, ‘a “how-to-do-it” book’ — to the initial and more practical stages of mystical contemplation.3 And in this regard, Benjamin minor dovetails with Richard’s better-known and more widely-studied treatise on contemplation, Benjamin major (De arca mystica), which concerns the more advanced states of mystical ascension. The purpose of this essay is twofold: in the first place, it aims to present this important but little-studied work in Richard’s corpus to a wider audience by providing



1 Author’s Notes: For the sake of consistency and ease of reference, all translations from the Latin are taken from Richard’s volume in the Classics of Western Spirituality series: Richard of St Victor: The Twelve Patriarchs; The Mystical Ark; Book Three of The Trinity, trans. by Grover Zinn (New York: Paulist Press, 1979). All Latin quotations are from the edition prepared by Jean Châtillon and Monique Duchet-Suchaux: Les douze patriarches ou Beniamin Minor, SC, 419 (Paris: Cerf, 1997). Grover Zinn, ‘Introduction’, in The Twelve Patriarchs; The Mystical Ark; Book Three of The Trinity, trans. by Grover Zinn, CWS (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), p. 6. 2 Genesis 29. 1–35. 3 Bernard McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism: Gregory the Great through the 12th Century, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, vol. ii (New York: Crossroad, 1996), p. 401. David Allison Orsbon  •  is a joint doctoral candidate for Comparative Literature and Classics at the University of Chicago. Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus, ed. by Robert J. Porwoll and David Allison Orsbon, CURSOR 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 197–218 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.122087

198

dav id a l l i s o n o r s b o n

an overview of the text itself, and its place in the scholarship. Building upon this, the second half of this essay will argue for a new way of viewing this treatise as a form of ‘experiential exegesis’.

An Overview of Benjamin minor On account of the complexity of Richard’s exegetical schema, it will be useful first to lay out the skeleton of Richard’s stages in their persons. The scriptural launch pad from which Richard begins his Benjamin minor is taken from Psalm 67. Often interpreted by Christian exegetes as prefiguring God’s establishment of the church of the New Testament, Psalm 67 works its way, in a tone of exuberance and jubilation, through a series of images that illustrate the beneficence bestowed by God on the people of Israel. Then (Psalm 67 .28), the psalmist opines: ‘Benjamin a young man in ecstasy of mind’.4 ‘Who is this Benjamin?’ Richard asks.5 The question is clearly rhetorical, for Richard immediately relates that, ‘multi noverunt, alii per scientiam, alii per experientiam. Qui per doctrinam noverunt audiant patienter, qui per experientiam didicerunt audiant libenter’ (Many know, some by knowledge, others by experience. Let those who know by teaching listen patiently; let those who have been taught by experience listen gladly).6 Implicit in this remark is the theme, invoked throughout Benjamin minor, of an epistemological distinction between knowledge gained through instruction or education and the perfection of that knowledge through experience. And the goal of Benjamin minor will be to guide the reader along the first steps that lead to the perfection of knowledge by means of a new level of understanding that has been polished by experience. The reader, however, will have to wait quite some time to discover exactly who, according to Richard, is this Benjamin. In fact, and in view of the distinction between knowledge and experience mentioned above, it would seem that Richard deliberately delays providing this information for heuristic reasons, inviting the reader to ruminate on Benjamin’s identity over the course of a protracted exegesis of the story of Jacob and the birth of his twelve sons. In the biblical account of Jacob and his progeny, Richard locates a kind of model or paradigm for the procedure of contemplation, the cultivation and refinement of virtue, and the restoration of one’s inner disposition. The individuals involved in the story of Jacob each form a piece of the scaffolding from which this paradigm is constructed. The figure of Jacob, for example, represents the rational soul, while his two wives symbolize the soul’s two main powers: reason (Rachel) and affect/emotion (Leah). Through the use of reason, one arrives at truth; and through the proper ordering and application of affect, one cultivates virtue. Filling out his epistemology of the rational



4 Psalm 67. 28. 5 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 1, trans. by Zinn, p. 53. 6 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 1, trans. by Zinn, p. 53; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 1, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 90, 4–7.

r e s to r at i o n t h ro u gh e xpe ri e nt i al e xege si s

soul still further, Richard links Rachel’s handmaid, Bala, to imagination, upon which reason relies for images and sense perceptions. Zelpha, Leah’s handmaid, symbolizes the body’s five senses, which link affect with the sensible world. With these four women, Jacob begets thirteen children. As Richard quickly reveals and as Grover Zinn has argued, the order and grouping of their births conform to and clarify the ‘successive stages in the contemplative quest’.7 Leah’s six children symbolize the virtues by which affect/emotion is disciplined and brought into good order. Zelpha’s two children govern actions in the external world. Bala’s two children oversee the internal world of thought. The two children born to Rachel represent the final two stages in which the contemplative quest culminates: discretion and the grace of contemplation. Regarding Leah’s progeny, the first four (Ruben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah) symbolize the initial stages of affective restoration in which one’s morality is brought into conformity with the will of God through the redirection of affect (or will) toward its proper end. Ruben, for example, symbolizes fear of God. The fact that he is the first-born makes perfect sense, according to Richard, because it is the fear of God that first compels one to seek a more perfect life.8 Simeon represents grief and compunction for one’s sins, for one’s failure to live up to God’s expectations. Chronologically speaking, Simeon’s birth right after Ruben indicates that the next stage in the contemplative quest — and, more precisely, in the reformation of affect — is compunction. After Simeon, Levi is born, and within this developing affective chronology, he represents hope in God’s forgiveness. With the birth of Judah, whom Richard interprets as representing love of God, one reaches the capstone of the first stage of moral restoration. But as Richard points out, moral restoration — though integral to the contemplative quest — is only the beginning, for one must now find the means by which to control and moderate both imagination and sensation. This new stage is reflected in the biblical account in the birth of the sons of Bala (imagination), Dan and Naphtali, who provide an occasion for Richard to make a desired distinction between two types of rationalis imaginatio (rational imagination): rational imagination when it is ordered by ratio (reason), and rational imagination when it is mixed with intelligentia (understanding).9 Though he does not thoroughly explain his reasoning for attaching the former to Dan and the latter to Naphtali, it would appear that Richard is placing special emphasis on the Latin of the Vulgate. For example, according to Richard Dan pertains to consideratio futurorum malorum (the consideration of future evils) — an interpretation that appears to be extending Rachel’s remark at Dan’s birth (iudicavit mihi Deus, or ‘God has judged me’)10 in an eschatological direction.11 In its turn, this eschatological interpretation of Dan allows

7 Zinn, ‘Introduction’, p. 13. 8 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 8, trans. by Zinn, pp. 60–61. 9 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 18, trans. by Zinn, p. 70; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 18, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, pp. 136, 138. 10 Genesis 30. 6. 11 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 18, trans. by Zinn, p. 70; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 18, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 136, 13.

199

200

dav id a l l i s o n o r s b o n

Richard to posit a further interpretation, one pertaining to exegetical method: translatio. In its most basic sense, translatio denotes ‘the act of carrying something from one place/context to another’, and is often accompanied, especially in post-Classical Latin, by the further idea of a one-to-one (or literal) correspondence between the source and target contexts.12 And since Richard here insists that these future evils — e.g., the eternal damnation meted out by the son of God — are to be understood literally,13 he invites the reader to see Dan as also representing a form of translatio,14 and more specifically, the kind of translatio that takes place in the imagination ‘quando secundum visibilium rerum cognitam speciem visibile aliquid aliud mente disponimus, nec tamen ex eo invisibile aliquid cogitamus’ (when according to a known appearance of visible things we order another similar thing in the mind and yet from that we do not think of something invisible).15 In turning to Naphtali, Bala’s second-born, Richard introduces the reader to the second kind of rational imagination, in which imagination is accompanied by understanding. By this, Richard intends that Naphtali is to be identified with the anagogical interpretation of scripture — or, as Richard terms it in this context, comparatio (literally, ‘comparison’, though the modern notion of ‘analogy’ is closer to Richard’s meaning). The scriptural basis for this identification is Genesis 30. 8, where, at Naphtali’s birth, Rachel exclaims: ‘conparavit me Deus cum sorore mea et invalui’ (God has compared me with my sister and I have prevailed). Naphtali, then, is said to represent the ‘per rerum visibilium formam… ad rerum invisibilium intelligentiam’ (understanding of invisible things by means of the form of visible things), where forma (form) indicates a figurative, non-literal mode of understanding.16 Chief among the invisible things figured in scripture through images of visible things are the architecture and topography of heaven. Lands flowing with milk and honey, and the pearls, gold, and gemstones that adorn the city of God are not to be understood literally, Richard argues, but figuratively and mystically.17 In such cases as these, translatio is of no use to one contemplating the future goods of the blessed. Instead, only comparatio can preserve the integrity of the ontological chasm that separates the fleeting joys of the present life with those supernal joys to be experienced by the blessed in the life to come. Following imaginative Bala’s internally-focused stages, Richard turns to discuss the control and moderation of sensation. In Benjamin minor, this discussion is correlated

12 For a recent discussion of translatio and interpretatio, see Denis Feeney, Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), pp. 17–44, esp. pp. 32–40. 13 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 18, trans. by Zinn, p. 70. 14 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, chs. 18–19, 22, trans. by Zinn, pp. 69–71, 74–75. 15 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 18, trans. by Zinn, pp. 69–70; Richard of SaintVictor, Beniamin minor, ch. 18, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 136, 5–7. 16 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 18, trans. by Zinn, p. 70; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 18, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 136, 16–17. In this connection, see Dale M. Coulter, Per Visibilia Ad Invisibilia: Theological Method in Richard of St Victor, BV, 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006). 17 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 18, trans. by Zinn, p. 70.

r e s to r at i o n t h ro u gh e xpe ri e nt i al e xege si s

with the birth of Gad (abstinence) and Asher (patience), Jacob’s two sons with Zelpha, Leah’s handmaid, who represents for Richard the individual’s relationship to the external world.18 Together, abstinence and patience form an essential part of the reader’s contemplative restoration, since it is through the integration of these qualities into one’s character (or habitus) that the senses are disciplined, and through which one obtains detachment from the fleeting pleasures of the physical world and from inordinate fear of future pain.19 At the same time, though, these qualities themselves need to be moderated: as such, Gad and Asher code for the cultivation of an appropriate degree of detachment, not from creation as such, but rather from ‘the world’ (saeculum, mundus) understood as a theological category. In fact, Richard’s paradigm for contemplative ascent requires participation in the created world insofar as it requires participation in a community — a feature of Richard’s thought that seems indebted to the ethos of the regular canons.20 Rather, they function as a kind of filter that, when properly positioned, allows in only those influences that promote the contemplative quest. Returning to the cultivation of virtue, Leah (affect) then gives birth to the last three of the seven virtues, and these three children, Issachar, Zabulon, and Dina, as Richard interprets them, bring the rational soul much closer to full self-knowledge. The first is Issachar, the joy of interior sweetness. Described by Richard as all but detached from the fleeting pleasures of the physical world, Issachar lives on the dividing line between two different worlds, and so, Richard opines, it is only appropriate that Issachar should be described as a kind of resident alien, a nomad wandering the surface of two worlds that at one and the same time are and are not his home. After Issachar, the hatred of vices is born, symbolized by Zabulon, whose name is interpreted to mean habitaculum fortitudinis (dwelling place of fortitude).21 With Zabulon, Richard begins to make the characteristically Victorine turn from individual to community, for in the figure of Zabulon, Richard identifies a twofold problem of life in a community, but especially in a monastic community — namely, the need to strike a balance between submission and criticism, between the fear of undermining the concord of a community and the righteous disdain for the use of excessive harshness in reproving sin within the same community.22 The last child to be born to Leah is a girl, Dina, who symbolizes shame, and as Zinn notes she receives a ‘more extensive presentation than any other child’, which suggests a special concern on Richard’s part for this particular virtue.23 According to Richard, shame can only come into being after the birth of Zabulon (hatred of vices) and like the other virtues to which affect (Leah) gives birth, shame must

18 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 26, trans. by Zinn, pp. 78–79. 19 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 26, trans. by Zinn, pp. 78–79. 20 A classic study on the spirituality of canons regular and the Victorines is Caroline Walker Bynum’s ‘Docere verbo et exemplo:’ An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979). 21 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 40, trans. by Zinn, p. 96; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 40, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 206, 4. 22 See note 20. 23 Zinn, ‘Introduction’, p. 18.

201

202

dav id a l l i s o n o r s b o n

be moderated and properly directed. Indeed, Richard seems to hold that shame is only a virtue when it is constructive. On those occasions where shame leads not to reformation but rather toward despair, shame has become perverse and insidious. And when one feels shame not at the fact that one committed a sin, but at the fact that one was caught in the act, shame, as an instrument of reformation, has been misdirected toward an inappropriate end. Rachel (reason) gives birth to Jacob’s last two children: Joseph and Benjamin. As noted above, Joseph symbolizes discretion, by which Richard would seem to mean a perfected, fully formed knowledge of self, and as such, Joseph represents the zenith of self-discipline. As the embodiment of discretion, Joseph represents, moreover, a kind of bridge between reason and affect, even though this fact is not reflected in his genealogy. For as discretion, Joseph’s primary function in Richard’s schema is to oversee and properly order the relationship between reason and the virtues, to prevent the virtues from turning excessive and thus becoming vices. But before Rachel can give birth to Benjamin, Richard abruptly turns the direction of his exegesis toward what will be shown to be an important site of transition in the contemplative quest: the transfiguration of Christ (Matthew 17. 1–9, Mark 9. 2–8, Luke 9. 28–36). Prima face, this leap from Genesis to the transfiguration of Christ may seem unwarranted. After all, much of Richard’s argument thus far has relied very heavily on chronologies, and in jumping from Genesis to the Gospels, Richard has left out a considerable portion of salvation history. And yet the transfiguration of Christ makes perfect sense when one considers the end point toward which Richard’s paradigm for contemplation has been questing — namely, a divina revelatio (divine showing) of Christ glorified. The authenticity of this revelatio, Richard claims, will be confirmed only if the glorified Christ is seen in the presence of Moses and Elijah.24 In order to attain this vision of the glorified Christ, however, one must ascend the mountain just like Peter, James, and John. This mountain signifies the final stages of the contemplative quest that Richard elaborates in even greater detail in Benjamin major.25 According to Richard, the ascent of the mountain pertains to knowledge of self, whereas the things that happen upon the summit of the mountain pertain to knowledge of God. The order of this movement from knowledge of self to knowledge of God finds expression in Genesis in the order in which Rachel’s two sons are born. Joseph, who represents knowledge of self, must logically be born before Benjamin because, writes Richard, it is impossible for the ‘mens quae se ad sui considerationem non sublevat, quando ad ea quae supra ipsam sunt penna contemplationis evolat’ (mind that does not raise itself up to consideration of itself [to] fly up on the wings of contemplation to those things that are above it), namely, God.26

24 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 81, trans. by Zinn, pp. 138–39; Richard of SaintVictor, Beniamin minor, ch. 81, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 324, 14–36 25 See the article by Ineke van ’t Spijker in this volume, ‘After the Manner of a Contemplative, According to the Nature of Contemplation: Richard of Saint-Victor’s De contemplatione’. 26 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 83, trans. by Zinn, pp. 41–42; Richard of SaintVictor, Beniamin minor, ch. 83, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 332, 15–17.

r e s to r at i o n t h ro u gh e xpe ri e nt i al e xege si s

Richard then concludes his Benjamin minor by discussing the two types of contemplation experienced at the height of the mystical ascent, which correspond to the birth of Benjamin in the Genesis narrative: first, contemplation that is above reason but not contrary to reason, and second, contemplation that is both above reason and beyond reason. Richard locates the first type of contemplation in the death of Rachel — an especially apt association since, according to Richard, Rachel signifies reason. The second and highest form of contemplation — that which is both above and beyond reason — finds its fitting representation in the ecstasy of Benjamin as described in Psalm 67. And with this association, Richard brings the reader back, full circle, to the same verse with which he began Benjamin minor: ‘Benjamin a young man in ecstasy of mind’.27

Prior Scholarship Speaking generally of the treatment of Richard’s oeuvre in contemporary scholarship, Grover Zinn perceived that, ‘Richard has not always received his due’.28 There are several factors that have contributed to this general inattention to the intrinsic importance of this ‘second Hugh’, as Henri de Lubac calls him, in the history of medieval exegesis and mysticism.29 First and foremost among these is Hugh of Saint-Victor, whose towering figure tends to eclipse the contributions of other Victorines. Even though ‘Hugh was the fountainhead of Victorine mysticism’, remarks Bernard McGinn, Richard of Saint-Victor ‘must be counted as the most significant of the Victorine mystics, both for the profundity of his thought and his subsequent influence on the later Western tradition’.30 With respect to this essay’s focus, Richard’s Benjamin minor has received very little attention from contemporary scholarship.31 In this section, I will discuss the contributions of prior scholars to our understanding of Richard, but especially as they relate to Benjamin minor. Since the present essay may be the first to confine itself entirely to Richard’s Benjamin minor, my overview and analysis of the prior scholarship will largely be directed at identifying particular debates in Richardian scholarship, what these debates reveal about prior approaches to Richard’s thought, and the stakes involved.

27 Psalm 67. 28. 28 Zinn, ‘Introduction’, p. 1. 29 For the French original, see Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale: Les quatre sens de l’Écriture, 4 vols (Paris: Aubier, 1959–1964). Notes will refer to the English translations: Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, trans. by E. M. Macierowski, 3 vols (Grand RapidsEerdmans, 1998–2009), iii, 288. 30 McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism, ii, 398. 31 Two of the most extensive published treatments on Richard are Zinn’s introduction in the Twelve Patriarchs in Classics of Western Spirituality series (pp. 1–49) and Mary Melone, ‘Introduction’, in Richard of Saint-Victor: La Preparazione dell’Anima alla Contemplazione: Beniamino Minore (Milan: Paoline, 2012), pp. 9–104.

203

2 04

dav id a l l i s o n o r s b o n

This account of modern Richardian scholarship begins with Beryl Smalley’s The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages.32 Originally published in 1941 and now in its third edition, Smalley’s The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages was instrumental in reviving scholarly interest in the literal sense of scripture and in challenging the popular characterizations of medieval exegesis as obsessed with scripture’s spiritual sense and the decadence of allegory. Allotting just over five pages to Richard’s entire corpus, Smalley attempts to provide a holistic, panoramic view of Richard’s contributions to medieval exegesis. That panorama immediately follows upon a much more lengthy discussion of Hugh of Saint-Victor, whom Smalley portrays as the champion par excellence of the literal sense of scripture and as one of the figureheads of the renaissance in scriptural philology that took place in the twelfth century.33 There is much truth in this portrayal of Hugh. For as his Didascalicon reveals, the literal sense of scripture was for Hugh the basis of the Christian faith and the index by which the viability and orthodoxy of all spiritual-allegorical interpretations of scripture were to be measured.34 At the same time, Smalley’s interest in Hugh as a champion of and expert in scripture’s literal sense tends to not only oversimplify the richness and complexity of Hugh’s method of scriptural exegesis; it also skews the developing picture of Victorine exegesis and spirituality more generally. When Smalley turns to Richard, this prioritization of literal, philologically oriented exegesis leads her to characterize Richard’s oeuvre as primarily ‘spiritual’ rather than scholarly.35 Smalley expresses this sentiment lucidly at the end of her short discussion of Richard: But we miss something of Hugh in Richard’s exegesis. The enterprise has gone. He is not deeply interested in scholarship. He does not refer to the Hebrew text. If his literal works were the only fruits of Hugh’s teaching, the Victorine movement would hardly be worth investigating. It would amount to an attempt at clear sentence construction, accurate chronology and accurate description of certain objects or appearances of sacred history. It would force one to the depressing conclusion that, if this was what they meant by literal exegesis, commentators might well have kept to their allegories and tropes.36 It was, in part, this sort of denigration of the mystical senses of scripture throughout Smalley’s investigation that led Henri de Lubac to write a four-volume response, Exégèse médiévale, published between 1959 and 1964.37 As his preface makes clear, de Lubac views his Exégèse médiévale not so much as a study of the history of scriptural exegesis per se as a contribution to the history of theology.38 More precisely, the

32 Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983). 33 Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, pp. 83–111. 34 Hugh of St Victor, The Didascalicon of Hugh of Saint Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, vi. 3, trans. by Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991). 35 Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, p. 106. 36 Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, p. 111. 37 de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis. 38 de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, i, xiii.

r e s to r at i o n t h ro u gh e xpe ri e nt i al e xege si s

common and central thread that links these four volumes together is the case that de Lubac gradually — but unrelentingly — builds against those scholars who argued that the spiritual, allegorical exegesis of scripture was a direct echo of classical, pagan methods of literary interpretation.39 In marked contrast, de Lubac sets out to show that the spiritual, allegorical exegesis of scripture — when viewed on its own terms and in context — reflects a distinctly Christian approach not only to the Old Testament, but also to the interconnectedness of Christian salvation history at large.40 With regard to his discussion of Richard, de Lubac’s agenda can be most accurately described as an impassioned and tightly argued rebuttal to Smalley’s evaluation of Richard. In response to Smalley, de Lubac avers that even in his most mystical interpretations of scripture Richard never loses sight of the literal-historical sense: for Richard, as for Hugh, the literal-historical sense is completely indispensable.41 Without it, the validity and coherency of the Christian faith must come into question. Although at times it may seem that Richard’s fancy for the mystical senses of scripture completely spirits away the literal-historical sense of scripture, this view does not, de Lubac opines, take into account the ‘occasional’ nature of Richard’s exegesis.42 As de Lubac correctly observes, Richard’s interest in exegesis is indissolubly married to the contemplative process — the centre, as it were, around which so much of Richard’s thought orbits.43 As such, the objects, persons, and events described in scripture most often serve as occasions for Richard to ‘furnish a symbolic framework for an ample exposition of the contemplative life’.44 Even though such an approach to the study of scripture does not manifest the kind of philological, scientific scrutiny that Smalley associates with the re-invigorated forms of literal interpretation to be found in the twelfth century and beyond, Richard’s mystical interests and ‘occasional’ approach to the exegesis of scripture cannot be taken as evidence to support the hypothesis that Richard had no regard for the literal sense of God’s word. Despite de Lubac’s reply, it does seem to me that there is at least a scintilla of truth to Smalley’s claim that Richard’s exegesis manifests a deeper preoccupation with and interest in the mystical sense over and above the literal-historical sense. But again, this does not mean that Richard devalues the literal-historical sense of scripture or considers it of less importance than the mystical senses; after all, without the historical reality of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection — to give only one example — the Christian faith would begin to lose coherency and its promises of salvation and life ever-lasting would ring hollow. But with respect to the object of the present essay, in his treatment of Richard, de Lubac mentions Benjamin minor only in passing. The next fifteen years following the publication of the fourth and final volume of de Lubac’s Exégèse médiévale in 1964 saw little in the way of Victorine scholarship. Then, in 1979, Hugh Feiss submitted his dissertation, ‘Learning and the Ascent to 39 40 41 42 43 44

de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, i, xiii–xxiii. de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, i, xiii–xxii, i, 24–40. de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 269–71, 288–303. de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 320–21, 269–71, 288–303. de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 320–21. de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, iii, 320.

205

206

dav id a l l i s o n o r s b o n

God in Richard of Saint-Victor’ — which, even though it remains unpublished, is widely cited in Richardian scholarship.45 Dedicated to investigating ‘Richard’s ideas and practice regarding the methods, aims and practice of inquiry into Christian truth’,46 Feiss’ study — although it does not have much to say about Benjamin minor — points out several salient features of Richard’s thought in general that are worth rehearsing here, in the context of other scholars’ contributions. In addition to asserting, as did de Lubac, Richard’s unrelenting concern for and appreciation of scripture’s literal-historical sense,47 Feiss further claims that, contrary to the impression of aery, metaphysical abstraction that one might take away from a superficial reading of Richard’s works, ‘Richard is not an abstract, detached thinker, but one whose thought is intrinsically connected with the aims of his whole life’.48 As a canon regular and — from 1162 to 1173 — as prior of the Abbey of Saint Victor, Richard had, at the very least, a vested interest in the spiritual, intellectual, and moral edification of the individuals that made up the community of the Abbey. It is within the context of this spiritually and educationally oriented community, Feiss argues, that Richard’s works must be understood. Which is to say, if one were to approach each of Richard’s works with the expectation that it will manifest this Victorine’s genius as a mystic, commentator, allegorist, or as one who is solely concerned with the pursuit of scriptural truth, then one risks missing Richard’s point and purpose entirely. Richard’s project proceeds toward its ultimate goal, writes Feiss, in a highly ‘dramatic’ manner wherein the ‘axial lines of Christian truth are the drama of human history, as it unfolds collectively and in the life of each individual’.49 As such, Feiss elegantly remarks, Richard had only one final goal, the salvation of himself and all whom he served. This goal was not simply a distant backdrop: it was the immediate context for his thought and ministry. All his inquiry and teaching aimed at attaining God, in contemplation and love here below, in vision and glory after death.50 Looking back from the present moment, the past twenty-five years have seen a marked increase in the amount of attention paid by the academy to the Victorines. This increased interest in the Victorines was facilitated, on the one hand, by the publication of critical editions of a sizeable number of Victorine texts that were previously available only in the Patrologia Latina. In the case of Richard’s Benjamin minor, contemporary scholarship is deeply indebted to the critical edition produced by Jean Châtillon.51 Before its posthumous publication in the Sources chrétiennes series

45 Hugh Feiss, ‘Learning and the Ascent to God in Richard of Saint-Victor’ (PhD dissertation, Pontifical Atheneum of Saint Anselm, 1979). 46 Feiss, ‘Learning and the Ascent to God in Richard of Saint-Victor’, p. 3. 47 Feiss, ‘Learning and the Ascent to God in Richard of Saint-Victor’, pp. 93–94. 48 Feiss, ‘Learning and the Ascent to God in Richard of Saint-Victor’, p. 8. 49 Feiss, ‘Learning and the Ascent to God in Richard of Saint-Victor’, p. 137 (Emphasis mine). 50 Feiss, ‘Learning and the Ascent to God in Richard of Saint-Victor’, p. 138. 51 Cf. Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor (PL 196.1–64); Richard of Saint-Victor, Les douze patriarches ou Benjamin Minor, ed. and trans. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux.

r e s to r at i o n t h ro u gh e xpe ri e nt i al e xege si s

in 1997, Châtillon’s critical edition served as the primary text for what remains the most accessible English translation of Benjamin minor, translated by Grover Zinn for the Classics of Western Spirituality series.52 This augmented interest in the Victorines was then further kindled by the establishment of two series dedicated exclusively to Victorine thought — namely, Bibliotheca Victorina in the early 1990s and Victorine Texts in Translation in 2010 — both published by Brepols.53 Several of these studies and translations focus on Richard. Among these are Nico den Bok’s Communicating the Most High: A Systematic Study of Person and Trinity in the Theology of Richard of Saint-Victor (1996), Pierluigi Cacciapuoti’s Deus existentia amoris: Teologia della carità e teologia della Trinità negli scritti di Riccardo di San Vittore (1998), and Dale M. Coulter’s Per Visibilia Ad Invisibilia: Theological Method in Richard of St Victor (2006).54 Although each of these has made an important contribution to our understanding of Richard, none of them discusses Benjamin minor in any detail. To date, Michael Blastic’s 1991 dissertation remains the most extensive — but, unfortunately, unpublished — examination of Richard’s Benjamin minor.55 In the main, Blastic’s study aims to show that, in order to more correctly understand Richard’s thought and oeuvre, one must place them in their proper and original context: the concrete community of the Abbey of Saint Victor, where Richard served as prior and pedagogue. In the course of articulating his argument, Blastic dedicates a considerable amount of space to an analysis of Benjamin minor, along with its companion piece, Benjamin major.56 Following Smalley, Blastic argues that for Richard one of the most useful and interesting aspects of scripture is the way in which it appeals to the twofold nature of the human being — which is comprised of a soul dwelling within a body — in that it describes incorporeal things by means of the corporeal, thereby raising up the soul to the contemplation of incorporeal, spiritual realities by appealing to the human being’s power of sense perception.57 This dynamic serves as the base or scaffolding around which Richard constructs his Benjamin minor. According to Blastic, Benjamin minor locates the sensorial appeal of this episode from scripture in the biblical figures in question, i.e., Jacob and his family. Through ‘imitation and immersion into the biblical examples’, writes Blastic, the reader effects the ‘restoration of contemplative vision’.58

52 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs; The Mystical Ark; Book Three of The Trinity, trans. by Zinn.. 53 A list of the studies published thus far in the Bibliotheca Victorina series, and of translations in the Victorine Texts in Translation series, can be found in the bibliography in this volume. 54 Nico den Bok, Communicating the Most High: A Systematic Study of Person and Trinity in the Theology of Richard of Saint-Victor, BV, 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), Pierluigi Cacciapuoti, ‘Deus existentia amoris’. Teologia della carità e teologia della Trinità negli scritti di Riccardo di San Vittore, BV, 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), and Coulter, Per Visibilia Ad Invisibilia. 55 Michael William Blastic, ‘Condilectio: Personal Mysticism and Speculative Theology in the Works of Richard of Saint Victor’ (PhD dissertation, Saint Louis University, 1991). 56 Blastic, ‘Condilectio’, pp. 72–125. 57 Blastic, ‘Condilectio’, pp. 82–83. See Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, p. 107. 58 Blastic, ‘Condilectio’, p. 84.

207

208

dav id a l l i s o n o r s b o n

Although Richard interprets these biblical figures as symbolizing abstract components of the mystic’s quest, the imitation of them requires concrete examples, and in this regard, Blastic opines, Benjamin minor is firmly rooted in the literal-historical sense of scripture. But as Blastic notes further, the ‘person addressed in this process’ of personal transformation is not an abstracted or distant reader but Richard tailored his work to his peer canons at Saint-Victor. Even though it aims to assist ‘personal transformation’, Benjamin minor’s ultimate goal focuses on the spiritual and moral development of a community.59 Blastic articulates this observation very well: Here it is important to underline the full dynamic Richard is developing. The human person is transformed by imitation and immersion into the biblical examples. But, the person addressed in this process is not an isolated individual — it is the canon regular, member of the community of Saint Victor. The transformation takes place within the community context, and in this context the members of the community become further exemplifications of the biblical narratives. Thus, while addressing the issue of personal transformation through contemplation of scripture, Richard is also addressing the right ordering of community life — the backbone of the dynamic developed in The Twelve Patriarchs is focused on the right ordering of virtues in their mutual reciprocity. The patriarchs, Jacob’s children, thus provide the community context of spiritual development.60 Richard’s exegetical method then presumed a reader seeking transformation within a common life of reading scripture. On this account, Blastic saw Richard’s exegesis as a kind of invitation: Richard invites the reader to identify with the models presented because scripture embodies a pattern of holiness on both the personal and communal levels, and it is by immersing oneself completely in the scriptural patterns that one is led toward and into the experience of restoration.61 Among Blastic’s many insights, one of the most valuable is his emphasis on the ‘central role of experience’ in Richard’s brand of mysticism and exegesis — a point with which I emphatically agree and to which I will return in the next section.62 For now, let it suffice for me to note that Blastic reflects the especially welcomed and insightful trend in Victorine scholarship over the past three decades toward emphasizing the affective, experiential dimension of Victorine spirituality and exegesis. Far and away the most extensive published treatment of Benjamin minor is Grover Zinn’s article, ‘Personification Allegory and Visions of Light in Richard of St Victor’s Teaching on Contemplation’,63 with which I will conclude this survey of Benjamin minor’s secondary literature. His article focuses on both Benjamin minor and Benjamin 59 60 61 62 63

Blastic, ‘Condilectio’, p. 84. Blastic, ‘Condilectio’, p. 84. Blastic, ‘Condilectio’, p. 85. Blastic, ‘Condilectio’, p. 86. Grover Zinn, ‘Personification Allegory and Visions of Light in Richard of St Victor’s Teaching on Contemplation’, University of Toronto Quarterly, 46 (1977), 190–214.

r e s to r at i o n t h ro u gh e xpe ri e nt i al e xege si s

major and in this regard would seem to consider them to form a coherent and unified project. Zinn offers an excellent overview of the narrative of Benjamin minor and of the significance of the ideas expressed in this particular text for Richard’s thought more generally. As the title of his article suggests, Zinn is primarily interested in visions of light as described in Benjamin minor and major. On this point, Zinn observes that — compared to other mystics of the same period who, as a rule, insist that visions are peripheral to the experience of contemplation — Richard is most unusual, if not unique, in that he places visions of light at the centre of the experience of contemplation, regarding them as markers of the mystic’s attainment of full contemplation rather than as distraction.64 In addition, Zinn notes — correctly, in my opinion — that in nearly all respects, Benjamin minor exemplifies what Zinn sees as one of the most essential features of Victorine exegesis: namely, an emphasis on and a preoccupation with the things (res) described in scripture, and a corresponding de-emphasis on the words (verba) of scripture.65 Similar to Blastic, Zinn also helps to contextualize the aims of Benjamin minor vis-à-vis Richard’s role as prior in the Abbey of Saint-Victor: Benjamin minor has an immediate, practical, and somewhat didactic aim, being directed first of all to the needs of young men beginning life as canons regular at the Abbey of St Victor and seeking guidance in shaping their moral and spiritual lives. Richard also has older, more experienced members of the community in mind, both those who might wish further spiritual guidance and those who, unfortunately, need to be called back from excessive zeal for mortification of the flesh, slothfulness in practice, pride in superior spirituality, or any number of other faults.66 In this regard, Benjamin minor appears serve as a propaedeutic to the practical aspects of the mystical quest that must be mastered before one can embark upon the final stages of the mystical trek that leads up to the experience of full contemplation. But Zinn’s most insightful observation appears at the very end of his article, where, in discussing those aspects that Smalley disparages as ‘spiritual’ and ‘unscholarly’,67 Zinn incisively remarks that Richard’s numerous distinctions are not meant to reduce reality to mere abstractions. Instead they are meant to furnish a kind of framework which offers the possibility of interpreting experiences which may be extraordinary and even enigmatic. His use of personifications and symbols enables him to capture in images the often elusive aspects of visionary experience and to present an interpretation which gathers up many elements into a whole representation.68

64 Zinn, ‘Personification Allegory and Visions’, p. 200. 65 Zinn, ‘Personification Allegory and Visions’, pp. 192, 195, 201. 66 Zinn, ‘Personification Allegory and Visions’, p. 191. 67 Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, p. 106. 68 Zinn, ‘Personification Allegory and Visions’, p. 208.

209

21 0

dav id a l l i s o n o r s b o n

Richard’s exegetical project to invite his community-based reader to experiential transformation forms the subject of the next section.

Restoration through Experiential Exegesis: The Significance of Benjamin minor in Richard’s Thought As I have already hinted at in this essay, the general neglect that Benjamin minor has experienced in contemporary scholarship may result, in part, from this text’s apparent failure to captivate and enthral. But such a point of view, it seems to me, not only gives Richard insufficient credit, but it also risks portraying Benjamin minor as uninfluential and historically unpopular, when in fact there are over fifty surviving manuscripts containing all or part of Richard’s Benjamin minor — a fact that indicates the extent and degree of Benjamin minor’s popularity for more than a century and a half following its original composition.69 In contrast, I urge that Benjamin minor deserves a far more central position in the field of Richardian studies because it showcases a particular facet of Richard’s thought that remains underexplored in contemporary scholarship: specifically, Richard’s masterful use of various exegetical forms and literary genres to stimulate the minds and enthral the senses of his implied readers, his fellow canons regular, by transforming exegesis into something that is not only studied, but also experienced. This final section will return to Richard’s staged exegesis of Jacob’s wives and children, but now reading these stages not as metaphysical conditions but rather a series of experiential moments to which Richard invited his canons to enter in their progress. So highly does Richard regard experience as a means to knowledge and understanding that, in his On the Instruction of the Inner Human (De eruditione hominis interioris) and elsewhere in his oeuvre, he avers that the experience of truth is far and away the most effective route to perfecting knowledge and internalizing truth.70 For Richard, the benefit of an experience of truth lies in the fact that such an experience not only tends to be transformative for the individual who is perceiving the truth, but is also easily translated to one’s daily way of life or habitus, impacting the manner in which one engages with world and community. To truly experience scripture is therefore coextensive with a truthful interpretation of scripture’s meaning and the translation of that experience and understanding into one’s daily habitus. Blastic captures this idea very well when he writes that, for Richard, ‘the life of virtue concretely lived is the experience of scripture, and in that sense, a true exegesis of its meaning’.71 As such, the experience and internalization of scriptural truth as described above must also 69 Jean Longère, ‘Introduction’, in Richard de Saint-Victor. Les douze patriarches ou Beniamin Minor, ed. and trans. by Jean Châtillon and Monique Duchet-Suchaux (Paris: Cerf, 1997), pp. 7–75, here p. 61. 70 Richard of Saint-Victor, De eruditione hominis interioris, col. 1235 (PL 196.1229–1366); Richard of SaintVictor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 1, ed. by Zinn, pp. 53–54; Richard of Saint-Victor, The Mystical Ark, ch. 3. 14, trans. by Zinn, pp. 241–42. 71 Blastic, ‘Condilectio’, p. 88.

r e s to r at i o n t h ro u gh e xpe ri e nt i al e xege si s

be in some measure coextensive with imitation of biblical archetypes and models (exempla), such as those at the centre of Benjamin minor. Although Christian exegetes had employed numerous other forms and genres of literature, Richard’s corpus — and his Benjamin minor in particular — stand out within this tradition for its consummate marriage of form and content to achieve its final goal — namely, the restoration of the ‘image of God’ (imago Dei)72 in the soul of the reader through the recalibration of the manner in which the reader experiences God’s presence, both personally and collectively. Or, to state the same idea in the language of theatre, one might say that Richard’s Benjamin minor is remarkable in that it attempts to break down the fourth wall of exegesis, pulling the reader into the history of salvation and involving the reader in the action and polyvalent signification of scripture. In the case of Benjamin minor, this total sensory experience begins immediately. As if mimicking the event of reading and the act of interpretation, Richard starts his Benjamin minor with a scriptural quotation, followed by a question: Beniamin adolescentulus in mentis excessu. Audiant adolescentuli sermonem de adolescente, evigilent ad vocem Prophetae: Beniamin adolescentulus in mentis excessu. Quis sit Beniamin iste? ‘Benjamin a young man in ecstasy of mind’.73 Let young men hear a discourse about youth; let them awaken to the voice of the prophet: ‘Benjamin a young man in ecstasy of mind’. Who is this Benjamin?74 In addition to imitating the cognitive processes of reading and interpretation, this verse-question sequence serves, I argue, to envelope the reader, from the very beginning, in the experience of text and of exegesis. Richard continues: multi noverunt, alii per scientiam, alii per experientiam. Qui per doctrinam noverunt audiant patienter, qui per experientiam didicerunt audiant libenter. Qui enim eum experientiae magisterio semel nosse potuit, fidenter loquor, sermo de eo, quamvis prolixus, illum satiare non poterit. Many know, some by knowledge, others by experience. Let those who know by teaching listen patiently; let those who have been taught by experience listen gladly. For a discourse concerning him — no matter how lengthy — can never satisfy anyone who has been able to know him even once by means of the teaching of experience (and I speak confidently).75 As noted earlier, this passage insists, albeit implicitly, on an epistemological distinction between knowledge derived through study or formal education and the more perfect 72 See Genesis 1. 26–7. 73 Psalm 67. 28. 74 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 1, trans. by Zinn, p. 53; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 1, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 90, 1–4. 75 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 1, trans. by Zinn, p. 53; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 1, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 90, 1–4.

211

212

dav id a l l i s o n o r s b o n

form of knowledge that eventuates from direct experience. So crucial, in fact, is the direct, ecstatic experience of truth to Richard’s thought and his purpose in Benjamin minor that, as the above pericope implies, no amount of careful study of scripture can ever rise to the level of, or substitute for, the experience of the truth of scripture. What follows of Benjamin minor is dedicated entirely to cultivating the truthful experience of scripture in the reader. At this point, however, it should be noted that although the blessings of a greater understanding of scripture and the bliss of ecstatic contemplation of God result from this mystical, enthralling experience of God’s word, Richard indicates that they are not the final goal, but the consequence of the attainment of that goal, i.e., the restoration of the imago Dei in the soul of the reader. But in what, exactly, does this transformative experience of scriptural truth consist? As I have phrased it thus far, one might expect this Richardian experience of scriptural truth to be entirely passive from the point of view of the reader. But as Richard portrays it, the reader obtains this experience for oneself. It is not given — as is the case in Richard with God’s condescension to the human mind through a divina revelatio (divine showing) — as a passively-received gift of grace. The burden of the first stage of mystical ascent and restoration rests on the shoulders of the reader, at least insofar as it requires the active participation of the reader, who must recalibrate the compass of his soul so as to be more sensitive to and receptive of God’s presence. From Richard’s point of view as prior and pedagogue, it is his vested duty — especially as one who can fidenter loquor (speak confidently) about such matters — to assist his fellow canons regular in this psychical recalibration.76 How, then, does this recalibration take place? Here it seems best to let Richard guide us. As Benjamin minor reveals, the psychical restoration of the reader occurs, for Richard, through the process of experiencing the text of scripture and incorporating it into one’s self. By ‘experiencing’ I do not simply mean reading the text or constructing images with one’s imagination of the events portrayed within the text of scripture. And by ‘incorporating’ I mean more than committing the significance of one’s interpretation to memory. Rather, I intend that what Richard seeks to bring about through his Benjamin minor is a fundamental change in his reader’s habitus by reforming, first, the way in which the reader engages on a regular basis with others and as a member of a community, and secondly, the manner in which the reader actively experiences the physical world and his place in salvation history. In other words, and exemplary of the affective dimension of Victorine spirituality, Benjamin minor seeks to change the lens through which the reader experiences reality such that the reader no longer engages with scripture as an object external to himself, but instead lives in and through scripture. As Benjamin minor reveals, the process of transitioning to this new mode of experiencing the world begins and ends with the rational soul, which is symbolized in scripture by the figure of Jacob. Taking it for granted that the unrestored rational

76 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 1, trans. by Zinn, p. 53; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 1, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 90, 8.

r e s to r at i o n t h ro u gh e xpe ri e nt i al e xege si s

soul initially desires truth and wisdom over and above virtue, Richard keys this assertion to Jacob’s sexual desire and personal preference for Rachel (truth) over Leah (virtue).77 In an elegant and creative manner, Richard pushes this idea one step further in his remarks on the significance of Laban’s deception of Jacob in swapping Leah for Rachel, which Jacob discovers only after laying with Leah.78 Richard describes the experiential character of that deception for his readers thus: Quemadmodum autem Lia supponitur, dum Rachel speratur, facile recognoscunt qui hoc, quam saepe contingat, non tam audiendo quam experiendo didicerunt. Saepe contingit ut animus antiquae conversationis sordibus minus mundatus, et ad coelestem contemplationem nondum idoneus, dum se in cubiculo Rachel collocat, dum totum se in eius amplexus parat, dum illam iam sese tenere putat, subito et inopinate inter amplexus Liae se esse deprehendat. Quid enim Scripturam sacram, nisi Rachel cubiculum dicimus, in qua sapientiam divinam sub decenti allegoriarum velamine latitare non dubitamus? Those who have been taught by experience rather than by hearing easily recognize how often it happens that Leah is substituted when Rachel is hoped for. It often happens that a soul that is by no means cleansed from the sordidness of a previous way of life and is not yet fit for contemplation of heavenly things, while placing itself in the bedchamber of Rachel and preparing itself for her embraces, while supposing itself to possess her already, suddenly and unexpectedly discovers itself to be in the embrace of Leah. For what do we call sacred Scripture except the bedchamber of Rachel, in which we do not doubt that divine wisdom is hidden beneath the veil of attractive allegories?79 But Richard saw this deception to be productive in that it drives one to self-knowledge and so back to experiential exegesis. He continues: Sed quamdiu adhuc ad sublimia penetranda minime sufficimus, diu cupitam, diligenter quaesitam Rachel nondum invenimus. Incipimus ergo gemere, suspirare, nostram caecitatem non solum plangere, sed et erubescere. Dolentibus ergo nobis et quaerentibus unde hanc caecitatem meruimus, occurrunt mala quae fecimus. Quinimmo, ipsa divina lectio, nobis nolentibus et aliud quiddam in ea molientibus, foeditatem nostram frequenter ingerit, et corda nostra in eius consideratione compungit. Quotiens ergo in lectione divina pro contemplatione compunctionem reperimus, in cubiculo Rachel, non ipsam, sed Liam, nos invenisse non dubitemus. But so long as we are incapable of penetrating sublime things, we do not find the long-desired, diligently sought Rachel. Therefore, we begin to groan and sigh and not only to bewail but also to be ashamed of our blindness. So while 77 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, chs. 2–4, trans. by Zinn, pp. 54–57. 78 Genesis 29. 21–25. 79 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 4, trans. by Zinn, p. 56; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 4, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 98, 1–11.

213

21 4

dav id a l l i s o n o r s b o n

we grieve and seek the source of this blindness, we become mindful of the evils we have done. On the contrary, this divine reading frequently makes us aware of our foulness and pricks our hearts with compunction, when we consider it while we are unwilling and even seeking something else in it. Therefore, as often as we find compunction rather than contemplation in divine reading, without doubt we have found not Rachel but Leah in the bedchamber of Rachel.80 In these lines, one witnesses the beginning of the practical, affective stages of the unrestored soul’s progress toward ecstatic contemplation, which starts, Richard insists, with the recognition of one’s sinfulness. Paralleling the birth sequence of Jacob’s children with Leah, the soul gradually brings itself into accord with God’s will through the redirection of desire and affect toward their proper end. In this initial, practical stage of the mystical quest, writes Richard, the children ‘nichil aliud est Iacob huiusmodi liberos ex Lia genuisse, quam animum affectionis suae motus ordinando dignam virtutum sobolem de seipso procreasse’ (born to Jacob and Leah are nothing other than the soul’s having begotten from itself worthy children of the virtues by setting in order the impulses of its affections).81 As noted in the overview of Benjamin minor, the initial, restorative stage of the mystical quest begins with fear of God, symbolized by Ruben, and culminates in love of God, represented by Judah. Compared to the early Middle Age’s more austere emphasis on human sinfulness and fear of God, this prioritization of love of God as one of the cornerstones of the mystical quest, as described by Richard, exemplifies the new trend in the twelfth century toward a desire for friendship with God that Richard Southern, in his landmark study, Medieval Humanism, identified as especially characteristic of monastic humanism.82 Once the reader has completed this initial stage, it remains for the soul to develop control of, and moderation in, its use of the faculties of imagination and sensation so that these powers can more effectively cultivate a truthful experience of scripture. For if they were to lack discipline or some guiding principle, these two faculties would be more liable to generate untrue or perverse experiences of scripture in the case of imagination, or lead one into an unproductive abyss of fear and despair over the consequences of one’s sins. As we saw in the first section, the figures of Dan and Naphtali — Jacob’s two sons with Rachel’s handmaid, Bala, who signifies imagination — manifest the two different, but equally necessary ways in which the reader disciplines his imagination in general, but particularly as this faculty is used to understand and experience scripture.

80 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 4, trans. by Zinn, pp. 56–57; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 4, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 100, 13–24. 81 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 60, trans. by Zinn, p. 117; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 60, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 264, 14–16. 82 Richard Southern, ‘Medieval Humanism’, in Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970), pp. 29–60, at pp. 33–37. Cf. Richard Southern, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, 2 vols (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), i, 17–35.

r e s to r at i o n t h ro u gh e xpe ri e nt i al e xege si s

Insofar as Dan, Bala’s first-born, symbolizes a ‘secundum praesentium rerum imaginationem veram repraesentat rerum futurarum imaginationem fictam’ (made-up imagination of future things according to an actual imagination of present things),83 Richard appears to understand Dan to signify the literal approach to scripture denoted by the term translatio, according to which events, persons, and things in scripture are understood to be perfectly literal.84 But according to Richard, the literal, one-to-one correspondence denoted by translatio only pertains to the ‘future evils’ experienced by the damned.85 For when considering scripture’s description of the joys of heaven and the attributes of a divinity that perfectly transcends physical reality, one must, in order to have a truthful experience of scripture, appeal to an interpretive approach that preserves the fact of their transcendence and acknowledges the failure of human language to describe the sublimity of God as it is in actuality. To meet this end, writes Richard, the reader must employ comparatio — symbolized by Naphtali, Bala’s second-born — because comparatio preserves the integrity of the ontological chasm that separates what is visiblis (visible) described in scripture from what is invisibilis (invisible) as they actually are.86 Although ostensibly geared toward the interpretation of scripture, translatio and comparatio equally pertain to the experience of scripture that Richard seeks to cultivate in that both approaches bring order and clarity not only to one’s understanding of God’s word, but also to the manner or lens through which the reader experiences reality in general. As with imagination, the affective faculty of sensation also requires recalibration if the reader is to achieve a totally truthful scriptural experience of reality in his daily life. As Richard implies, this need for moderation in disciplining the senses is in part a response to those who neglect or abuse their bodies to excess in the name of God, as well as those who excessively despair of their sins or who would perversely use fear of God as an instrument by which to manipulate others.87 Such excesses, for Richard, are completely incompatible with the message of the Gospel. To ensure that such excesses are checked at the appropriate moment, the reader needs to cultivate both abstinence and patience, Richard claims, which will better direct the senses in the mystical quest and rein them in when they begin to wander unchaperoned. Symbolized by Gad and Asher, Jacob’s two children with Leah’s handmaid, Zelpha, abstinence and patience, when properly cultivated and applied, eventuate in a balance between, on the one hand, an appropriate degree of 83 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 19, trans. by Zinn, p. 71; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 19, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 140, 8–9. 84 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 19, trans. by Zinn, p. 71. 85 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 18, trans. by Zinn, pp. 69–71. 86 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, chs. 18–19, 22, trans. by Zinn, pp. 69–71, 74–75; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, chs. 18–19, 22, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, pp. 136–40, 146–50. 87 Although impossible to prove, it may very well be that Richard’s fears with regard to the abuse of sensation and affect reflect the consummate failure of Ernisius’ tenure as abbot of Saint Victor. For excellent overviews of the history and culture of the Abbey of Saint Victor in the twelfth century with special reference to Richard, see Blastic, ‘Condilectio’, pp. 11–33; Feiss, ‘Learning and the Ascent to God in Richard of Saint-Victor’, pp. 9–74.

215

21 6

dav id a l l i s o n o r s b o n

detachment from the physical world and, on the other hand, participation in and enjoyment of the physical world. With the birth of Leah’s last three children — Issachar, Zabulon, Dina — the soul’s progress toward practical virtue approaches its conclusion. Representative of the joy of interior sweetness, Issachar’s birth marks the moment in which the rational soul recognizes itself as both resident in and alien to this world. Although it is tempting to interpret the notion of a resident alien as indicating a relatively high degree of detachment, one must be careful not to let the idea of the soul as a resident alien obscure the salient fact, particularly from Richard’s point of view as prior and pedagogue, of the absolute necessity of the soul’s embeddedness in and engagement with community as requisite to psychical perfection. Be that as it may, the reader’s achievement of an appropriate, effective balance between detachment and involvement better positions the soul to reflect and comment upon its own moral integrity and that of its community. This position of critical reflection manifests itself in the emergence of the quality Richard calls odium malitiae (hatred of sinfulness) and ordinata ira (ordered anger),88 under the persona of Zabulon, as we saw earlier. The hatred of vices, which Richard called a ‘dwelling place of fortitude’, is a plastic concept and so it can take on new and different forms in order to adapt to new contexts. It would seem especially applicable to monastic communities such as the Abbey of Saint Victor in that the hatred of vice must take into account the losses incurred and the profit to be gained by, for example, challenging an excessively harsh, even perverse, monastic authority.89 Shame of sin emerges, next, as the apparent capstone of the practical, affective virtues and the natural result of an appropriately ordered hatred of sin. Considered in terms of its value within the context of the monastic community, Richard saw shame as moderating the fury of the hatred of vice so that it does not become excessive and so unproductive and harmful. At the same time, the shame that moderates must itself also be moderated and properly directed; only then can shame be considered a virtue for Richard. At this point, the reader’s involvement in the scriptural account of Jacob’s children has almost reached its conclusion. And the result of the reader’s experiential involvement in Jacob’s saga up to this point, Richard hopes, has yielded a properly ordered and directed affect in the reader’s soul. With the practical stage of the mystical quest nearly completed, Richard’s reader begins to transition to the more supernal levels of mystical ascent, which are the primary subject of Richard’s Benjamin major. But the reader’s exegetical experience of the text is not yet finished, for two final qualities remain, discretion and contemplation (under the figures of Rachel’s Joseph and Benjamin respectively). Discretion for Richard is the pinnacle of self-discipline and self-knowledge. By aligning with the quality of discretion, one bridges the gap between affect and reason. Joseph’s embodiment of discretion manifests itself in the text of scripture through Joseph’s

88 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 60, trans. by Zinn, p. 117; Richard of Saint-Victor, Beniamin minor, ch. 60, ed. by Châtillon and Duchet-Suchaux, p. 264, 5. 89 See note 87.

r e s to r at i o n t h ro u gh e xpe ri e nt i al e xege si s

aptitude for dream interpretation. In translating Joseph’s dream-interpretation to Richard’s readers, discretion assists the soul in self-reflexively adjudicating whether a virtue, through excess, has become a vice and whether that virtue is in fact properly ordered and directed.90 At this point in Benjamin minor, right before reaching contemplation, the reader experiences a jarring shift in the narrative flow of the text, a raptus as it were, wherein the reader’s concentration, according to Richard, is borne aloft and transported across a considerable portion of salvation history, finally alighting at the base of the mountain that figures in Christ’s transfiguration.91 This mountain and the trek up it provide a foretaste of the upper levels of mystical ascent that will be discussed at far greater length in Richard’s Benjamin major. At the top of this mountain, the reader witnesses a divina revelatio — i.e., a ‘divine showing’ — and for the very first time up to this point in the stages of mystical ascent, the soul assumes a passive role. For since God’s grace is freely given, it is not given on the basis of merit. Which is to say, even though the practical stages of ascent are indispensable to obtaining a divina revelatio, the attainment of those stages does not in itself guarantee that the mystic will behold an epoptic manifestation of God at the top of the mountain. Moreover, assuming the soul witnesses a divina revelatio, Richard firmly insists that the authenticity of this divine showing must also be confirmed. For Richard, the literal sense of scripture provides the only authoritative litmus test for determining the authenticity of a divine showing: by analogy to the original transfiguration, the soul of Richard’s reader, the Victorine insists,92 must behold the figures of Moses and Elijah in the presence of the glorified Christ before the authenticity of the divina revelatio can be confirmed definitively. Assuming these conditions are met, the experience of beholding a divine showing of God, which results in an unparalleled sensation of contemplative bliss (signified, as we saw, in Rachel’s son, Benjamin, the very last of Jacob’s children). This beholding, however, results in something of an epistemological break from the preceding stages of ascent that have focused on the practical, affective, and rational components of the mystical quest. Discussed at much greater length in his Benjamin major, the ecstatic soul’s perception of the divine in this, the highest stage, oscillates between a form of contemplation that is above but not contrary to reason, and another that is both above and contrary to reason. According to Richard, the narrative of Jacob’s saga represents the first type of contemplation through the death of Rachel, who embodies reason, following the birth of Benjamin. The implicit thesis behind this correspondence indicates that in order for the soul to reach the two highest echelons of contemplation, both of which are above reason, the soul must in a sense leave reason behind and this fact finds rather apt expression in Rachel’s death as a result of complications from giving birth to Benjamin.

90 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, chs. 62–71, trans. by Zinn, esp. pp. 67–69. 91 Matthew 17. 1–9; Mark 9. 2–8; Luke 9. 28–36. 92 Richard of Saint-Victor, The Twelve Patriarchs, ch. 81, trans. by Zinn, pp. 138–39.

217

21 8

dav id a l l i s o n o r s b o n

The manner in which Richard concludes his Benjamin minor provides one last confirmation of the thesis advanced by the present essay, and given its function at the terminus of Benjamin minor, it seems most appropriate to conclude the present essay with a reflection upon the significance of the manner in which Richard ends his work. As noted earlier, the second and highest stage of contemplation — that which is both above and beyond reason — does not find its expression in the saga of Jacob and his family as described in Genesis. Instead, scripture hints at it in the very same verse from Psalm 67 with which Richard began his Benjamin minor — ‘Benjamin a young man in ecstasy of mind’.93 This return to the origin point of Benjamin minor is not a coincidence. In fact, not only does this conclusion bring the reader’s experience full circle. What is more, it also reinforces the claim that one of the most remarkable and distinctive aspects of Richard’s exegesis is his consistent attempt to transform exegetical treatises from something that is studied at arm’s length into a kind of literary event in which the reader gains a better understanding of self and scripture through the affectively and cognitively restorative process of experiencing the meaning of scripture — a new mode of experience that, Richard hopes, the attentive reader will carry with him when he turns his eyes away from the text and out toward the world and community in which the reader lives and of which he is a part.

93 Psalm 67. 28.

Nico den Bok

From Triad to Trinity Richard of St Victor and the Renaissance of Trinitarian Theology in the Twelfth and Twentieth Century1

Many studies of the Trinitarian theology of Richard of St Victor only refer to his On the Trinity (De Trinitate) and often only to Book iii of this work. Book iii is certainly the most original part of Richard’s De Trinitate, but for that reason also the most vulnerable part; and De Trinitate certainly is his most important work on Trinitarian theology, but not the only one. To appreciate Richard’s contribution to Trinitarian theology it is good to have its wider context in mind. Although Richard, like most medieval theologians, is not in the habit of mentioning names, he does try to solve problems posed by his contemporaries and predecessors. In fact, he appears to address central issues at a crucial moment in the development of Trinitarian reflection, and he does so with new energy and freshness. This, however, can only be discovered if his position in the history of Trinitarian theology is evaluated ‘in his own spirit’, that is, by a systematic-theological assessment capable of showing the problem-solving quality of his proposal, the transparency offered by his solution, and the limitations he did or did not realize. This contribution is an attempt to re-think Richard’s project which he felt was called for in the 1160s, a project that proves to be both conventional and bold. I will access it by tracing a recurrent theme, a systematic move that appears to characterize all his works on the Trinity and to address the core issue of Trinitarian theology. In the ‘Renaissance of the twelfth century’ Trinitarian theology was one of the topics where new ideas were born and old ideas resumed with new conciseness. In particular it was the Augustinian inheritance, condensed and clarified by Anselm, that set the agenda. Can the Trinity, Augustine asked, be understood as the internal constitution of the one and only perfect spirit, God? Augustine concluded: Actually, no; for looking at human beings it is clear that a spirit, with all its mental powers, can exist as



1 I would like to dedicate this article in gratitude to Antoon Vos, who not only during but also after my Ph.D. research showed himself maestro. Nico den Bok  •  ([email protected]) is Professor of Systematic Theology at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, and is a specialist in Augustine and twelfth-, thirteenth-, and twentieth-century theology. He has written a study on Richard’s Trinitarian thought. Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus, ed. by Robert J. Porwoll and David Allison Orsbon, CURSOR 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 219–251 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.122088

220

n ico de n bo k

one person, but the divine spirit, God, must exist in three persons,2 or else the early church’s consensus of their full deity and therefore equality would be compromised. Richard takes position in the space opened up by Augustine’s conclusion. A recent assessment of Richard’s project states that his reservations about a substantialist understanding of personhood, inspired by his desire to steer well away from tritheism, illustrates that he would be uncomfortable with some versions of social trinitarianism. It is, however, fair to say that Richard offers an alternative to the psychological model.3 I think this is a remarkably accurate assessment. I hope to show this by demonstrating, in this contribution, how Richard moves from the psychological model dominated by the most famous triad used for characterizing the triune God, namely, power, wisdom, and goodness, to an understanding of trinity that must be characterized as intrapersonal, provided that the latter term is not understood by a modern meaning of ‘person’. I hope to show that in making this move, Richard proposes an explanation that lives up to the consensus of the early church in its Augustinian clarification.4 First, I turn to the wider context of Richard’s De Trinitate (§ 1). How did he understand the major issue of Trinitarian theology as it was inherited in the early twelfth century from the early church, and how did he address this issue? Next, we will see how Richard’s entire oeuvre shows a Trinitarian character reflecting the consistent attempt to conform to this solution (§ 2). Finally, we turn to the two major moments in the history of how Richard’s Trinitarian conception has been received: the early thirteenth century and the late twentieth century (§ 3). How did posterity succeed or fail to respond to his solution and how can this illuminate us in understanding the Trinity today?

Richard’s De Trinitate in Context For exploring the background of Richard’s Trinitarian theology, I start with the attempt to understand God’s trinity in terms of his eminent spiritual properties power, wisdom, and goodness. At the beginning of the twelfth century this mental triad gained new influence in Trinitarian reflection, but in this tendency, Richard





2 See esp. Augustine, De Trinitate, book xv chapter 23 (La Trinité, deuxième partie (lives VIII-XV): Les images, ed. by P. Agaësse, SJ, and J. Moingt, SJ, Oeuvres de saint Augustin, 16 (Paris: Brouwer, 1955), p. 537. 3 Declan Marmion and Rik van Nieuwenhove, An Introduction to the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 104. In this study, as in the rest of my article, ‘psychological’ should not be taken in the present-day, post-Freudian sense, but in the meaning coined by Michael Schmaus, Die psychologische Trinitätslehre des hl. Augustinus, Münsterische Beiträge zur Theologie, 11 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1927), referring to Augustine’s analysis (De Trinitate viii–xv) of the soul’s three basic mental powers and their dynamics as possible image of the Trinity. Augustine’s best-known characterization of these powers are: memory, intelligence and will (memoria, intelligentia, voluntas). 4 English translations are from the VTT volumes.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

detected a great possible loss. According to him this triad does play an important role in understanding God and certainly is related to his Trinitarian character; but how exactly? Let us see how Richard inherits three legacies and deals with them in an original way: that of Augustine and Anselm, that of Hugh and Abelard, and that of Gilbert and Lombard. The Athanasian Creed, Augustine, and Anselm

The characterization of the Trinity by means of the triad power, wisdom, and goodness comes from Scripture.5 For Richard Scripture is indeed the starting point for theological reflection; in fact, most of his works are exegetical. In the Augustinian-Anselmian programme of fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding) to which Richard is committed — see his passionate, nuanced and original wording of this commitment in the Prologue to his De Trinitate6 — the fides usually is faith in Biblical testimony. However, the fides from which Richard’s quest for understanding in De Trinitate starts is in fact not a Biblical text, but a Creed, namely, the ‘Athanasian Creed’ (Athanasianum or Quicumque).7 This creed does not contain Biblical descriptions, but a Trinitarian theology based on them and developed by the early church, especially its Western part. In Book i of De Trinitate Richard says that he heard this text daily sung in the liturgy of St Victor, but cannot remember hearing or reading why God is as this creed believes him to be.8 De Trinitate is the endeavour to offer these reasons. The Athanasian Creed states that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God; yet there are not three Gods, but only one. The Father is un-generated, the Son generated by the Father, the Spirit proceeds from both. The decisive insight for understanding this particular article of faith came from Augustine. In book v–vii of his De Trinitate he resumed and reinforced the early church’s refutation of Arianism especially by one main argument. If power, wisdom, and goodness (or any other triad of properties, for that matter) would describe the Father, the Son, and the Spirit properly, then the Father would be wise through his Son (without being wise himself) and the Spirit powerful through the Father (without being powerful himself) etc. But that would make the divine persons very unequal. Besides, it would deny a fundamental aspect of the processions, namely, 5 Potentia, sapientia, bonitas (or benignitas or caritas). In the Bible power is ascribed to the Father in Act 1. 7, Luke 22. 29, 23. 46, Romans 6. 4; wisdom is ascribed to the Son in John 1. 1, 1 Corinthians 1. 24, 30; benevolence or love is ascribed to the Holy Spirit in Wisdom 1. 6, Psalms 147. 10, John 3. 5, cf Romans 5. 5. For an extensive study of this triad in early twelfth century theology (esp. Hugh and Abelard), see Dominique Poirel, Livre de nature et débat trinitaire au xiie siècle. Le ‘De tribus diebus’ de Hugues de Saint-Victor, BV, 14 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 267–420. 6 See e.g. Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate. Texte critique avec introduction, notes et tables, ed. by Jean Ribaillier, TPMA, 6 (Paris: Vrin, 1958), Prol, p. 81: ‘satagamus in quantum possumus, ut intelligamus quod credimus’, and next note. 7 The ‘Athanasian Creed’ is the third and last creed officially acknowledged by all Western Christian churches. It was not written by Athanasius but was formulated in fifth- or sixth-century Spain or Southern Gaul. See J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (London: Continuum, 2006). 8 Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, i. 5, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 90.

221

222

n ico de n bo k

that one person gives another person the very substance he has and cannot loose. If the Father is wise through his Son, and therefore not wise himself, how could he have given this wisdom to the Son in the first place? We must believe, however, that this giving in God does not duplicate his substance. It is the only way to guarantee both the equality (and hence the full divinity) of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and the supreme oneness of God. Augustine’s conclusion: the Trinitarian persons only differ from each other in their internal relations; in their substance, they are not only the same, but one and the same. At the beginning of the twelfth century it was Anselm who forged this Augustinian insight into a concise formula. In God everything is supremely one, the persons are only distinct by their relations of origin: the Father is non ab alio (from no one), the Son is ab uno (from one), the Spirit ab utroque (from both).9 It is clear that this qualification explicitly includes the filioque.10 In the eleventh century the break with Eastern orthodoxy became official. Soon Anselm argues in favour of the Western view, appealing to the Augustinian insight. When the divine persons are only distinct from each other in their relations, the Son and the Spirit cannot be distinguished if both come from the Father only.11 The Heritage of Abelard and Hugh

Richard fully accepts the Augustinian-Anselmian insight as the rationale of the Athanasianum in defining the personal properties. This means that he is convinced that understanding the divine persons is terms of relations of origin is better than understanding them in terms of perfect mental properties. Here, ‘faith seeking understanding’ has made some real progress. This programme leaves some room to move beyond the testimonies of Scripture. We are able to ascend, Richard says, we can grow in insight.12 His Victorine training in fact offered various kinds of ‘ladders’ 9 See e.g. Anselm of Canterbury’s De processione Spiritus sancti 16 (S. Anselmi Opera omnia II, ed. by F. F.Schmitt (Stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann, 1968), p. 217): ‘Solus itaque Pater est, qui est de nullo et de quo sunt alii duo; solus econtra Spiritus sanctus est, qui de duobus et de quo nullo; solus Filius, qui de uno et de quo unus’. For a concise review of the development in Trinitarian theology between Anselm and Richard, see Peter Gemeinhardt, ‘Logic, Tradition and Ecumenics: Developments of Latin Trinitarian Theology between c. 1075 and c. 1160’, in Trinitarian Theology in the Medieval West, ed. by Pekka Kärkkäinen Schriften der Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft, 61 (Helsinki: Luther-AgricolaSeura, 2007), pp. 10–68. 10 Augustine also defended it by claiming that the Spirit can best be seen as the bond of love between Father and Son. Richard’s conception of love and Trinity is also an elaboration of this view, implicitly rectifying the version of William of Saint-Thierry and Bernard of Clairvaux by giving this ‘bond’ a more personal character. 11 See Anselm of Canterbury, De processione Spiritus Sancti. For the filioque, see e.g. Michael Böhnke, Assaad Elias Kattan and Bernd Oberdorfer, eds, Die Filioque-Kontroverse. Historische, ökumenische und dogmatische Perspective, 1200 Jahre nach der Aachener Synode, Quaestiones disputatae, 245 (Freiburg: Herder, 2011). 12 See e.g. Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, i. 3, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 88: ‘oportet quidem […] cum omni studio et summa diligentia insistere, ut ad eorum intelligentiam que per fidem tenemus, cotidianis incrementis proficere valeamus. For Richard’s method of coming closer to the Trinity, see

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

that enable some progress.13 It is a specific kind of progress, however. For increasing the understanding of what is believed, individual believers are dependent on the community of believers. As we shall see, Richard will show that sometimes individual minds are too eager to arrive at a better understanding, with the paradoxical result that their new ideas show a regress. Three important theological contributions between Anselm and Richard’s own time determine the way he explains and elaborates the Augustinian-Anselmian consensus about the better understanding of the Trinity. The first came from Abelard. In his new approach, which was certainly part of his attraction, he in fact went back behind the position taken by Anselm in two ways. For on the one hand Abelard returned to the idiom of Scripture and re-enforced the analysis of power, wisdom, and goodness as an explanation of the Trinity.14 On the other hand he resumed an older, more ancient-minded conceptual articulation of the triune God, especially in his relation to creation. From this conception of the all-powerful, all-wise, and all-good God Abelard answered a number of questions about what God can do, know, and want. He concluded, especially from God’s most eminent property, love, that he had to create and had to become man. Perfect love makes both creation and incarnation necessary. The response was fierce. William of St Thierry, supported by his friend Bernard of Clairvaux, managed to get this view officially condemned.15 In the monastery of St Victor, where William of Champeaux had retreated after his public defeat by his pupil Abelard, Hugh turned out to be quite critical, too. Hugh rejected Abelard’s love-determinism in particular. Love certainly is an essential property of God, but that does not make him necessarily love the world or mankind. His acts with respect to creation are free.16 Remarkably like Abelard, however, Hugh had a preference for the Scriptural triad of power, wisdom, and goodness. Moreover, like Abelard, Hugh is convinced of the Augustinian rule that with respect to creation God acts as one, not as three (opera divina ad extra indivisa sunt). This is because of his simplicity, the oneness my Communicating the Most High: A Systematic Study of Person and Trinity in the Theology of Richard of St.Victor (d. 1173), BV, 7, (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), ch. iii and iv. 13 The Benjamin major shows that the mind is trained to study physical things first, then ‘psychological’ things, and finally things divine. The next step builds on the last one, but also adds a new aspect. Each step has at least three stages corresponding to three activities: lectio (reading), meditatio (thinking) and contemplatio (viewing the result of correct thinking ‘in one glance’). All three are present in De Trinitate reading the Quicumque and the patres, searching for rationes and enjoying the resulting ‘view’ in admiration. 14 This is done in the successively revised editions of Abelard’s theological magnum opus, first called Theologia ‘summi boni’, then Theologia christiana en finally Theologia ‘scholarium’. For the most mature exposition, see Peter Abaelard, Theologia ‘Scholarium’, ii. 116, ed. by M. Perkams, Lateinisch-Deutsch, Herders Bibliothek der Philosophie des Mittelalters, 24 (Freiburg: Herder, 2010), p. 350 15 At the Council of Sens (1121) and also at Soissons (1240). William wrote two Disputationes adversus Abaelardum. For the discussion about Abelard’s ‘love-determinism’, see my Communicating the Most High, pp. 283–95. 16 For Hugh’s critical response to Abelard, see e.g. David Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard: The Influence of Abelard’s Thought in the Early Scholastic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 183–97.

223

224

n ico de n bo k

of the divine being. This oneness includes the properties involved in creation: power, wisdom, and goodness. It also includes the properties presupposed in these properties: power, intellect, and will. However, for Hugh this does not take away that every act of God with respect to the non-divine has a threefold character. His triune character is reflected in everything God makes or does. In this reflection there are degrees; the human soul or mind, with its three basic powers of willing, knowing and being-able-to, resembles God most. Hugh is convinced that the beautiful display of Trinitarian care is not only detectable in creation, but also in salvation history. When pressed, he says that in God these powers, in their most perfect form, are not the personal properties of Father, Son, and Spirit respectively; but as appropriations they are certainly privileged. Properly speaking, the divine persons can be explained by the dynamics of God’s self-love.17 Richard inherited from Hugh the rejection of Abelard’s idea that creation is necessary, yet he realized that Hugh’s alternative left him highly vulnerable himself. For rejecting this love-determinism seems to eliminate man (or creation) as God’s ultimate beloved, without offering an alternative. If love is an essential feature of God so that he must love, and if this love is not fulfilled in the relation with creation, it seems inevitable that divine self-love — a love which, according to Richard, is only improperly called love18 — is the only option left. Richard, however, sees a better option, which allows him to vindicate the Abelardian sense of perfection and necessity on another level, in fact the highest level: the love of God within God is truly other-directed love. In God there is a lover, a beloved, and a co-lover. Conceptually, Richard’s move enters the space left open in the AugustinianAnselmian view on the Trinity. If the divine persons cannot be characterized by the mental powers but are distinct by their relations of origin only, each person must comprise all mental powers — like in a human person. In a human being, who is made in God’s image and not in the image of one divine person, there is only one person comprising the three mental powers — in God there must be three persons comprising his entire mental nature. From an anthropological point of view, it is hard to see why the perfect spirit is not one person. This has already been observed by Augustine.19 Since Tertullian the church had accustomed itself to use the word ‘person’ for the divine three, not for the one God. Whatever terminology is chosen, Augustine as well as Anselm and Hugh realize that the explanation of the Trinity in terms of mental powers falls short. A divine person, like a human person, comprises

17 See e.g. Hugh of Saint-Victor, De Sacramentis, i. 3, 27, quoted by Gemeinhardt, ‘Logic, Tradition and Ecumenics’, p. 46): ‘The first [property, namely power] from which wisdom is, then wisdom itself that was born out of power, and finally love, proceeding from power and at the same time from wisdom’. Hugh, too, explains the Triad by the Trinity as understood in the Augustinian-Anselmian way. 18 See Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, iii. 2, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 136: ‘However, no one is properly said to have love on account of a private and exclusive love of oneself. And so, it is necessary that “love be directed toward an other, so that it can be charity”’ (the last phrase is a quotation from Gregory the Great). 19 See his De Trinitate, vii. 4–6.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

all mental powers and therefore cannot be distinguished by them. Yet a divine person, unlike a human person, does not have his own set of mental powers, for if so, the three divine persons would be like three human beings and polytheism would be unavoidable. So, for defining divine personhood in the sense used by the church, there must be a middle ground between the mental and the social explanation. If that middle ground cannot be found, the Trinity is not yet explained. Richard must have realized this, for precisely where Abelard, instead of stepping into the open space of the Augustinian view, decided to fall back on the mental triad, Richard comes in with his own proposal. Following the ecclesiastical custom of ascribing ‘person’ to the Father, Son, and Spirit, Richard saw the need for a radical revision of the definition of person as formulated by another influential church father, Boethius. Boethius defined person as ‘an individual substance with a rational nature’. Taken in this way, Richard remarks, God’s substance qualifies as a person, for according to him, as we will see more clearly later, the divine substance is indeed individual (there is only one God) and ‘rational’ (rationalis, which means having an intellect and a will). So, if person is to be applied to the divine three, a new definition is needed. Richard’s proposal reads: ‘a person is an individual existence (ex-istentia) of a rational substance’.20 Thus the one divine ‘rational substance’, that is, the one supreme Spirit or non-corporeal Individual, exists in three ways, each ‘existence’ determined by its specific relation of origin to the other existences. For modern readers it is important to keep in mind that these three Existences, in Richard’s understanding, are internal to the one supreme Spirit or individual Mind. They do not relate to each other with a power, intellect or will of their own, because together they have only one power, intellect and will. In present-day terminology we would say: together they are one (non-corporeal) person. For Richard, as for all twelfth- and thirteenth-century theologians, a being with an intellect and will is called a substance, an individual mind-gifted substance; for moderns and postmoderns, however, such a being is called a person — for us the Boethian definition has become prevalent again. We will have to return to that in the conclusion of our investigation. In Saint-Victor we see how a losing party after two generations ends up winning. Richard proved Abelard wrong by a comparably sophisticated way of thinking that Abelard’s contemporaries Bernard and Hugh were missing. In the process a difference in attitude was revealed, too. In his autobiography Historia calamitatum Abelard gives a nice picture of himself as a young scholar at the council of Sens. Against two bishops who were set on branding him as a Sabellian, he refers to himself as a teacher who, of course, must be able to make a topic credible by making it understandable. Belief 20 For this definition, see esp. Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, iv. 6 and 18. Richard offers two formulations which he summarizes (in Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, iv. 23, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 188) in a surprisingly simple form, for his new definition actually replaces just one word in the famous Boethian definition: instead of ‘individua substantia naturae rationalis’ (from Boethius’ Contra Eutychen ii in The theological Tractates, trans. by H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand, and S. J. Tester, Loeb Classical Library, 74 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1918), pp. 82–93) Richard says: ‘individua existentia naturae rationalis’. For existentia, see further note 32.

225

2 26

n ico de n bo k

is earned by good explanation, he says, not the other way around.21 Richard, more loyal to the church and her creeds, pushes in the other direction. He is set on finding reasons that are able to show beyond reasonable doubt why God, the one supreme Spirit or Mind, is not one person, but three persons, as the church believes. For him, too, the key to understanding God is love, but this love is not only other-directed, but also well-ordered love (caritas). Shortly we will see how this will give him a key to find an original understanding for a more ‘conservative’ view on the Trinity than Abelard envisaged. The Legacy of Gilbert and Lombard

First, however, we need to see how the quest for the better understanding of the Trinity gets a new edge in the two decades after Abelard’s condemnation. In fact, there is a double edge. In that period Gilbert of Poitiers was accused of tritheism; when brought to trial by Bernard, he was condemned.22 His innovations, however, largely based on Boethius, remained influential. Soon a new book attracted attention, a vast collection of ‘sentences’ from the Church Fathers arranged and commented on by Peter Lombard, who had been a student at St Victor for some time. Many, including Richard, sensed that Lombard, in his view on the Trinity, prolonged the line of Abelard; soon some would accuse him of Sabellianism as well.23 But Lombard had new arguments, most of which stem from Augustine.24 This is the moment — in the 1160s — that Richard started writing De Trinitate. It can hardly be coincidental that not only Abelard, but also Gilbert had written a commentary on the Quicumque25 — Richard set out to do the same, showing that errors in two directions can and must be avoided. In the first two books of De Trinitate he offers a defence of the supreme oneness of God, in which tritheism is excluded by borrowing from and surpassing Gilbert’s new conceptual clarity. In the middle two books he counters Sabellianism as the possible refuge for tired or impatient Augustinians and their new clarity, like Abelard. In the last two books he shows the compatibility of God’s supreme oneness and complete three-ness by arguing against the newest Sabellian view that the three divine Persons are modes of being, not really three persons: the Trinitarian view of Lombard. Let me demonstrate this.

21 See Peter Abelard, The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, trans. by Betty Radice (New York: Penguin Classics, 2003), ‘Historia calamitatum’, pp. 19–21. 22 At the Council of Reims in 1148. 23 By e.g. Joachim of Fiore, see Bernard McGinn, The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1985), p. 164. 24 Cf. Marcia L. Colish, Peter Lombard, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 41.1 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), i, 254–89, presenting Lombard’s Trinitarian view in its reaction to Abelard’s. 25 A copy of Abelard’s commentary on the Quicumque was in the library of St Victor, see Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard, p. 65, n. 2. For Gilbert, see his Expositio in ‘Quicunque vult’ in ‘A Commentary on the Pseudo-Athanasian Creed by Gilbert of Poitiers’, ed. by N. M. Häring, Mediaeval Studies, 27 (1965), 23–53.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

In Richard’s De Trinitate i–ii the one substance of God is conceptualized in terms reminiscent of Boethius and Gilbert, by innovating ‘the Tree of Porphyry’.26 Gilbert was famous for his distinction between ‘what’ and ‘by which’ showing that every being (every quod) has an essence that can be taken as the property of that being (a quo, that by which a being is what it is).27 The name for such a property is usually derived from the name of that being, like humanitas (humanity) from homo (man). In the same way, Gilbert says, we could derive substantialitas (substantiality) from substantia (substance), but since this former name is not in use, he refrains from this derivation. It cannot be coincidental that Richard, in his discussion of the one divine substance, explicitly moulds the concept of substantialitas.28 In fact, in moulding it he moves beyond Gilbert by adding a conceptual and terminological novelty that is entirely his. Comparing the ‘ontological make-up’ of God and man he points out that a human being not only has the essence of humanity, but in addition to that an individuating essence: that by which a human being is this human being. The name for this essence is formed after a proper name: danielitas (danielity) from Daniel.29 In fact, Richard says, for humans this essence is even more individual (incommunicabilis) than the one corresponding to person (personalitas, from persona), for being a person is a property of each human being, but danielity applies to only one, Daniel. In God, Richard continues, divinity, the property or set of properties by which God is God, is even more incommunicable than danielity, since for God his substantiality is identical with his substance in all respects; for Daniel this is not the case.30 So the divine substance is even more individual than the individual human being who is made in his image! This insight very effectively rules out tritheism. There is, and can only be, one perfect Spirit, parallel to the one soul of each human being. Let us now move to the opposite error possible in Trinitarian theology, Sabellianism. It can hardly be coincidental that Richard concludes his work, in Book v–vi, with a passionate defence of the very view that Lombard rejected. After the medieval fashion 26 Porphyry, a pupil of Plotinus, developed an ontological schedule showing the hierarchy in kinds (species) from individual to general. E.g. an individual human being has the general human nature, which contains the more general nature we share with animals. Boethius commented on Porphyry and passed the latter’s legacy on to the Middle Ages. Gilbert commented on Boethius. 27 See e.g. L. O. Nielsen, Theology and Philosophy in the Twelfth Century: A Study of Gilbert Porreta’s Thinking and the Theological Expositions of the Doctrine of the Incarnation during the Period 1130–1180, Acta Theologica Danica (Leiden: Brill, 1982), pp. 47–49. 28 Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, ii. 12, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 118; for Gilbert’s remark, see N. M. Häring, ‘The Case of Gilbert de la Porrée, Bishop of Poitiers (1142–54)’, Mediaeval Studies, 13 (1951), section i, p. 9 ns 66–67. 29 In Porretan terms: Daniel’s quo, Daniel himself being the quod. For danielitas, see Richard of SaintVictor, De Trinitate, ii. 12, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 119 and cf. my ‘Richard de Saint-Victor et la quête de l’individualité essentielle: La sagesse de daniélité’ , in L’individu au Moyen Age. Individuation et individualisation avant la modernité, ed. by Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak and Dominique Iogna-Prat (Paris: Aubier, 2005), pp. 123–44 (and pp. 327–32, notes). 30 The reason is that in creation a quo is not identical with its quod because all creatures receive their being, not one is self-existent. So a possible individual is not eo ipso an existing individual. See De Trinitate, ii and see note 85. Besides, human nature can be instantiated in more than one individual, the divine nature cannot. See De Trinitate, i.

227

228

n ico de n bo k

of reverence, Richard does not mention him, just as he did not mention Gilbert, but the reference is clear enough. And the disagreement must be more recent or more personal, the emotions are still fresh: Procul dubio nichil aliud est Patris persona quam substantia ingenita, nichil aliud Filii persona quam substantia genita. Sed multi temporibus nostris surrexere qui non audent hoc dicere, quin potius, quod multo periculosius est, contra sanctorum Patrum auctoritatem et tot attestationes paternarum traditionum audent negare et modes modis omnibus conantur refellere. Nullo modo concedunt quod substantia gignat substantiam, vel sapientia gignit sapientiam. Without a doubt, the person of the Father is nothing other than the Unbegotten substance, and the person of the Son is nothing other than the Begotten substance. But many rise up nowadays who do not dare say this, or rather, what is even more dangerous, who, contrary to the authority of the holy fathers and so many witnesses of the tradition of the fathers, have the audacity to deny and attempt to refute on all accounts those formulations. In no way do they concede that substance begets substance, or wisdom begets wisdom.31 Why has Lombard joined these ‘many’? One of the cornerstones for Trinitarian theology acknowledged by Augustine is that nothing can bring itself into being. But if the Son is generated by the Father and this generating is seen as a full bringing-into-being, and if the divine substance is supremely one, indivisible and incommunicable, then the very same substance is not-generated (in the Father) and generated (in the Son), which is a blatant contradiction. As we have seen, Richard, with Augustine and many others, acknowledges both premises of this argument. To show that nevertheless the conclusion does not follow, Richard points at a mistake in the syllogism: it fails to distinguish between substance (or nature) and person. When the substance of the Father is unbegotten and that of the Son is begotten, ‘it does not follow that there are two distinct substances, but it does follow that there are two distinct persons’.32

31 Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, vi. 22, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 259. Translation by Christopher P. Evans, in Trinity and Creation: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Richard, and Adam of St Victor, ed. by Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter, VTT, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 345. Cf. Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV Libris Distinctae I 4,1 and I 5,1, ed. by Collegium S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas (Grottaferrata: Spicilegium Bonaventuranium IV, 1971), pp. 77–87). ‘Note complémentaire: Substantia genita’, in Richard de Saint-Victor, La Trinité: Texte Latin, Introduction, et Notes, ed. by Gaston Salet, SJ, SC, 63 (Paris: Cerf, 1959), pp. 504–07. Abelard was one of the first who explicitly rejected the expression substantia gignit substantiam, see e.g. his Theologia Scholarium, ii. 145, ed. by Buytaert and Mews,  quoting Augustine of Hippo, De Trinitate, i. 1: Qui putat eius potentiam deum esse, ut seipsum genuerit, eo plus errat, quod non solum deus ita non est, sed nec spiritualis creatura nec corporalis. Nulla enim omnino res est quae seipsam gignat’. Augustine himself maintained this fundamental idea yet freely spoke of ‘sapientia de sapientia, essentia de essentia’ (e.g. in De Trinitate, vii. 2. 3; La Trinité, ed. by Agaësse and Moingt). 32 Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, vi. 22; La Trinité, ed. by Salet, pp. 443–49 (trans. by Evans, in Trinity and Creation, ed. by Coolman and Coulter, p. 346). In defending the idea of ‘substance from substance’ Richard gives another clarification of the definition of person he proposed as alternative to Boetius’ one. For in that definition (see note 20) an absolute (the divine substance) and a relative

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

The individual divine substance cannot be communicated to other substances, but it can be communicated to other persons. There can only be one God, but there can be three persons who are this one God. Recurring to the method per visibilia ad invisibilia (through visible things to invisible things) Richard offers an analogy that elucidates the idea of ‘substance from substance yet one and the same substance’ and is derived from the heart of the mental triad: wisdom.33 Wisdom can be taught or can be learned, and it can be learned by listening or by reading: in this way the very same wisdom is first in the teacher, then in his pupil and then, differently, in another pupil. So, the very same wisdom is once given, once received from one person, and once received from two persons. Similarly, in the Trinity the very same mental substance exists in different relations of origin defined by giving and receiving. Composing De Trinitate

Let us now turn to the middle part of De Trinitate. In Book iii–iv Richard gives his own, and most personal contribution to the understanding the Trinity, showing that the one and individual divine substance not only can, but must be common to more than one divine person, in fact to three divine persons.34 His starting point in Book iii is, once more, the triad power, wisdom, and goodness. God has these properties in optimal form. Goodness in optimal form must include caritas (love), and love in optimal form cannot be self-love only but must be directed to another person, and in fact to a third person as well. For love not only has the desire for a dilectus (beloved), but also for a con-dilectus (co-beloved).35 As already pointed out in the section on Abelard, creation or man cannot be this other for God. Richard’s reason

(a relation of origin) go together. In Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, iv. 11–12 this is explained etymologically, by stating that the core-concept in his new definition of person, i.e. existentia is derived from ex-sistere, indicating an origin (‘ex’) and an essence (‘sistentia’). 33 See Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, vi. 23–25. Achard has the same idea: ‘thus in creation also: the wisdom of many is one and equal, and is not found to be less in any of them than in all’ (Achard of Saint-Victor, Achard of Saint-Victor: Works, trans. and intr. by Hugh Feiss OSB, CS, 165, (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2001), p. 382). 34 In De Trinitate, iii Richard first argues for the existence of two persons and then for a third, with different arguments. In De Trinitate, v he argues that there is no room for more than three persons. For a more detailed exposition of this entire argument, see Den Bok, Communicating the Most High, pp. 302–19. 35 Nakamura’s careful analysis of Richard’s notion of love shows some ambiguities. Sometimes he seems to say that true love excludes self-love, that caritas qualifies love for oneself as blameworthy. Elsewhere he reads caritas as including self-love, for self-love is in itself as good as other-love (cf. the second Great Love-commandment). I think that ‘selfless love’ is quite contradictory to Richard because in tending to an other love always tends to the other’s being as well: that is valued, loved. In fact, personhood does not add any entity to this being; it only qualifies it by its origin. That’s why in God the love for the other is motivated, according to Richard, as love for the other being God. And since God’s being is strictly one in three persons, their other-love is eo ipso self-love. See Hideki Nakamura, ‘Amor Invisibilium:’ Die Liebe im Denken Richards von Sankt Viktor († 1173), CV, Instrumenta, 5 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2011).

229

23 0

n ico de n bo k

is that in that case God would not love in the best possible way, he would bestow divine love on a creature, which would make his love inordinata (disordered).36 So the other, and the third, must be divine themselves; only when equal do they fully match the first person’s worth. Love, then, supreme love, requires three equally divine persons in God, which means: three persons having the complete divine substance. This does not necessarily mean that they must have the very (numerically) same divine substance; in itself, Richard realizes, the love-requirement would be met if there were three divine persons each having his own substance. But in book i and ii he had already argued abundantly for the existence of only one divine substance. And surely, if each person desired by love has this very same substance, they are certainly equal. Now this entire unpacking of the requirements for perfect love would be only theoretical if God lacked the power to realize it, or the goodness to pursue it. Of course, he has the wisdom to see it. For Richard, here the triad comes in again, this time in a well-known argument. If the first person would not be able to realize what love requires, how could he be omnipotent? And if the first person would not want a second and third person, how could he be generous? He would be egocentric or envious, he would lack goodness. But God, as Richard had shown in Book i and ii, has power, wisdom, and goodness in optimal form; he is omnipotent, all-knowing and fully-good. So he can undoubtedly meet all the requirements of best possible love.37 A remarkable conclusion can be drawn. Apparently, De Trinitate is structured by the move from the mental Triad of powers of one perfect Spirit to the Trinity of persons as confessed by the Western Church, the persons being defined by relations of origin only. It is the divine mental substance that requires the three persons. And since the three persons have the very same substance, their distinctive properties cannot ‘substantial’ mental properties themselves. The personal properties come from the love that motivates one person to bring into being a second person and, together with the second, a third person. Only love, well-ordered love can explain the distinctive personal properties as established by Augustine and Anselm: one person is ‘from no-one’, the second is ‘from only one’ and the third one is ‘from two

36 The reason for that simply is (with a bow to the first Great Love-commandment from the Bible): it is not right ‘when someone is supremely loved who must not be supremely loved’ (Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, iii. 7). One can only love what is good, one can only love supremely what is supremely good, and there is only one ‘thing’ supremely good. 37 This is in fact another Augustinian idea that was adapted in various ways in the twelfth century. In De diversis quaestiones, 83, q. 50, ed. by Augustine writes: ‘Deus quem genuit, quoniam meliorem se generare non potuit (nihil enim deo melius) generare debuit aequalem. Si enim voluit et non potuit, infirmus est. Si potuit et noluit, invidus est. Ex quo conficitur aequalem genuisse Filium’. For this idea, its history and systematic impact, see my ‘Eén ding is noodzakelijk. Duns Scotus en het volheidsbeginsel’, in Geloof geeft te denken. Opstellen over de theologie van Johannes Duns Scotus, ed. by H. Veldhuis and A. J. Beck (Assen: Uitgeverij Van Gorcum, 2005), pp. 225–81 (an English translation is forthcoming, in Andreas Beck and Nico den Bok, eds, Fides Quaerens intellectum to be published by Brill). Richard’s move from one persona to three personae in De Trinitate, iii is in fact an original elaboration of this idea.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

others’. Richard is able to formulate them in terms of love: one person is only giving love, one is receiving and giving love, one is only receiving love.38 So the Triad leads to the Trinity. From powers to persons! Richard’s move from creation to Creator, from the most important appropriations to properly personal attributes has proven effective. At the conclusion of his work on Trinitarian theology he once more refers to it, this time as the formative principle of its entire composition. In hujus operis nostril calce illud replicare et memorie commendare volumus, sicut ex superiobus satis evidenter ostendimus, quod omnipotentie consideration facile convincitur, quod non sit, sed necesse possit Deus nisi unus; ex bonitatis plenitudine, quod sit personaliter trinus; ex plenitudine vero sapientie liquid colligitur quomodo conveniat unitas substantie cum personarum pluralitate. In the end of our work we want to repeat and commend to memory that, as we have shown with sufficient evidence in the previous discussions, it was proven from the consideration of omnipotence that there is and can only be one God; from the fullness of goodness that God is triune in person; and from the fullness of wisdom how the unity of substance is consistent with the plurality of persons.39 As modern readers we must keep in mind here that ‘persons’, for Richard, means ‘existences’ of one mind-gifted individual; his ‘persons’ are not themselves mindgifted individuals, they are not persons in a modern sense. We might call his notion ‘persona’. So in present-day terminology we must formulate Richard’s move as: from powers to personae, not to persons.40 The final passage of De Trinitate speaks of sufficient evidence, of proof — so how does Richard see the accomplishment of his quest in terms of argumentative success? Richard is as strong as he is nuanced about the achievement. Strong, for he thinks he not only found many probable but also a number of necessary reasons for what he, with the creed, believes to be true about God.41 For him, a necessary reason is an aspect of a being showing why it cannot be different from what it is. And since God does not come into being nor ceases to be, his entire reality is unchangeable

38 Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, v. 16–19; La Trinité, ed. by Salet, pp. 342–51. 39 Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, vi. 25, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 266. This is a strong argument against the generally held assumption that De Trinitate, vi is unfinished. De Trinitate turns out to be beautifully composed: two books from power, two from goodness, two from wisdom; a triptych with on each side two books approaching God from opposite sides and two books in the middle, mediating between both. This fits nicely with Richard’s view on love as the rationale of the Trinitarian distinctions: giving (which is active), receiving (which is passive), giving and receiving (which is both). 40 All three refer to non-corporeal (mental, spiritual) realities. The English ‘persona’ refers to a role of a person which comprises the whole person and can be both natural and freely assumed. It will be clear that persona understood and translated in this way is closer to its original meaning in Latin: ‘mask’, ‘role’ played in a theatre or fulfilled in society. 41 Like Anselm, Richard finds rationes necessariae in the mission of the Son, but beyond Anselm he finds them in the mission of the Spirit (see Ad me clamat) and in the processions (see De Trinitate) as well.

231

23 2

n ico de n bo k

and must therefore have many such aspects. It is not easy to find these rationes (reasons); in fact, Richard offers a classification of this difficulty. In his Benjamin major he says that the reasons why God is one are ‘beyond reason but not contrary to reason’, whereas the reasons why God is three are ‘beyond and contrary to reason’. Reading Richard carefully it is clear that, just as ‘beyond reason’ does not mean that no reasons can be found, ‘contrary to reason’ does not mean that Trinitarian theology is contradictory. It means that actual reasoning, starting from visible reality and turning to the invisible reality of the Trinity, will factually run into contradictions that appear very hard to solve. Remarkably, the first example of the second and highest kind of difficulty precisely is the issue of substantia de substantia (substance from substance).42 Si Pater est ingenitus, Filius unigenitus, eritne substantia Patris ingenita, Filii genita? Et cum utriusque sit una eademque substantia, erit eadem ipsa genita et ingenita, hoc est genita et non genita? […] Si Spiritus Sanctus cum Patre eiusdem potentie est, nunquid et ipse potest quicquid et Pater potest? Nunquid ergo talem Filium qualem Pater gignere potest? An forte filium gignere potentia non est, et talem filium qui omnipotens est? An forte non vult, cum possit? If the Father is unbegotten and the Son is only-begotten, will not the substance of the Father be unbegotten and that of the Son be begotten? And since both have one and the same substance, will not the same substance be begotten and unbegotten, that is begotten and not begotten? […] If the Holy Spirit is of the same power with the Father, does it not have itself the same power that the Father has? Can it beget such a Son as the Father is able to do? Or perhaps it does not have the power to beget the Son, a Son who is omnipotent? Or perhaps it does not wish to do so, although it is able?43 Does De Trinitate formulate the answers to these questions? I don’t think so. In De Trinitate Richard realizes that, although he found some necessary reasons for God’s existence and substantial properties, and although he found some very probable reasons for the three divine persons, he did not find equally strong reasons for the belief that the three persons are ‘existences’ of only one substance. So the questions from the Benjamin major are not didactic only, meant as illustrations; they are real questions that remain questions at the end of his explorations on the Trinity. Here Richard shows the other side of faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum): even if insight has grown, faith must ask it to stop once more and wait for new help 42 The other example is eternity, the decisive issue of the De Trinitate, i with a direct impact on Trinitarian theology. For if temporal beings, which are not self-existent, presuppose an eternal being, then this being must be self-existent. Richard proceeds by stating that there is one more possibility: a being that is eternal yet not self-existent. See further below, n. 85. 43 Richard of Saint-Victor, Arca Moysi [there titled The Mystical Ark], iv. 18, in Richard of St Victor, Richard of St Victor: The Twelfth Patriarchs, The Mystical Ark, Book Three of the Trinity, trans. and introduction by Grover A. Zinn, preface by Jean Chatillon, CWS (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), p. 293. The Latin taken from L’oeuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor 1: De contemplatione (Beniamin maior), ed. by Jean Grosfillier, Sous la Règle de saint Augustin, 13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 443–44.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

to understand new seeming contradictions. Reading De Trinitate in the context of Richard’s works, his historical positioning and his theological approach, we see the creed not only rising at the start but also at the end of his enterprise.

Divine Missions and the Consistency of an Œuvre The move from Triad to Trinity structuring Richard’s main work on the Trinity appears to be a feature characterizing his entire oeuvre. Let me show this by starting with a remark he makes in De Trinitate, namely, that this study will confine itself to ‘things eternal’, implying that for Trinitarian theology there are also ‘things temporal’ to be discussed; but they require a different approach.44 Since in De Trinitate Richard does not discuss anything that characterizes God in his relation to creation, these ‘things temporal’ must include the divine missions, namely, the sending of the Son and the Spirit, which are central events in salvation history. Richard chose not to discuss the missions in De Trinitate, but he did write about them. Many Works and a Unifying Move

Richard in fact dedicated an important and dense part of an exegetical treatise to the missions of the divine persons: Ad me clamat ex Seir.45 In addition to that he wrote a sermon De missione Spiritus Sancti, and two letters on specific Trinitarian questions, De tribus personis appropriatis in Trinitate and Quomodo Spiritus sanctus est amor Patris et Filii.46 So we do have a rather complete picture of Richard’s view on God’s Trinitarian life, which to his mind but put in later terminology, has an immanent and an economic dimension. This picture is not complete in the sense of fully detailed, however.47 Some aspects are elaborated with the help of specific questions, others are left ‘sketchy’ 44 Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, i. 3, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 89: ‘De illis itaque proposuimus agere in hoc opere que jubemur ex catholice fidei regula, non de quibuscumque sed de eternis credere. Nam de redemptionis nostra sacramentis ex tempore factis, que credere jubemur et credimus, nichil in hoc opera intendimus. Nam agenda mos alius in his, alius vero in his.’ 45 The text-critical edition of this work is found in: Richard of Saint-Victor, Opuscules Théologiques: Texte Critique avec notes et tables, ed. by Jean Ribaillier, TPMA, 15 (Paris: Vrin, 1967), pp. 256–80. For English, see Richard of St Victor, On Isaiah: Interpreting ‘He calls to me from Seir’, trans. by Hugh Feiss, OSB, and Dale Coulter, in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. and trans. by Frans van Liere and Franklin Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 227–58. 46 The sermon is only available in Richard of Saint-Victor, De missione Spiritus Sancti (PL 196.1017–31). For the critical texts of De tribus personis and Quomodo Spiritus sanctus, see Richard of Saint-Victor, Opuscules Théologiques, ed. by Ribaillier, pp. 155–87; as far as I know, there is no English translation of these texts. 47 Nor is it complete in another respect. Richard did not explore the relation between the missions and the processions. Here, too, the connection between personhood and having mental powers, esp. the will, is crucial for a better understanding. Richard emphatically states (e.g. in De statu interioris hominis, 14, see Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the State of the Interior Man’, trans. by Christopher P. Evans, in

233

23 4

n ico de n bo k

or ‘open’. This, however, reveals a more general feature of Richard’s work: it offers an overall-view with vital soundings. And it fits very well with his general take on theology, on the search for knowledge of God, for that knowledge will never be comprehensive (total), but is certainly capable of growing in various respects. The opportunity for growing may come from different occasions, for instance from an exegetical or hermeneutical eye-opener (as in Ad me clamat ex Seir, which is an ‘allegorical’ reading of a Bible-text48) or from a personal question (as in De tribus personis appropriatis in Trinitate, which is more like a letter). It is remarkable that these four short works (opusculi) on Trinitarian theology show a common conceptual move. They begin by appealing to a characterization of the Father as God’s power, the Son as his wisdom and the Spirit as his love, and they proceed to a characterization of the Father as ‘from no other person’, the Son ‘from one other person’ and the Spirit ‘from two other persons’. Of course, the characterization of the divine persons by their internal relations of origin does not rule out the characterization by perfect mental qualities; it makes clear, however, that the former does not characterize the Trinity properly, but only ‘by appropriation’, that is, by showing some resemblances (and as such it is helpful). We have seen that Richard in his magnum opus on the Trinity very much makes the same move. This move is quite explicit in De tribus personis appropriatis, where Richard answers two questions. He must have considered the second one important since he copied it in his De Trinitate.49 The question reads: why is power attributed to the Father, wisdom to the Son, and goodness to the Spirit? The answer was: power is the only potency not derived from the other two, wisdom is derived from power alone, and goodness derives from both power and wisdom.50 Since the mental triad

Writings on the Spiritual Life: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Adam, Achard, Richard, Walter, and Godfrey of St Victor, ed. by Christopher Evans, VTT, 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), p. 263) that free will (liberum arbitrium) is a core-feature in man as the image of God (imago Dei), yet he hardly analyzes will in God himself. For humans he e.g. distinguishes between will as instrument and will as act, which for God would parallel the distinction between will ad intra and ad extra, but Richard does not make this connection. Making it has serious consequences for the Trinitarian relations, see further note 100. 48 In Richard (and the Victorines in general) ‘allegorical’, one of the four senses of Scripture, means that an actual reality referred to in a bible-text signifies some other actual reality, whether in the past, present or future, or in eternity. 49 Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, vi. 15, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 247f. The first question is how to understand Augustine ascribing unity to the Father, equality to the Son and concord to the Spirit. Richard answers that unity is primordial, equality cannot exist without a second unit and therefore a plurality, and concord shows the unity of two units. Thus the Trinitarian structure to which the triad is reduced is once again: one by itself, one from one, one from two. Achard, who was abbot of St Victor at the time that Richard became sub-prior, uses the Augustinian triad as key to Trinitarian theology and very much along the same line as Richard: by making it transparent in virtue of the two kinds of relations of origin. See his De unitate Dei et pluralitate creaturarum (in Achard of Saint Victor, Achard of St Victor: Works, ed. by Feiss, pp. 375–80). 50 De tribus personis, in Richard of Saint-Victor, Opuscules Théologiques, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 187: ‘In hac itaque rerum trinitate sola potentia non est de reliquarum aliqua, sapientia autem est de potentia sola, bonitas vero de potentia simul et sapientia. Vides certe quomodo in hac rerum trinitate expresse sunt proprietates Trinitatis illius summe et eterne’.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

can be ‘reduced’ to the relational trinity in a straightforward way, Richard considers the triad a special or privileged appropriation,51 and a beautiful illustration of the general method he is committed to, namely, that we acquire knowledge of invisible things by starting from visible things.52 The Cry for the Missions

In a penetrating attempt to understand God’s Trinitarian involvement in salvation history, Richard’s Ad me clamat ex Seir makes the same move ‘from powers to persons’. The point of departure is the statement suggested by the Biblical text Richard is explaining here,53 namely, that not only many Jews but also some Gentiles have longed for salvation. They realized that, considering the human condition, God himself must come in order to save the situation. In fact, Richard claims, in various degrees of clarity a twofold coming of God has been anticipated, for it was realized that the full restoration of man requires the recovery of his dignity that has been lost through sinning, and that can only be accomplished when God comes in three personae. Previdebant itaque antiqui per Spiritum quia necesse era tut Filius Dei venire, necesse similiter ut Spiritum sanctum mitteret. […] vide quam sit necessaries utriusque adventus. So ancient authors foresaw through the Spirit that it was necessary for the Son of God to come and likewise that he send the Holy Spirit. […] Notice that the coming of both is necessary.54 The three ‘persons’ of God are primarily explained by recurring to God’s mental or spiritual qualities power, wisdom, and goodness.55 It is good Scriptural custom to

51 ‘Speciali attribuere’, Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, vi. 15, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 247. 52 In De tribus personis, 2 = Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, vi. 15 Richard refers to a methodic principle widely used in the twelfth century, based on the text of Romans 1. 20–21, inviting a careful transference from things that can be seen or experienced to God’s invisible reality. See Dale M. Coulter, Per visibilia ad invisibilia: Theological Method in Richard of St.Victor (d. 1173), BV, 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006). 53 In Isaiah 21. 11–12 there is a two- or threefold urgent call for ‘a watchman’. This cry comes from Seir, which is another name for Edom, Israel’s neighbouring country. 54 Ad me clamat ex Seir, 12, in Opuscules Théologiques, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 272. This chapter does not occur in 5 of the 11 manuscripts of Ad me clamat. The reason is not clear; possibly in some edition someone tried to present Richard’s work as his ‘Cur Deus homo’, analogous to the famous work of Anselm of Canterbury. Hugh Feiss considers ch 12 an addition that ‘seems to break the flow of thought’ (Hugh Feiss, ‘Introduction to The Spiritual Senses in Exegesis and Theology: Two Short Theological Works of Richard of St Victor’, in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. by Frans van Liere and Franklin Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), p. 218), but to my mind it is very consistent with Richard’s general view. Ribaillier shows that there is a tradition of manuscripts that refers to Ad me clamat as De verbo incarnato (see crit. ed. in note 45); this is also its title in PL 196. 55 Ad me clamat, 5, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 262. For wisdom see also 11: sin is seen as wronging the Son, the wisdom of God, in particular.

235

2 36

n ico de n bo k

speak of Father, Son, and Spirit in this way, Richard says, but a subtler discussion will lead away from it to a deeper understanding. He then offers an interpretation in terms of relations of origin. Richard actually offers two such interpretations.56 The second one is extensive and rich in theological content. Here, the leading idea is that man has wronged God, ‘therefore the redemption of humanity demanded a human being who could cancel the debt of the creature by the merit of his own nature’.57 If not, how could man ever regain his original dignity? Restoring it, however, can only be done by a man who is also God. In fact, God is required in three ways.58 The reason for this is that the restoration of fallen man has to happen in a just way, and man’s dignity cannot justly be restored by forgiving his sin only.59 Man can be forgiven, if he has given satisfaction, and if satisfaction has been demanded. This requires God in three roles:60 as man he has to give satisfaction,61 as Father he has to demand it, as Spirit he forgives.62 Richard proceeds by showing how the relation of origin which is the only feature that makes a divine person distinct from the other persons, makes a specific person most fitted for a specific role. First of all, the Son and the Spirit have everything they are from the Father, so they are not in a position to demand; hence, as Father God

56 The first interpretation (Ad me clamat, 6, ed. by Ribaillier, pp. 263–65) says that the two ‘watchmen’ refer to the Son and the Spirit and that a third custos is implicitly present. See e.g. ‘In the Trinity, only the Holy Spirit watches only through himself, for no person in the Trinity receives from the Spirit the doing of something or the capacity of doing something.’ The ‘from where’ of the divine personae is decisive for the identification of Who is actually addressed. 57 Ad me clamat, 8, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 266; translation in Richard of St Victor, On Isaiah: Interpreting ‘He calls to me from Seir’, trans. by Feiss and Coulter, p. 239. 58 Ad me clamat, 11, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 271: ‘Divisit itaque inter se summa illa personarum Trinitas, unus Deus, negotium salutis humane, ut unam eamdemque hominis culpam Pater puniret, Filius expiaret, Spiritus sanctus ignosceret. Ad majorem igitur lapsi hominis gloriam ut possit resurgere per justitiam, Pater satisfactionem exigit, Filius exsolvit, Spiritus sanctus se medium interponit.’ 59 Ad me clamat, 8: Enlightened by God some Jews and gentiles realized that ‘if man had not sinned, he would have been able, through the mediation of righteousness, to ascend to heavenly beatitude. However, if he had received, by mercy alone without any involvement of justice, the things lost and even promised after the Fall, he would have borne the eternal disgrace of his degradation. […] Where the recovery of the first dignity was not complete, there would not be full restoration.’ (Richard of St Victor, On Isaiah: Interpreting ‘He calls to me from Seir’, trans. by Feiss and Coulter, p. 238). Apparently, growing in justice is supra-lapsarian. 60 In fact, as these acts are mutually exclusive, they cannot be performed by God in one capacity or role; three are needed. 61 Here important aspects of the Anselmian argumentation come in, e.g. since man ought to give satisfaction but can’t and God ought not, someone who is both God and man is required (Ad me clamat, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 269). 62 Richard enthusiastically inserts a practical consequence of this insight: Think how just and gentle it is ‘ut Filii sui injuriam Pater vindicaret, Filius ignosceret. Disce, homo, quid facias, quid facere debeas: remittere injuriam propriam, ulcisci alienam’ (Ad me clamat, 11, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 271). This suggests that man, when wronged, should have two different roles, too, one like the Son and one like the Father.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

is most suited for demanding satisfaction.63 But then, if the Spirit gives satisfaction, the Son, who has nothing from the Spirit, might side with the Father and man would have two accusers. By contrast, if the Son gives satisfaction, man not only has one who operates his redemption (and who is fellow-man at that), but also one who fully cooperates in it. Richard’s argumentation in Ad me clamat ex Seir is diverse and not always convincing,64 but it drives home its main idea: in order to understand the distinct involvement of the divine persons in salvation history we need to recur to their respective relations of origin, rather than to the three mental powers that God uses in creating and saving. Richard borrows from Anselm’s Cur deus homo (Why God Became Man), not only in searching necessary reasons for God’s free acts,65 but also in finding the specific reason for the incarnation. Yet at least three major differences stand out. First, Richard argues for the need for the missions even more from the human side than Anselm already did: God must give satisfaction as man in order to restore man’s conscience and dignity compromised by sin. Second, Richard finds necessary reasons for the incarnation and for the ‘inhabitation’. When man has sinned and God wants to save him, God must come as Spirit, too.66 Third, in explaining the distinct divine missions67 by means of the Trinitarian relations Richard explores a territory which Anselm opened but largely left uncharted. For if the distinctions between the divine persons are solely relational, as Anselm agreed with Augustine, their distinct involvement in salvation history should be made intelligible in these terms too. A Victorine Œuvre

Let us now widen the scope once more in order to see how Richard’s attempt to clarify the divine processions and missions fit in with the rest of his works. For Richard, knowing and loving the triune God is the fulfilment of human nature. For reaching this fulfilment a comprehensive training is required. It is not difficult to read Richard’s main works as markers for this training. As such they certainly reflect

63 Ad me clamat, 9, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 269. Satisfactio is not defined by Richard. He seems to mean it in the Anselmian sense, although occasionally he speaks in an un-Anselmian way of God’s Father-role as expiare, punire, placare. 64 See e.g. another Trinitarian explanation of redemption offered by Richard in this context. Since only the Son is the image of the Father, brought into being by generation, man, made in the image of God and brought into being by generation, is represented best by the Son. 65 See e.g. Ad me clamat, 11, ed. by Ribaillier, pp. 270–71, Richard of St Victor, On Isaiah: Interpreting ‘He calls to me from Seir’, trans. by Feiss and Coulter, p. 242): ‘Your coming is for us necessary […]; but you do it if you want to’. Because of this necessity which does not exclude freedom Richard adds: That’s why truly clear-minded people before Christ have known this and desired it, ‘but did not presume to implore’. 66 Ribaillier (in his extensive analysis of Ad me clamat, ed. by Ribaillier, pp. 241–51), only gives the reasons why the Son became incarnate, Ad me clamat, ed. by Ribaillier, pp. 248 ff. Apparently, he sees Richard’s work as a parallel to Anselm’s Cur deus homo. 67 In a way Richard argues for three missions, since the Father, too, has to assume a historical role, although in that role he is not ‘sent’.

237

23 8

n ico de n bo k

some of his tasks in St Victor as a teacher and (sub)prior as well as moments in his own biographical-spiritual ‘path’. In fact, Richard’s works appear to cover the entire training, and they do so in a remarkable ‘zooming in’. The whole enterprise starts with conversion, an exodus out of a life lived ‘away from God’. Since this ‘old’ life is lived with others, breaking out of it means reorganizing one’s customs, one’s daily routines — see De exterminatione mali et promotione boni.68 Within this wider transformation a more particular one needs to take place: (re)organizing one’s personal life and conduct, the patterns of one’s desires — see De statu hominis interioris.69 Within this reorganization a still more particular one is called for, that of one’s thoughts and feelings — see De duodecim patriarchis (Benjamin minor).70 Within the soul its cognitive life needs special attention, the ways we think, understand, know — see De gratia contemplationis (Benjamin maior).71 Finally, within the life of the mind the final focus is on thinking properly about its most worthy, most rewarding but also most difficult ‘object’, God — see De Trinitate. The end of all endeavour is there when after the hard labour of the ratio its result can be contemplated. For Richard, the main motive behind this Victorine training is that God has created us for sharing in his power, wisdom, and goodness.72 This view springs from the Augustinian belief that ‘You have made us for Yourself (fecisti nos ad Te)’,73 but was developed, in Saint-Victor, into an extensive programme of transformation and formation. Confining ourselves to the (trans)formation of man’s inner life we see that it is quite consistently described in terms of a (re)organization of man’s cognitive and affective faculties, often described with the metaphors of light and warmth. So, corresponding to God’s power, wisdom, and goodness there is a focus on the very same mental powers in man, driven by the desire to (trans)form them in such a

68 For this work, see Richard of Saint-Victor, De exterminatione mali et promotione boni (PL 196.1073–1116). 69 The critical edition of this work is Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘De statu interioris hominis. Texte critique & étude littéraire’, ed. by Jean Ribaillier, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age, 42 (1967), 7–128. An English translation is offered in ‘On the State of the Interior Man’, trans. by Evans, pp. 241–314. 70 See Richard of Saint-Victor, Les Douze Patriarches ou Beniamin minor, ed. by Jean Châtillon and Monique Duchet-Suchaux, introduction, notes and index by Jean Longère, SC, 419 (Paris: Cerf 1997). An English translation is available in Zinn’s Richard of St Victor: The Twelfth Patriarchs, The Mystical Ark, Book Three of the Trinity. 71 For this text and an English translation, see Zinn’s Richard of St Victor: The Twelfth Patriarchs, The Mystical Ark, Book Three of the Trinity; Jean Grosfillier’s L’oeuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor 1: De contemplatione (Beniamin maior), as above in note 43. 72 See the opening-sentence of Richard’s Liber exceptionum 1 Texte critique avec introduction, notes et tables, ed. by Jean Châtillon, TPMA, 5 (Paris: Vrin, 1958), p. 104: ‘Deus summe bonus et immutabiliter bonus, sciens suam beatitutidem communicare posse et minui omnino non posse, fecit creaturam rationale, ut eam faceret beatitudinis sue esse participem’. This view is widely shared in the twelfth century. 73 This is Augustine’s famous opening phrase in his Confessiones, i. 1, ed. by M. Skutella, Oeuvres de saint Augustin, 13 (Paris: Brouwer, 1962), p. 272.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

way that they increasingly reflect God’s.74 To the extent that this process succeeds there is the joy of man coming home to God, of finding one’s final destination. Characteristic for this process is another Augustinian feature: the priority given to the (re)organization of one’s affective life, one’s loves, both at the beginning and at the end.75 For (re)ordering one’s thinking a (re)ordering of one’s love is needed. The ultimate, most fulfilling state of mind to be attained is an ordered love (caritas), an affection glowingly committed to doing the right thing — just as in God.76 There is another consistent element in Richard’s descriptions of the soul’s development. We might expect him to write, following his primary characterization of the triune God by the mental triad, that the grace required for transforming man’s cognitive life is given by the Son, the wisdom of God, while the grace required for transforming man’s affective life is a gift of the Holy Spirit, the love and benevolence of God. However, Richard prefers to say that the Holy Spirit, the driving force behind the (re)organization of man’s life, is the author of both cognitive and affective improvements. The Spirit inspires both knowing and loving, he straightens out both thinking and feeling, he brings light and warmth in the soul.77 Again we see how the distinction between properties that are proper to a person and those that are appropriative becomes effective, this time the ‘economic Trinity’ at the service of anthropology and spirituality. The perfect mental powers of knowing and willing do not properly characterize and differentiate the divine persons; a divine person comprises both kinds of mental powers. For if not, how could the Spirit give both to us? Thus, it becomes clear that in his anthropological works Richard views a divine person like he did in De Trinitate: as the one who has the mental powers. Each divine ‘person’ has the three perfect mental powers and all the properties entailed in them. In this respect a divine person resembles a human person. The only difference is that a human person has its mental powers individually, each person has his own mind, his own will. When there are three human persons, there are three minds, three wills. The three divine persons, however, have one mind, one will. In De Trinitate Richard realizes this difference; he says that man images God in his mental nature

74 The sentence of Liber exceptionum quoted in n. 72 immediately continues (my translation): ‘He made her, however, to his image and the likeness: to his image according to reasoning, to his likeness according to loving; to his image in knowing the truth, to his likeness in loving virtue; to his image according to intellect, to his likeness according to affection’. 75 De duodecim patriarchis (Twelve Patriarchs) as a whole offers a vivid image for this, because in Jacob’s family, which stands for man’s inner life, the first mental powers to be ‘born’ from grace and free will are well-ordered affections: the sons born from Lea. Well-ordered cognition is ‘born’ later (the sons of Rachel). 76 Salet (e.g. in his ed. of De Trinitate, La Trinité, ed. by Salet, note complémentaire ‘Caritas ordinate, amor discetus’, pp. 481–83) and others use the term caritas ordinata; but Richard does not. For him, it would be a pleonasm; for most medieval authors after Augustine, caritas simply is ordered love, love directed to the right objects with the right motives in the right intensity, love ‘with inner justice’ (bonum velle). Caritas is always ‘in order’, for it is the love of God, given to us by the Holy Spirit. 77 See e.g. De missione Spiritus sancti. Richard does not say that the same applies to the Son (so that he, too, gives both wisdom and love).

239

24 0

n ico de n bo k

(especially the three powers), but contrasts him with respect to personhood.78 So when ‘person’ is used for one of the three in God and for one human being, an important equivocation must be acknowledged. In concluding the exploration of Richard’s spirituality let me show, for this area, one more illustration of his conceptual move from Triad to Trinity. According to Richard the Trinity is intimately engaged in the formation and transformation of man’s inner life. When we sin, he says, we sin in a threefold way: by infirmity, by error or by iniquity, and then we sin against the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.79 Richard immediately adds, that in the divine persons the power, wisdom, and goodness are one and the same, so the three aspects of sin are ‘only’ appropriated to the three divine persons. By sinning in one of these ways actually we simply sin against God.

The Reception of Richard’s De Trinitate What has become of Richard’s conception, and how can it still be illuminating for present-day Trinitarian theology? Let us turn to the two main periods in the reception of Richard’s work, the early thirteenth century and the late twentieth century. But let us first resume his central move and vision as assessed in our investigation so far. Mastery Within Limits

If a created spirit, like man’s soul or an angel, is the image of God, God is primarily envisioned as the supreme Spirit, having mental powers. Then the divine persons primarily tend to be seen as these powers and the Trinitarian processions as acts springing from these powers: acts of knowing, willing and actualizing. Augustine embarked on this approach, but also realized its limit when seen in the light of the great Church Councils stating the full divinity of each divine person and hence presupposing that a divine person must comprise all divine mental powers. Richard’s move from Triad to Trinity is a concentrated attempt to show that three such persons can and must exist in the one supreme Spirit.80 The rationale for this is not found in a closer analysis of the mental powers or their activities, but in love. In love, in

78 See e.g. Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, iii. 10, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 144f. 79 De statu interioris hominis, 40, ed. by Jean Ribaillier, AHDLMA, 42 (1967), 7–128 (p. 111). 80 Pace G. S. M. Walker, ‘Richard of St Victor: An Early Scottish Theologian?’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 11 (1958), p. 39), I largely agree with E. Gilson: ‘It is always the Anselmian spirit that drives him, and, beyond that of saint Anselm, that of saint Augustine’, but not with his introductory sentence: ‘The study of the works of Richard does not add a single new element to what we know about medieval philosophy, but he is one of the great names of speculative mysticism’ (Étienne Gilson, La philosophie au Moyen Age. Des origins patrisques à la fin du xive siècle, 2nd edn (Paris: Payot, 1952) my translation). As we have seen Richard resumes the Augustinian ideas of the inadequacy of the Triad in explaining the Trinity, of caritas as amor ordinatus, and of the compatibility of ‘nothing can bring itself into being’ with the divine processions. Within these parameters Richard offers many creative thoughts.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

the act of loving all three powers are fully involved.81 The Father produces the Son by his power and wisdom and goodness, by communicating them, so that the Son comprises the same power, wisdom and goodness. God from God, Light from Light. This not only applies to the Father and the Son, but also to the Spirit. Here, too, Richard does not recur to the Triad to find the ratio for the production of two (and only two) persons; for him, love is once more the solution, for there are two structurally distinct ‘acts of love’. As we have seen, Richard realized that well-ordered love (caritas), requiring three persons who must be equally worthy of love,82 does not by itself require that they are the very same supreme Spirit. Three such Spirits would meet the requirement too. In Book i–ii, however, Richard excluded this possibility by arguing that there must be one individual divine substance. There can only be one supreme Spirit. Tritheism is impossible. This excludes that the divine persons love each other by their own intellect and will. They cannot act with respect to each other, for in the strictest sense they do not have a mind of their own. They can only act as the one individual Spirit they together are — in modern terminology: as one non-corporeal person. As has been suggested already, for present-day readers it is appropriate to say that, the love of three Spirits ruled out, Richard must envision one supreme Spirit existing in three personae, each comprising his entire spiritual nature (including his will and act of will) by the way it originates in him. This view does not fall back on the Triad in explaining the Trinity, losing what was gained by the Church’s reflection, but it does not push forward to a full-blown ‘social Trinity’ either. A strong confirmation of this is given by the fact that the thirteenth century understood Richard in this way. We will see that the two mainstreams in Trinitarian theology in that century are variants of this understanding. Richard seems to have sensed that in a fuller unfolding of the notion of love the analysis of De Trinitate may run into trouble. In Book iii he says that in the Trinity the divine love is not only given and received, but also returned.83 Reciprocity, however, suggests, among other things, a conversion of the processions. For if in God all properties are identical with his being, as Richard maintains, then not only ‘being eternal’ and ‘being’ are identical, but also knowing and being, willing and being, and loving and being. If, however, in God loving equates being and the Father’s loving the Son means bringing him into existence, then the Son’s loving the Father in return would mean that the Father is, in turn, brought into being by the Son. This

81 In fact, for Richard the will is the more important mental power involved in both processio and generatio: ‘It seems to me that for the Unbegotten willing to have from himself a being conformed and equal in dignity to himself is identical to begetting a Son’ (Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, vi. 17, translation in Richard of Saint-Victor, Trinity and Creation, ed. by Coolman and Coulter, p. 339). 82 This view must be truly Victorine, for Achard formulated it as well: ‘Love, like the unity just discussed, cannot exist except in several, nor can one conceive with the mind anything better or more pleasing’ (Achard of Saint-Victor, Achard of St Victor: Works, ed. by Feiss, p. 382). 83 See e.g. Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, iii. 3, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 138: ‘Non potest ergo esse amor jocundus, si non sit et mutuus.’

241

242

n ico de n bo k

consequence is implicitly rejected in De Trinitate, and explicitly rejected in Quomodo Spiritus sanctus est amor patris et filii.84 This remark raises a wider question: how intrinsic is the analysis of love to the other constitutive, traditional parts of the doctrine of the Trinity? For instance, Richard’s adherence to ‘substance from substance’ does not have to be motivated by love, for the equality of persons loving each other does not, by itself, require that two of them have to be produced. Production is in fact an additional presupposition of the Trinitarian theology he inherited (in the notions of generatio and processio).85 Social Trinitarianism Rejected

Historically, the reception of Richard’s view started with a long silence. In the late twelfth century, there are very few indications that he was read. Things changed at the beginning of the thirteenth century, but even then, in the discussions that resulted in arguably the most official council of the Middle Ages, Lateran IV (1215), his name was again not mentioned. On the table during this church council was a new version of one of the views Richard emphatically rejected. Remarkably, this view was presented in reaction to that of Peter Lombard, just like Richard’s, but more radically. Against Joachim of Fiore the church council vindicated the view of Lombard: it is wrong to say ‘Substance begets substance’. One should say: The Father begets the Son.86 Richard is not referred to. The main concern of Lateran IV was to reject tritheism. Tritheism was not a new danger. At the end of the eleventh century Anselm felt the need to refute Roscelin, who used Anselm’s own stress on the unity of will and power in God to arrive at a tritheistic doctrine of the Trinity in order to safeguard orthodox Christology.87 But

84 Richard of Saint-Victor, Quomodo Spiritus, in Opuscules Théologiques, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 164: ‘Sicut itaque Pater Filio erudit, nec tamen sequitur ut a Filio sit, sic Spiritu sancto diligit, nec tamen sequitur ut a Spiritu sancto sit. […] Dicitur ergo Pater Spiritu sancto diligere, non quod per eum amorem habeat, sed exhibeat, non quod amorem ab eo accipiat, sed per eum inpendat.’ So the solution is to see the divine love not returned but turned outward, to creation. Ribaillier remarks (Opuscules Théologiques, p. 157) that of all the opusculi ascribed to Richard, his authorship of Quomodo Spiritus is least attested — maybe this is because it is one of his latest. 85 There is an ambiguity in Richard’s conception which is closely related to this issue: his explanation of the divine property being-from-itself (a semetipso esse). In De Trinitate, i Richard distinguishes between three kinds of beings: those that are temporal and not from themselves (creatures), those that are eternal and from themselves (only God, the Father) and those that are eternal and not from themselves (the Son and the Spirit). In this way ‘being from itself’ is a property of God, of the one divine substance, but also a property of a divine person, the Father. Aseitas and innascibilitas are not clearly distinguished. 86 In the following descriptions I confine myself to the relation of Father and Son, though the issue at stake here reoccurs in their relation to the Spirit. For the issue see esp. Bruce Marshall, ‘Utrum essentia generet: Semantics and Metaphysics in Later Medieval Trinitarian Theology’, in Trinitarian Theology in the Medieval West, ed. by Pekka Käkkäinen, Schriften der Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft, 61 (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Seura, 2008), pp. 69–87. 87 See e.g. Jasper Hopkins, A Companion to The Study of St Anselm (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971), p. 100–04. Anselm responded to a sentence ascribed to Roscelin: if the persons ‘are wholly the same in will and power, then the Father and the Spirit were incarnated with the Son’. Anselm says Roscelin sees the Trinity ‘like three angels or three souls’.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

during the second half of the twelfth century the danger of tritheism was raised in another form, this time by a someone who, like Richard, rejected the view of Lombard. Writing in the decades after Richard’s death, Joachim claimed that if the one divine substance, including all its mental powers, is not generating nor generated and yet the Son has his entire being from the Father just like the Spirit has his entire being from the Father and the Son, there must be in a way three divine beings.88 According to Joachim, for whom the immanent trinity is the economic trinity, or rather vice versa, the threefold being of God is strongly suggested by salvation history. The analogies he used for explaining God’s Trinitarian involvement in man and history, many of which are taken from Augustine’s more homiletical writings, confirm this. Here is a passage from Joachim’s Psalterium decem chordarum which ‘corresponds in considerable detail to the passage of the council decree’89 that anathematized him: Because God is triune in unity, he has always desired that many men and different peoples should be joined together as one, because he knows that there can be no joy wherever there is separation and diversity. […] Certainly, we have heard from the Word of truth how the Son wishes us to be one after the image and resemblance of that unity by which he and the Father are one. That unity, however, is in the spirit, according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘the multitude of believers were of one heart and one soul’.90 Remarkably, Joachim appeals to a description of social life — in fact the life of the first Christians having everything in common — which was very dear to Augustine, Anselm and especially the Victorines,91 but unlike them92 he uses it as the better analogy of God’s Trinitarian life suggested by Scripture. It is worth noting that

88 Compare Roscelin who wrote in 1120 (Roscelin, Epistola ad Abaelardum, 10. 7, ed. by Joseph Reiners in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, 8.5 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1910)): ‘Quia ergo pater genuit filium, substantia patris genuit substantiam filii. Quia igitur altera est substantia generantis, altera generate, alia est una ab alia’. 89 Fiona Robb, ‘The Fourth Lateran Council’s Definition of Trinitarian Orthodoxy’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 48 (1997), 22–43 (p. 37). The translation of the following text of Joachim, only available in manuscript, is from Robb. Joachim, who has been claimed to have Eastern (‘Greek’) influences, adhered to the Western view (filioque). 90 Here Joachim first refers to John 17. 22, quoted earlier in this passage, and to Acts 4. 32. For the corresponding passage in the Lateran decree, see Enchirdion symbolorum, ed. by H. Denzinger, nos 803–08, 41th edn (Freiburg: Herder, 2007), pp. 359–62). 91 For Richard, see his answers to questions about the Rule of Augustine (Regula Augustini) which Saint-Victor adopted: he rejects the idea that canons can have possessions (possessio, proprium) beyond the necessities of life: ‘quid est autem possideri nisi superflua con amore retinere?’ (in M. L. Colker, ‘Richard of St Victor and the Anonymous of Bridlington’, Traditio, 18 (1962), 181–227 (p. 206)). Compare this to De Trinitate, iii. 4 and 14 where Richard argues that God, the Father ‘non sinit [ divitias] avare retinere’ (cf De Trinitate, v. 10), but also says that God cannot give what he has to an Other without retaining it himself (De Trinitate, i. 16). 92 Richard does refer to human generation (fatherhood) and to kinship (germanitas) as analogy of the divine generatio (see e.g. De Trinitate, vi. 17), but transferred to God he states that, properly speaking, there is contrast (cf. above, n.78). So there is only a gradual difference with Augustine here, who considered whether the social triad man-woman-child would be the best candidate for understanding

243

24 4

n ico de n bo k

Richard has never been accused of tritheism, not officially and not (as far as I know) un-officially. True, Richard is more careful in his Trinitarian formulations; he does not say substance begets substance, but person begets person.93 But since for him, as we have seen, a divine person is the divine substance qualified by a relation of origin — in one word: an ‘existence’94 — he defends with some passion that when the first person begets the second person, by that very fact the substance is given and received. Of course, the very same substance, he adds. He would not say that only the person begets and another person is begotten while the substance is not bringing into existence nor brought into existence.95 At this juncture we can see, why the great thirteenth-century theologians could receive Richard in two different ways both of which remain within the orthodoxy confined by Lateran IV, one way that is close to Richard and another way that is more critical of him. For one can maintain (1) that the Son is fully God but truly born from the Father, so that the second divine person receives his entire being from the first. In this case the Trinitarian relations are seen as genuine relations of origin. Or one can avoid the possible Joachite implication of this view by (2) distinguishing more rigorously between a divine person’s being God and his being this person. In this case the persons are seen as defined by the relations only, while the divine substance remains ‘unmoved’: it is simply un-generated, from itself, in distinction to all non-divine things.96 Option (1) in understanding the Trinity was developed especially by the Franciscans (Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus),

93 94 95

96

the Trinity, but concluded in the negative (De Trinitate, xii. 5–12). Gregory of Nazianzus arrived at a similar conclusion, see his Oratio theologica, v. 10, so the alternative conclusion is, pace many presentday Trinitarian theologies, not Eastern. Richard of Saint-Victor, De Trinitate, vi. 23, ed. by Ribaillier, p. 261f. See above, esp. note 32. Richard is not always consistent here. Sometimes he simply alternates sentences like ‘God the Father produces God the Son’ and ‘God produces from himself a person’ (De Trinitate, vi. 17). But it does make a vital difference for his conception. If God is love and God therefore requires Another to have this love fulfilled, this Other can certainly not be another God. De Trinitate, i–ii has extensively argued that there can only be one God. So the subject of love definitely must be God the Father, and in such a way that the Other his love requires must be divine. Cf. Russell Friedman’s characterization of these two main rival views on the Trinity as the ‘emanational view’ and the ‘relational view’, in his Intellectual Traditions in the Medieval University: The Use of Philosophical Psychology in Trinitarian Theology among Franciscans and Dominicans, 1250–1350, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, vol. 108 1 and 108 2, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 2013), i. 1–46. The term ‘emanational’ is not very fortunate; it is derived from Bonaventure’s Trinitarian theology in particular, but does not sit well with Richard’s (who is its main source, according to Friedman), nor with Scotus’ (a fellow Franciscan). Cf. Markus Brun, ‘Actus purus principia caritative diligentis’. Trinitarische Theologie bei Bonaventura und ihr Ursprung bei Dionysius Pseudo-Areopagita und Richard von St.- Victor (Norderstedt: GRIN, 2005), who quotes Bonaventure saying that ‘Liebe ist, wie Richard sagt, eine sich frei verströmende Kraft’ and rightly comments: ‘Diese Definition muss erstaunen. Sie ist bei Richard wörtlich nirgends zu finden’ (p. 339). Later Brun claims that this Dionysian reading of love as vis liberaliter diffusiva is very much to the intention of Richard (p. 344, see also p. 520). To my mind Richard is much more ‘personalistic’. If, however, by ‘emanational’ is indicated the insight that the processions defining the persons comprise the whole divine nature, it is a useful term.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

option (2) by the Dominicans (Thomas Aquinas,97 Giles of Rome, Hervaeus Natalis). In (1) a divine person is defined by all his essential properties, like Richard does; in (2) a person is defined in terms of his distinctive essential property only (Aquinas, for instance, defines ‘person’ as relatio subsistens). It is clear that both options presuppose the move from Triad to Trinity, for both consider the Son not defined by only one mental power but by all three, comprising in fact the entire divine substance. The Son is truly and fully God. In its elaborations option (1) remains remarkably closer to the Augustinian project to understand the Trinitarian processions in terms of mental powers and dynamics. The Franciscans, especially since the end of the thirteenth century, usually took the ‘psychological trinity’ as a more or less proper description of the Trinity, whereas the Dominicans took it as an analogy. It is also clear that both options are liable to a basic self-contradiction. In (1) the main problem is how one person in his entirety, so including his substance, can be ‘from the other’ without duplicating the substance. In (2) the main problem is how one person can be ‘from the other’ without any giving or receiving of the substance. Last but not least, it is clear that both views remain within the Augustinian-Anselmian-Richardian view of the triune God as one individual supreme Spirit, with one intellect and one will. Let us just glance at one elaboration of one aspect of Richard’s Trinitarian theology in one of these views. John Duns Scotus resumed Richard’s analysis of love, but he did not apply it to God’s inner life as a Trinity. The Beloved and Co-beloved required by supreme love are identified as the soul of Christ and each human being who becomes Christ’s brother or sister.98 Scotus maintains that supreme love requires an other, but he does not seem to be convinced that this other can be found in God. It is remarkable that Scotus, who generally is quite congenial to Richard, becomes exceptionally sharp in his rejection of Richard’s idea of mutuality as a requirement for perfect love. Scotus appeals to the very Augustinian-Richardian argument that, if love requires another person for being perfect, the Father can only be perfect and happy through the Son and hence, not by himself, not by his own perfect being as

97 Thomas Aquinas’ reassessment of Richard illustrates a shift in Trinitarian theology around 1250, so just before the period described by Friedman. Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure and the young Aquinas followed Richard closely, except that the Richardian notion of caritas was largely replaced by the Pseudo-Dionysian notion of bonum diffusivum sui (see note 96). The mature Aquinas and most theologians after him, including Franciscans, returned to an Augustinian analysis of the perfect mind. So both the ‘emanational’ and the ‘relational’ view are still close to the ‘psychological’ view, the third category pointed out by Friedman; they all move within the idea of the trinity as the internal make-up of the one supreme Spirit. The emanational view is closer to Richard and to the psychological view in that the analysis of perfect knowing and willing really leads to processions, God-encompassing productions, not just relations. 98 More about this Richard-reception by Scotus in the article mentioned in n. 37. In Duns Scotus, Reportatio Parisiensis, iii. 7, q. 4. n. 5, in Opera omnia, xxiii, ed. by L. Wadding (Paris: Vivès, 1894), xxiii, 303) Scotus says: ‘In the first instance [of nature] God loves himself. In the second instance he loves himself in others, and this is pure love. In the third he wills to be loved by an other who can love him optimally (I speak of the love of someone outside God).’ According to Scotus this ‘other’ refers to Christ, that is, the soul of Christ (anima Christi).

245

246

n ico de n bo k

God.99 Besides, more clearly than Richard (or Bonaventure or Aquinas) Scotus realizes that there is a distinction between free and natural activity, between contingency and necessity. This distinction must exist in God’s own being for he has the power to choose; the act of his free will must be contingent. His simplicity is safeguarded by his immutability (like Richard claims), for not only God’s substance but also the act of his free will is immutable. Yet this raises the question if there is contingency or necessity in the immutable (eternal) Trinitarian relations. Are generating and proceeding free or necessary acts? Richard does not address this question, but Scotus, like his contemporaries, gives an unambiguous answer: they must be necessary acts.100 Choice is only involved in the divine acts with respect to the non-divine: creating, revealing, sending (God’s acts ad extra). But if the divine persons have no free activity with respect to each other, how can they love each other? The Great Counter-Offensive

The second revival of interest in Richard’s Trinitarian theology arrives in the second half of the twentieth century. Paradoxically, the start of this ‘Renaissance of trinitarian theology’101 is usually located in the theologies of Karl Barth and Karl Rahner, who are remarkably different from most Trinitarian theologians after them. These theologians show how the Joachite view on the Trinity can make its come-back with a vengeance. Much more detailed than Joachim and with an astonishing diversity of views, they share the idea that the triune God can best be understood as a social reality, whose image in creation is the family or the church, not the human person or soul.102 Barth and Rahner, however, rejected this ‘social Trinity’ explicitly.103

99 Dun Scotus, Ordinatio, i. 12. 32, in Opera Omnia, v (Vatican: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1959) referring to De Trinitate, iii. 3 and iii. 16. Scotus even says that Richard, if he really means his claim of mutuality, would be heretical — which probably means: would run against Lateran IV, and by implication against the Trinitarian dogma of the early church. 100 See e.g. Russell Friedman, ‘The Voluntary Emanation of the Holy Spirit: Views of Natural Necessity and Voluntary Freedom at the Turn of the Thirteenth Century’, in Trinitarian Theology in the Medieval West, ed. by Pekka Käkkäinen, Schriften der Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft, 61 (Helsinki: LutherAgricola-Seura, 2008), pp. 124–48. See also Antoon Vos, H. Veldhuis, E. Dekker, N. W. den Bok, and A. J. Beck, eds, Duns Scotus on Divine Love: Texts and Commentary on Goodness and Freedom, God and Humans (London: Routledge, 2003), ch. 6. 101 See e.g. Herwi Rikhof, ‘The Current Renaissance of the Theology of the Trinity: A Reconstruction’, Bijdragen. International Journal in Philosophy and Theology, 70 (2009), 423–57. 102 Just two examples: Marc cardinal Ouellet, Mystery and Sacrament of Love: A Theology of Marriage and the Family for the New Evangelization, trans. by Michelle Boras and Adrian Walker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015); John Franke, ‘Good News for All People: Trinity, Plurality, and Mission’, in  Revisioning, Renewing, and Rediscovering the Triune Center: Essays in Honor of Stanley J. Grenz, ed. by D. Tidball, B. Harris, and J. Sexton (Eugene: Cascade Book, 2014), pp. 59–78. 103 See e.g. Karl Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik II 1: Die Lehre von Gott, 1st edn (Zürich: Evangelisch, 1940), p. 334 (my translation): ‘The Christian church never taught that in God there are three persons and therefore three personalities in the sense of a threefold ‘I’, a threefold subject. That would be tritheism […] There are no three Faces, but only one Face, not three Wills, only one Will […]’. For an English translation of Barth’s work, see Church Dogmatics II: The Doctrine of God, Part 2: Election of God. The

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

Most social trinitarianists consider person a relational being.104 Many return to a dogmatic position before the dogma of the Trinity was formulated, like Abelard who liked to mirror himself in Origen. Remarkably, very few adherents of social trinitarianism refer to Joachim — and only some of them refer to Richard for that matter. References to Richard are often charged with, or complemented by, the notions of perichoresis, kenosis, and mutuality, which are all non-Richardian (although on mutuality Richard is ambiguous, as we have seen).105 It is clear that the first two notions are used as counterweight to the tritheistic tendency inherent in any social view of the Trinity, for these notions seem to safeguard the unity of substance in a social setting. An example of this Richard-reception is Michael Meerson, who discusses late twentieth-century Western theologians like Leonardo Boff, Walter Kasper and Jürgen Moltmann and compares them to theologians of the Russian ‘Silver Age’, like Wladimir Solovyov, Nicolai Berdjayev, and Sergei Bulgakov. Meerson concludes that all of them are pretty much in alignment with each other due to their resourcing in Richard and other exponents of medieval love-mysticism. Interestingly, Meerson is convinced that this ‘social’ interpretation of Richard and its general acceptance by both Eastern and Western theologians, potentially solve the disagreement on the filioque.106 Few social trinitarianists are as outspoken as Richard Swinburne. He explicitly refers to Richard when he states that the requirement of perfect and perfectly fulfilled love requires the existence (in fact, the production) of three divine individuals.107 He does not seem to see that this runs against Richard’s case for God’s oneness, in particular the exposition of danielitas stating that the divine substance is even more individual than the ‘haecceity’ or ‘thisness’ defining a human person.108 For Swinburne, divinity, the divine nature, is a unique species

104 105

106 107 108

Command of God, trans. by Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance (London: Clark, 2004). For Karl Rahner, see e.g. Der dreifaltige Gott als transzendenter Urgrund der Heilsgeschichte, in Mysterium Salutis, ii (Zürich: Benzinger, 1967), p. 342 (my translation): ‘The expression “three persons” runs almost inevitably into the danger […] that in God there are three distinct consciousnesses, three spiritual centres of life and activity […]’. For positioning Barth and Rahner see Den Bok, Communicating the Most High, pp. 18–25. Some of them define person in exclusively relational terms, e.g. René Laurentin, Traité sur la Trinité. Principe, modèle et terme de tout amour (Paris: Fayard, 2000). Declan Marmion and Rik van Nieuwenhove rightfully observe that ‘Richard does seem to suggest that the Spirit loves (rependit) the other Persons, albeit with a love that is utterly “received”. This, however, raises the question whether he can still maintain the personal distinction between the Son and the Spirit within the Trinity’. True, if love is fully reciprocal, the filioque cannot be defended anymore. Marmion and Nieuwenhove add that this make them more reserved to Richardinterpretations such as Moltmann’s that appeal to him as a precursor of the social model. See Marmion and van Nieuwenhove, An Introduction to the Trinity, p. 104. See Michael A. Meerson, The Trinity of Love in Modern Russian Theology: The Love Paradigm and the Retrieval of Western Mysticism in Modern Russian Trinitarian Thought (from Solovyov to Bulgakov) (Quincy: Franciscan Press, 1998), for the appeal to Richard, see pp. 23, p. 26, p. 28; 176, p. 246, p. 290. See Richard Swinburne, The Christian God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 190–91. ‘Haecceity’ or ‘thisness’, essential individuality, is a term coined by Scotus and resumed by Swinburne, e.g. The Christian God, pp. 33–50, pp. 188–89.

247

2 48

n ico de n bo k

— something Richard emphatically denies. Most social trinitarianists are more implicit, however. Some, like Hans Urs von Balthasar, counterbalance their ‘social tendency’ by stating that the divine substance is the Father’s being which he not only gives (as Richard affirms), but even gives away (which Richard explicitly denies), so that the divine persons give and receive their entire being from each other in a joyful self-emptying (a notion absent in Richard).109 Balthasar is less clear than for instance Moltmann in the claim that this giving and receiving requires full mutuality. Others state that persons are beings-in-relation, like Markus Mühling who recurs to Richard for this definition, whereas in him the relational aspect of person only indicates from where a person has its being.110 Mühling claims, wrongly, that Richard’s concept of divine substance does not include individuality.111 Most social trinitarianists do not discuss the main topic of my contribution: the relation between mental powers and persons, or they address only one aspect: self-consciousness.112 Conclusion

We have seen that Richard decidedly joins the Augustinian-Anselmian view of the triune God as one individual supreme Spirit, with one intellect and one free will, and three personae. In modern terminology this could best be rendered by one (non-corporeal) person with three personae. In modern times a person is generally taken to be an individual being endowed with free will and self-consciousness. This is most clear in anthropology: one individual, one will, one self, one person. In the modern ‘person’ the famous Boethian definition of person has in fact made its come-back, but with a major difference. In modernity an aspect of the Boethian person is taken from its circumference to its centre, namely, the aspect of activity, especially of free, self-chosen activity. In Boethius’ definition this aspect is only implicit, as part of the ‘rational nature’ that every person has or is. When the Boethian person returns in modernity, the aspect of free activity is not only made explicit, but also considered the distinctive personal property. A person is now seen

109 See Den Bok, ‘Das Opfer der Person. Grund und Grenze der Selbstübergabe im Denken Hans Urs von Balthasars’, in Wie beeinflusst die Christusoffenbarung das franziskanische Verständnis der Person, ed. by Herbert Schneider, Veröffentlichungen der Johannes Duns Scotus Akademie für franziskanische Geistesgeschichte und Spiritualität, 16, (Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 2004), pp. 100–48. Hans Urs von Balthasar translated Richard’s De Trinitate and positioned him in Theologik II: Wahrheit Gottes, (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1985), pp. 37–40, as precursor of the dialogical view of man. 110 ‘Richard’s system of concepts is nothing less than on ontological revolution’, Markus MühlingSchlapkohl, Liebesgeschichte Gott. Systematische Theologie im Konzept, Forschungen zur systematischen und ökumenischen Theologie, 141 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), p. 98; cf also pp. 117 and 125. 111 See Markus Mühling, Gott ist Liebe. Studien zum Verständnis der Liebe als Modell des trinitarischen Redens von Gott, Marburger theologische Studien, 58 (Marburg: N. G. Elwert, 2000), pp. 142–77, esp. p. 159. 112 They consider the awareness of being an ‘I/me’ as most defining for being a subject, a person.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

as an agent of free activity — which is primarily mental activity rooted in willing; a person is a subject.113 For an adequate understanding of the second major moment in the reception of Richard’s Trinitarian theology it is important to see, that this modern-Boethian concept of person can be detected not only in the views of those who reject social trinitarianism, but also in social trinitarianism itself. Some make it explicit in their concept of person, and then its tritheistic implications become evident (as in Swinburne). Others leave it out of the concept of person, but without relocating it in the divine substance, and then its de-personalizing implications become evident (for instance, in Wolfhart Pannenberg).114 So on both sides of the twentieth century divide in Trinitarian theology — which is dominated by personalist categories pitching ‘individualistic’ against ‘social’ — a conception of person is used that Richard, and classical Trinitarian theology in general, does not have. Let me illustrate how the modern concept of person made its entrance in Trinitarian theology by referring briefly to two American theologians in early Modernity: Jonathan Edwards and William Ellery Channing. Only twenty years old, Edwards formulated a view on the Trinity which he would never basically change: ‘One alone cannot be excellent, inasmuch as, in such case, there can be no consent. Therefore, if God is excellent, there must be a plurality in God; otherwise, there can be no consent in him’.115 As we have seen, Richard agrees with the first part of the first sentence, but only seen from the requirement of love. The second part would imply, for Richard, that each divine person has a free will, for one can only consent by one’s own free will, which must be denied for there is only one free will in God.

113 ‘Subject’ was a scholastic term, too (subjectum), synonymous with supposit (suppositum), which in turn was another word for persona. The connection with acting is clear from the scholastic axiom: actiones sunt suppositorum. Cf. also Alain de Libera, L’invention du sujet moderne, Cours du Collège de France 2013–2014, (Paris: Vrin, 2015). Still, in premodern times there was hardly any explicit and direct connection with free will. In fact, Augustine and other church fathers followed the rule that the free acts of God (ad extra) are indivisible, they belong not the divine persons distinctly, but to God as such (see also above, n. 16). 114 For Wolfhart Pannenberg, see e.g. Systematische Theologie, vol. i (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1988), where he, after claiming that ‘the Trinitarian life in God cannot be seen as different modes of a single divine Subject, but must be understood as life-processes of independent centres of activity’ continues by explaining these life-processes in terms of a physicist metaphor as ‘three appearances within one force field’ (347, p. 415, my translation). 115 Quoted by Amy Plantinga Pauw in her ‘“One alone cannot be excellent”: Edwards on Divine Simplicity’, in Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian, ed. by Paul Helm and Oliver Crisp (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), p. 155. The modern notion of person in Trinitarian theology may already be detected in the seventeenth century, e.g. in John Owen (cf. Alan Spencer, Incarnation and Inspiration: John Owen and the Coherence of Christology (London: T & T Clark, 2007), p. 132: ‘Owen’s theology is able to treat of the Son in his incarnate work and the Spirit in the fulfilment of his office as the distinct agents of their own activity’), or in those ‘Covenant theologians’ who take the pactum salutis not as an analogy, but as a literal truth about God’s Trinitarian life (cf. David Engelsma, Trinity and Covenant – God as Holy Family ( Jenison: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2006).

249

250

n ico de n bo k

A century after Edwards, Channing writes his defence of Unitarian Christianity claiming in one of its major theses: We believe in the doctrine of God’s unity, or that there is one God, and one only. To this truth we give infinite importance […] We object to the doctrine of the Trinity, that, whilst acknowledging in words, it subverts in effect, the unity of God. According to this doctrine, there are three infinite and equal persons, possessing supreme divinity, called the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. […] Here, then, we have three intelligent agents, possessed of different consciousnesses, different wills, and different perceptions, performing different acts, and sustaining different relations.116 Clearly Channing takes person in a modern sense and then reads the traditional doctrine of the Trinity as claiming that there are three such persons and yet one God.117 If the choice is put in terms of this notion of person, most classical theologians would be Unitarians too. The only difference is that, although they, too, see God as one perfect non-physical person (in Channing’s terminology), this person nevertheless exists in three personae — who for Channing become quite meaningless. He in fact falls back on the divine mental properties and their excellence — on the Triad — and considers the Trinity a self-contradictory post-biblical construct. Though Channing lived in the early nineteenth century, at this point he shows a similarity with the revival of Trinitarian theology in the twentieth century; for he, too, feels it necessary to choose either a ‘social’ or a ‘psychological’ view on the Trinity. Only the table of preference has turned: the social model is now favourite.118 The middle ground of classical theology has been lost.119 As we have seen, Richard and the tradition before him consider a divine person as comprising his entire individual mind-gifted substance or nature. In modern times an essential but non-distinctive property of this traditional ‘person’ has become its distinctive personal property. The main concern of the church fathers that medieval theologians inherited was to safeguard the idea that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are equally God, so that their ‘person’ must indeed comprise the entire divine being. The main concern for modern theologians is safeguarding God’s free activity. When this notion is put in the centre of the concept of person, a choice becomes inevitable: who is in fact the free agent, a divine person or God?

116 William Ellery Channing, ‘Unitarian Christianity (1819)’, in The Complete Works of William Ellery Channing (London: Routledge, 1884), p. 280 (right column). 117 Channing may very well have read or sensed this view in the orthodox Trinitarian theologians of his day. 118 There is a remarkable resemblance between Swinburne and Channing in framing the question; but Swinburne accepts what Channing rejects, namely that there are three divine individuals each having their own intellect, will and power. 119 Some twentieth-century Trinitarian theologians tried to locate a middle ground between God as one perfect person and God as three perfect persons (‘person’ taken in a modern sense). To my mind this is not possible.

f ro m t ri ad to t ri ni t y

The semantic shift from the classical Trinitarian persona to the modern person indicates a watershed in conceptualizing the Trinity. In modern terms the patristic-medieval view of the Trinity is rendered best by saying that the one supreme non-corporeal person has (or exists in) three persona’s comprising his entire being in virtue of two mental processions. With this formulation Richard would basically agree. His most innovating contribution to Trinitarian theology, the analysis of ‘God is love’, was meant to address ‘the critical hour’ in the development of Trinitarian theology during his own decades, namely, to give a convincing rationale for the move from Triad to Trinity, that is, from the view that each divine person is a constitutive part of the one supreme Spirit, to the view that each divine person is the one supreme Spirit in his own way of internal origination.120 And the one supreme Spirit is the only one in his kind.

120 For rethinking Richard’s achievement this would reopen the question (cf. note 18) whether ‘God is love’ at its highest level refers to a specific kind of self-love after all, a love of God for God.

25 1

Kyle Rader

Free and Abundant Love Constructive Considerations on the Four Degrees of Violent Love

Richard of St Victor’s promise for contemporary theology would seem to be in his treatise On the Trinity, a work which has indeed attracted the attention of a number of theologians (mostly Catholic), who have attempted to give an account of that doctrine and its import for theology and the church.1 But as important and interesting as is the work on the Trinity, this essay will argue that what Richard has to offer the current theological moment is best gleaned from another, much shorter treatise, On the Four Degrees of Violent Charity. The two works are related. Both examine human subjectivity and find that loving self-transcendence is the highest good for which one might strive. Whereas Book iii of On the Trinity then argues that such a good could not be lacking in God and goes on to work out Richard’s understanding of the Trinity as the realization of the necessary plurality and equality in one divine substance, the Four Degrees mostly remains on the level of human love and its potential for communion with God and one’s fellow creatures. Bernard McGinn called the Four Degrees the ‘mystical corollary’ to Richard’s breakthrough in On the Trinity.2 I go farther and argue that the understanding of love in the Four Degrees advances Richard’s thought in important ways. First, it brings to awareness an implicit problem in On the Trinity, that of whether human beings are capable of anything like the ‘supreme charity’ by which Richard understands the Trinity. If that were not the case, then it would be unclear how Richard is able to make an argument about the character of





1 Some examples would be Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, trans. by Matthew O’Connell (New York: Crossroad, 1984), Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Richard’s influence is evident throughout, but especially noticeable in Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory II: Dramatis Personae: Man in God, trans. by Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1990). 2 Bernard McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism: From Gregory the Great through the 12th Century, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, vol. ii (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1994), p. 413. Kyle Rader  •  ([email protected]) is a candidate for the priesthood in the Episcopal Church, who completed his PhD at the University of Chicago (2016), where he studied constructive and historical theology. Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus, ed. by Robert J. Porwoll and David Allison Orsbon, CURSOR 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 253–266 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.122089

254

k yl e r a de r

divine love based on experiences of human love.3 A further problem with Richard’s account of love in On the Trinity is that, while acknowledging the limitations of language, it seems to imply a certain deficiency in each of the three persons of the Trinity which their love for the others remedies: the Father would be a lonely God if not for the Son and Holy Spirit, the Son and the Holy Spirit not loving with a free love, but with one that is owed. Though Richard claims that their love is based on freedom and abundance, there is an important question of whether his account of the love of the Trinity is actually based on deficiency and debt. But in his treatise on The Four Degrees of Violent Charity, Richard shows how we can love one another in the fourth and highest degree by coming to share in God’s love. Truly fulfilling love is thus available for human beings, and love lifts reason to the contemplation of the greatest and deepest of mysteries, and demonstrates the gratuity of love for one’s equals, allowing us to nudge Richard toward an understanding of love as pleasure coming from abundance on both the divine and human levels, and not as an ill-fated desire for the impossible. Furthermore, we will use the experience of love described in the Four Degrees to better interpret the archetype in The Trinity.

The Four Degrees The Four Degrees of Violent Charity4 is a meditative5 treatise that Richard of Saint-Victor wrote around 1170, probably shortly after On the Trinity. Dating the chronology of Richard’s works from this period is notoriously difficult,6 but On the Four Degrees seems to presume the logic of personhood developed in the work on the Trinity. The basic device of the treatise is a discussion of the structure of love, which as the title suggests, is explained as having four degrees. The four degrees are discussed first with reference to love of the creaturely, and then to the love of God. In each case, the structure is the same. The juxtaposition of caritas and violens in the title is meant to





3 This problem is dealt with by the most extensive treatment of the text of which I am aware: Ewart Cousins, ‘A Theology of Interpersonal Relations’, Thought, 45.1 (1970), 56–82. Though it is an extremely helpful article, I will take a different approach. 4 The critical edition is Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, ed. and trans. by Gervais Dumeige, in Ives, Épître à Séverin sur la charité; Richard de Saint-Victor, Les quatre degrés de la violente charité, TPMA, 3 (Paris: Vrin, 1955), pp. 126–77. Cited in translation as ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans by Andrew B. Kraebel, in On Love: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Adam, Achard, Richard, and Godfrey of St Victor, ed. by Hugh Feiss O.S.B., VTT, 2 (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2012) pp. 261–300. Citations are to paragraph numbers in the critical edition and page numbers in Kraebel. 5 ‘Meditative’ is here meant in a technical Victorine sense of focused thought on nature, scripture, or oneself (or all three at once, in light of each other). One of the great advances of Victorine spirituality was the development of meditation as the link between reading and contemplation. One sees how the Victorines move in both monastic and scholastic thought-worlds. See Hugh of Saint-Victor’s treatise ‘On Meditation’, trans. by Frans van Liere, in Writings on the Spiritual Life: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Adam, Achard, Richard, Walter, and Godfrey of St Victor, ed. by Christopher Evans, VTT, 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 381–94. 6 See Pierluigi Cacciapuoti, ‘Deus existentia amoris’: teologia della carità e teologia della trinità negli scritti di Riccardo di San Vittore (+1173), BV, 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), pp. 94–95.

f re e and ab u ndant love

be jarring. Following the patristic tradition of both east and west, Richard sees both divine and disordered love as having the same basic structure.7 Violence or vehemence is characteristic of both. He likewise calls both excellent.8 Profoundly aware of the human capacity for self-deception, Richard shows how both ordered and disordered love look very much alike. Indeed, in their higher degrees, both appear as a sort of madness. But it can either be a madness that destroys all relationships or one that enables true communion with God and others. This treatise is an ascetic manual, offering practical advice on distinguishing the two and cultivating divine love. Like Richard’s earlier meditations on ecstatic contemplation, it is a guide to what van’t Spijker calls ‘composition’ of one’s interior life.9 It is a pattern for giving form and thus coherence to the chaotic matter of one’s life. But whereas contemplation in the earlier books is the fruit of the intellectual faculty — while ultimately transcending that faculty — the Four Degrees considers contemplation in terms of love. Affect is certainly important in his earlier works, and intellect remains important here. But as we have said, Richard now writes in Four Degrees after having discovered in On the Trinity the epistemic potential of love for reasoning about even the highest mysteries of the faith. Now he shows its contemplative potential: ‘The heart ha[d] its reasons’ five centuries before Pascal.10 But unlike Pascal, Richard did not consider the heart’s reasons inaccessible to reason. Each requires the other. The four degrees of violent love are characterized by increasing intensity and exclusivity. In the first degree, love ‘wounds’. In this state, Nonne tibi corde percussus videtur, quando igneus ille amoris aculeus mentem hominis medullitus penetrat, affectumque transverberat, in tantum ut desiderii sui estus cohibere vel dissimulare omnio non valeat? Do you not think that the heart appears to be pierced when that fiery sting of love penetrates one’s mind to the core of his being and transfixes his feelings, so much so that he is completely incapable of containing or concealing the boiling of his desire.11

7 A prominent western example is Augustine, who discusses the matter in many places, e.g. De Trinitate, ix. 8, 13, 14, ed. by W. J. Mountain, CCSL, 50–50a (Turnhout: Brepols,1990); for an influential Eastern account, see Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names, iv. 12, in Corpus Dionysiacum / Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, ed. by G. Heil and A. M. Ritter, 3 vols (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991), i. 8 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 17, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 282. 9 Ineke van ’t Spijker, Fictions of the Inner Life: Religious Literature and the Formation of the Self in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), p. 9. 10 Blaise Pascal, Pascal’s Pensées (New York: Dutton, 1958), iv, 277. 11 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 6, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, pp. 276–77. The translator parenthetically gives Richard’s Latin word for love whenever it is not caritas, but I have chosen to omit this in my quotations. Because of the univocal structure of love, Richard is able to use caritas, dilligentia, amor, and emulatio more or less interchangeably.



25 5

2 56

k yl e r a de r

It cannot be willed away. But whether this wounding love be a taste of divine sweetness, a teenager’s infatuation, or a scholar’s uncontainable excitement when the pieces of her argument finally fit together, it is a temporary state and can be avoided. When it conflicts with one’s other loves, or with what one knows to be good for oneself and others, Richard counsels his canons to rescue themselves from it through honestas occupationes quam meditationes (useful and honest occupations and meditations).12 The key is constant vigilance. The second degree, ‘binding love’, is more intense than the first in that it is constant. It tinges all of experience, even though one is still able to love and attend to other things. And when one wishes to resist love in the second degree, one’s recourse is to actions of mercy. In the third degree, ‘languishing love’, love becomes exclusive. The mind nichil animo satisfacere potest preter unum (loves nothing besides the one or on account of the one), and moreover, nichil sapere nisi propter unum (it cannot know anything but on account of the one).13 Cum frui potest eo quod diligit, omnia pariter habere se credit. Sine illo horrent omnia, sordent universa (When a man is able to enjoy what he loves, he believes himself to have all things simultaneously. Without it, all things are horrible, all things are soiled).14 Because it not only ‘binds thought’, but ‘dissolves action’, the only recourse is prayer. But there is a fourth degree, in which love no longer has any limit whatsoever, such that even the thing loved cannot satisfy it, and the poor lover cannot even pray, though the prayer of others may avail. One aspect that makes Four Degrees so interesting for constructive theology is Richard’s concern for how these degrees of love enable or undermine community. In the parlance of our times, we might say that the third degree is obsessive and the fourth is addictive. The more exclusive and intense one’s love, the more it actually isolates one from any sort of community. Richard gives the example of a marriage which is unhappy, although marriage is an inherently good thing and the spouses love one another. In Richard’s example, the spouses love each other in the fourth degree. They therefore love one another intensely, exclusively, and insatiably. It is, in every sense, true love. Nothing could satisfy either of them except the other. But as such, neither of them can or should be what the other needs them to be: In hoc statu amor sepe in odium transit, dum mutuo desiderio nichil satisfacere possit… Immo, quod magis mirum est, sepe sub uno eodemque tempore sic odiunt ut tamen per desiderium estuare non desinant et sic diligunt ut tamen velut ex odio persequi non desistant. In this state love often turns to hate, while nothing can satisfy their mutual desire…Still more amazingly, often at the same time, they hate one another

12 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 8, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 278. 13 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 10, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, pp. 278–79. 14 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 10, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, pp. 278–79.

f re e and ab u ndant love

though they never cease to boil with desire, and they love one another though they continue to attack one another as if out of hatred.15 Richard thus anticipated by over eight centuries the most read article on the New York Times website in 2016: [We must abandon] the founding Romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of marriage has been based the last two and a half centuries: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning… Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.16 Richard is of course not writing to married laypeople, but to canons in community, where a similar principle applies. Obsessive or addictive love, even of something that is inherently good, is love that comes from a position of want or deficiency. Because love enables or distorts reasoning, it is easy for the nature of that deficiency to be misunderstood, which also entails misunderstanding others and oneself. It makes the beloved, however earnestly loved, into an instrument at the service of one’s distorted sense of self. God’s love, on the other hand, and our love when we love in God’s way, loves from abundance and desires others not for the sake of remedying a lack in oneself, but for the purpose of delighting in them and sharing that delight. This abundant love will be a crucial point when we return to a consideration of the Trinity. This language of self is potentially anachronistic. For present purposes, I leave to the historians the question of when something like a modern ‘self ’ appeared, though the twelfth century is certainly a major time of transformation in understandings of subjectivity, interiority, and experience.17 But for now, let us say that whatever sense of a self existed among the writers and readers of Victorine literature, it is not some sort of irreducible authenticity but is, to use Van’t Spijker’s language regarding affect and experience in the twelfth century, subject to ‘composition’. This compositional self becomes evident when we look at Richard’s counsels and cautions concerning the degrees. While it should always be treated with watchfulness, the first degree of

15 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 16, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, pp. 281–82. 16 Alain de Botton, ‘Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person’, The New York Times Sunday Review, 28 May 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/why-you-will-marry-the-wrongperson.html?_r = 0 (accessed 16 February 2017). Consider also the following comment on the article, which is an excellent statement of Richard’s insight, or at least half of it: ‘Very early on, my therapist of 8 years told me that we can never get enough love, that our capacity for love far exceeds what our partners, our friends and our family can possibly give to us. Grasping this, and internalizing it, can alleviate a lot of disappointment. It’s far more important to take care of ourselves, to love ourselves in a way that others cannot’ ( JS, Seatle. 29 May 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/ sunday/why-you-will-marry-the-wrong-person.html#permid = 18681344, accessed 16 February 2017). 17 The best study is Van ’t Spijker’s Fictions of the Inner Life. There was certainly introspection before the twelfth century, as Augustine’s Confessions and, more recently, Anselm of Canterbury’s work both exhibit. But it is in the twelfth century that the interior life becomes subject not only to observation, but formation through disciplines such as those practiced at Saint-Victor.

25 7

258

k yl e r a de r

love can be appropriate for a creaturely object.18 We noted that love in this degree is sometimes absent. But when it attacks, it ‘softens the mind’ little by little, always remaining present in memory. The poor mind is counselled to find other occupations, otherwise ‘it occupies the mind with the constant memory of itself, hems the mind in entirely’, and thus increases to the second degree. In Augustinian fashion, unresisted habit becomes compulsion through the medium of memory.19 Frequent acquiescence leads to higher degrees, and the habitual becomes natural. This is true whether we are speaking of creaturely love or the love of God, so that the trajectory of one’s life need not be unidirectional. This sort of dynamism is characteristic of twelfth century programmes of spirituality.20 The upshot of this Richardian compositional view is that rather than being a stable given to be discovered, the self with its affects is something that is cultivated, for good or ill. If the love of creatures in the higher degrees counterintuitively cuts one off from meaningful communion with one’s fellow human beings — as Richard believed — then, the love of God in the same degrees of exclusivity is what makes community with other people (and indeed, with all of creation) possible. God is able to be what human beings need to satisfy their infinite longings, something impossible for other beings. The stages are the same, only the object and the result differ. Like other twelfth-century writers on love such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Richard describes God as wooing or even seducing human beings into loving God. This is done through bona nature, gratie et glorie (the blessings of nature, grace, and glory).21 He describes these as Solomon’s ‘threefold cord’ (Ecclesiastes 4. 12). Broken by sin, the cords are multiplied by the mysteries of redemption: Contulit nobis bona sua, pertulit pro nobis mala nostra ut ex utroque sibi obnoxios redderet et de bonis que contulit nobis et pro malis que pertulit pro nobis (He conferred his blessings upon us and endured our evils for us, so that in both ways he could restore the guilty to himself — by both the blessings conferred upon us and the evils that he endured for us).22 God’s advance in Jesus appeals to both our rational and affective faculties and requires a response from all of them. Whereas in mortal matters, feeling often precedes the decision to love, it is the reverse when loving God. One must first love with consideration (ex deliberatione) before being able to love with feeling (ex affectione). Following the language of the Great Commandment, he assigns deliberatio to the heart and affectio to the soul, identifying these with the second and third degrees. The fourth degree is to love with all one’s strength, which can 18 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 18, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, pp. 282–83. 19 See Augustine of Hippo, Confessionum libri XII, viii. v. 10, ed. by L. Verheijen, CCSL, 27 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981). 20 For example, see Bernard of Clairvaux’s inversion of St Benedict’s steps of humility in the Rule (§ 7). The same stations can be either rungs descending into pride or ascending to humility, depending on which direction one is traveling. See ‘On the Steps of Humility and Pride’, in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, trans. by Gillian R. Evans (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 99–144. 21 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 5, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 276. 22 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 5, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 276.

f re e and ab u ndant love

only follow upon loving with all the heart and soul. Strength (virtus) is not assigned to any particular faculty, the fourth degree being an all-encompassing love. Love is both rational and affective, requiring and integrating the two.23 Each degree of love makes possible a new relationship to God. In the first degree, when one loves with deliberation and affect but only partially, one sitit deum (thirsts for God) which means desiring the experience of quae sit illa interna dulcedo que mentem hominis inebriare solet (what that internal sweetness might be that often intoxicates the mind). One sitit ad deum (thirsts toward God) when one desires not only to experience divine sweetness within itself, but per contemplationis gratiam supra se elevari (to be lifted above itself through the grace of contemplation). Thirsting into God (in deum) is to desire to pass over into God through the ecstasy of the mind (per mentis excessum tota in deum transire concupiscit). Finally, one thirsts in God’s way (sitit secundum deum), about which more will be said shortly.24

The Problem Richard’s most famous work, at least among theologians, is his treatise On the Trinity (De Trinitate).25 This work makes a set of moves similar to those St Anselm made in his Proslogion, offering rationes necessariae (necessary reasons) for what is believed by faith.26 He does this as part of a Victorine programme of meditation, which along with moral formation, is to lead to contemplation. He is driven by love to understand what he holds by faith.27 He did not intend to prove the doctrine of the Trinity from the ground up.28 He expands on Anselm with one of his initial premises, that God is not only that than which nothing greater [maius], but also nothing better [melior]

23 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 24, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 285. 24 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 28, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 287. 25 Richard of Saint Victor, La Trinité: Texte Latin, Introduction, et Notes, ed. by Gaston Salet S. J., SC, 63 (Paris: Cerf, 1959). Translation: Richard of St Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, trans. by Christopher Evans, in Trinity and Creation: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Richard, and Adam of St Victor, ed. by Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter, VTT, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 195–382. 26 Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, i. 4, ed. by Christopher Evans, in Trinity and Creation: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Richard, and Adam of St Victor, ed. by Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter, VTT, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), p. 215; For Anslem’s project see Monologion, Prol., in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, ed. by Brian Davies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), § 1–2; Proslogion, Prol., in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, ed. by Brian Davies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), § 1–2; See also: Marcia Colish, The Mirror of Language: A Study of the Medieval Theory of Knowledge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 92–103. 27 Richard explains in the prologue of On the Trinity. The other essays in this volume offer a fuller picture of the Victorine programme, and Nico den Bok’s essay introduces On the Trinity and Richard’s other trinitarian works more fully. 28 See Marilyn McCord Adams, ‘Praying the Proslogion: Anselm’s Theological Method’, in The Rationality of Belief and the Plurality of Faith, ed. by Thomas Senor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 13–39.

259

26 0

k yl e r a de r

can be thought.29 While Anselm considered God in terms of greatness, Richard is considering God in terms of greatness and goodness. It is through the consideration of goodness that he is able to discuss the Trinity. In Book III, he argues that there must be a plurality of co-equal divine persons based on the consideration of goodness, happiness, and glory. Since nihil… caritate melius (nothing is better than charity), ubi autem totius bonitatis plenitudo est, vera et summa caritas deesse non potest (where the fullness of goodness is, true and supreme charity cannot be lacking).30 Taking as axiomatic Gregory the Great’s statement that self-love cannot be charity, he claims that God requires some other who can be loved.31 This other cannot be creation or any part of creation, because in order for love to be supreme, its object must be supremely lovable.32 Richard then deploys in rational argument what we encountered as a principle of the spiritual life in the Four Degrees, where he explained that nothing creaturely should be loved in anything higher than the first degree. Supreme charity therefore requires a plurality of divine persons. He had already shown in Book ii that there can only be one God, and now in Book iii he argues from the need for perfect equality that the plurality of persons be equal and one in substance. In a famous move, he then argues that a supreme love requires a third party, for which he coins the term ‘co-beloved’ (condilectus). A supremely blessed lover would not be content with loving and being loved, but would want another to be loved by the beloved as well. In order for this to be case, there must be a third who is equal to the first two and of one substance.33 Controversial though it be (and perhaps rightly), let it be noted on what basis he argues: a Trinity is more pleasant, more joyful than a duality.34 The psalm cannot have been far from his mind: ‘How very good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity’.35 It is, at bottom, an argument from pleasure. The problem is that while Richard is interrogating human experience in order to elucidate what faith teaches, it seems that the sort of blessedness that comes from a supreme ordered charity is not and cannot be a feature of human experience. While this would not negate the truth of what Richard takes faith to teach, it would undermine his aim of demonstrating that truth. No human being can experience supreme charity if, as on Richard’s account, supreme charity requires that one who is supremely lovable be supremely loved by someone who is equally lovable and capable of such a love. The reason for this is what Richard has told us: human beings 29 Anselm defines God as id quod nihil maior cogitari potest and comes to realize that God is not just the greatest possible thought, but that than which nothing greater can be thought. While Anselm’s notion of greatness would involve goodness, Richard places greater functional emphasis on the notion of goodness in considering God in terms both of greatness and goodness. It is through the consideration of goodness that he is able to discuss the Trinity. Richard’s approach is famously taken up by Bonaventure in the Soul’s Journey into God (Itinerarium mentis in Deum). 30 Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, iii. 2, ed. by Evans, p. 248. 31 Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, iii. 2, ed. by Evans, p. 248. See also Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia, i. 17. 1, ed. by Raymond Étaix, CCSL, 141 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999). 32 Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, iii. 2, ed. by Evans, p. 248. 33 Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, iii. 11, ed. by Evans, pp. 256–57. 34 Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, iii. 12, ed. by Evans, pp. 257–58. 35 Psalm 133. 1 (Vulgate, Psalm 132. 1: Ecce quam bonum et quam iucundum habitare fratres in unum).

f re e and ab u ndant love

are not supremely lovable, neither by one another nor by God, at least not in a way that would lend itself to ordered charity. But if supreme charity is not accessible to human beings, how are we in a position to say what its features are, and argue on the basis of those features that God must be a Trinity?36 Furthermore, does Richard’s argument for divine plurality compromise the very principle he is trying to prove, namely, suggesting that something would be lacking if God were not a plurality in unity? The import of the question is this: we saw in Four Degrees that love which comes from a lack leads inevitably to misery. Do the Persons of the Trinity need each other out of a lack? The prescription of loving God in the higher degrees in order to be able to love without measure, but not out of lack or deficiency, would seem to be jeopardized if even the Divine Persons’ love for each other were a requirement to supply a deficiency. It is a commonplace in Trinitarian theology that the Father would not be Father without the Son, but would the Father not even be God without the Son?37 This question exacerbates another problem that arises from Richard’s language. In referring to the love of the Son for the Father and the Holy Spirit for the Father and the Son, he will use the phrase amor debitus (owed love).38 It is an unfortunate expression, if not one that is fatal to Richard’s aim to show both the plurality and equality of the Persons. He uses this language when he reasons that the supremely blessed love must be mutual, reasoning that, In amore autem mutuo oportet omnino ut sit et qui amorem impendat et qui amorem rependat… Gratuiti ergo amoris exhibitio et debiti amoris recompensatio

36 Cousins (‘A Theology of Interpersonal Relations,’, cited above) would likely counter that this problem does not arise if one assumes Richard’s illuminationst epistemology. If I were writing as a historian, I would perhaps be content with describing that epistemology and moving on. As a constructive theologian, I am interested in the issues that arise when persons formed in other intellectual contexts and thus having different epistemologies approach Richard’s work and desire not only to understand, but also to retrieve some of his insights. I am not making a claim about the adequacy of the epistemology described by Cousins, simply making explicit that I am a twenty-first century North American Protestant who does not share it. 37 Some Christian theologians would be perfectly comfortable saying no, perhaps pointing out that in twentieth-century trinitarian theology, it has been emphasized that the revealed God is never other than the God who is Trinity. Karl Barth in particular took the theological tradition to task for first arguing, whether from unaided reason or some combination of reason and revelation, for the existence of a God who possesses certain attributes (eternity, omnipotence, etc.) and only latter arguing (usually from revelation) that the God who exists is a Trinity of Persons, one of whom became incarnate for our salvation. Barth would say that the generic God of rational monotheism is not the God of Jesus Christ (see, for example, Church Dogmatics, ii: The Doctrine of God, Part 2: Election of God. The Command of God, trans. by Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance (London: T & T Clark, 2004), § 26). The question of whether the Father would be God without the Son is therefore nonsensical, since there is no legitimate moment in Christian theology when the God being considered is not the Trinity revealed in Jesus. A theologian with these sympathies would probably not be interested in Richard, though Walter Kasper (cited above), who takes the more moderate view that the Trinity is the Christian form of monotheism, turns to Richard for his understanding of Trinity as loving communion. 38 Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, iii. 3, ed. by Evans, p. 250.

261

262

k yl e r a de r

indubitanter convincit quod in vera divinitate personarum pluralitas deesse non possit. …It is absolutely necessary that in mutual love there be one who bestows love and one who requites love. And so, one will be the bestower of love and one will be the requiter of love… Therefore, the communication of a gratuitous love (gratuiti amoris) and the return of an owed love (debiti amoris) demonstrate without a doubt that a plurality of persons cannot be lacking in true divinity.39 The move from mutuality to a distinction between a bestower and requiter (with the concomitant distinction of amor gratuitus and amor debitus) would be very strange, if Richard did not already have in mind the classical distinction of the Persons of the Trinity by their essential relations of origin (the Son being begotten of the unoriginate Father, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son). Richard returns to this language in Book v, where he is now tasked with demonstrating that there are no more than three persons in the divine substance, and makes recourse to essential relations.40 As is his habit, he demonstrates the same thing in several mutually reinforcing ways. First, he claims that since divine persons can only be distinguished from one another by origins, there are logically only three possibilities: having no origin, having an origin in another and being the origin of another, and having an origin in another without being the origin of another.41 He then extends his characteristic insight to this area as well by making the same argument in terms of love: one’s love can be entirely gratuitous, gratuitous and owed, or only owed.42 In both cases, the first is the incommunicable property of the Father, the second that of the Son, and the third that of the Holy Spirit. Richard is aware of the likelihood of being misunderstood in a subordinationist manner, and is quick to emphasize that despite these distinctions, each of the Persons possesses (indeed, is identified with) the entire substance of the most supreme love, that none of them is of greater dignity, and that each loves their incommunicable property and does not desire those of the other two. It is only the limitations of human understanding, he claims, which makes the different modes of possessing the substance of supreme love seem unequal. But such an inequality, on his account, has already been logically eliminated by his argument that there are no degrees in divinity: Pro certo et absque omni ambiguo, quantum ad integritatem perfectionis, nulla in Trinitate differentia est amoris vel dignitatis (It is certain and not at all ambiguous that, with regard to the integrity of perfection, there is no difference of love or dignity in the Trinity).43 He also notes that the words describing gratuity and debt in God are not being used in quite the human way. He

39 Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, iii. 3, ed. by Evans, pp. 249–50. 40 The recourse to essential relations is patristic (see, for example, Augustine’s De trinitate, Book v), but Richard explains the need for such recourse in his De trin, Book iv. 41 Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, xx, ed. by Evans, pp. 312–13. 42 Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, xiii. 10, ed. by Evans, p. 309. 43 Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘On the Trinity’, v. 24, ed. by Evans, pp. 217–18. Richard has already argued in i.15 (ed. by Evans, p. 222) that there can be no superiority or inferiority in the divine essence and that no one can have that essence by participation rather than by nature.

f re e and ab u ndant love

says he means something more like ‘reciprocated’ than ‘owed’. But as Linn Tonstad has argued with regard to contemporary trinitarian theology, the logic behind the view that the equality of the persons sufficiently undoes the subordination inherent in language about them could just as easily work in reverse.44 The subordinationist language of gratuity and debt could just as easily be taken to undo the language of equality, especially when the equality is merely asserted, while the difference is painstakingly proven in hierarchical terms. The problem resulting from the seeming impossibility of human beings experiencing perfect love in a way that could be the basis for speculating about the Trinity can be solved by moving from On the Trinity to the Four Degrees and seeing what possibilities Richard discovered in God’s love. Such a move also lessens the severity of the problem of subordination, though I am not entirely confident that it solves it.

Toward a Solution Human beings can love one another supremely by loving one another in God. This entails a transformation of a human being’s capacities. Loving in God’s way entails participating in the love of the Trinity, but the relations among the Persons of the Trinity are not a normative pattern for human relationships of love.45 It cannot be, since Richard has told us that we are not able to love in the way that They can love. And yet, in the Four Degrees, he does hold out the possibility of loving in God’s way, having ascended through the degrees. When we look at the two highest degrees, we find the soul loving in God’s way through the humility of Christ. We must examine

44 Linn Marie Tonstad, God and Difference: The Trinity, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Finitude (New York: Routledge, 2016). Speaking of contemporary efforts to ground sexual difference in the relations among the persons of the Trinity and the accompanying claim that the stipulated equality of the three persons undoes the hierarchies that are seemingly inherent in the language used, Tonstad writes: ‘These references go both ways. Grounding sexual difference in the trinity does not rescue sexual differences from hierarchical inequality; it can just as easily demonstrate the inequality of Father and Son…’ (p. 4). The object of Tonstad’s critique here is Hans Urs von Balthasar. Richard does not ground sexual difference in the Trinity. 45 This is important for contemporary theology because of a movement called social trinitarianism, which holds that the Trinity is a pattern for right human relationships because of the equality and distinction of the persons. The list of proponents of this model is illustrious ( Jürgen Moltmann, Leonardo Boff, Catherine Mowry LaCugna, and Miroslav Volf, to name a few), but it has come under critique by Kathryn Tanner (Christ the Key [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010], pp. 207–46), who argues that the ontological differences between human and divine persons makes this modeling impossible, and that furthermore, it is by no means clear what sort of relationship the Trinity is modeling. Richard’s turn to Christ as norm and pattern for human love, explored below, anticipates Tanner’s turn to Christ as ‘key’ to such questions. Critiquing social trinitarianism and other recent deployments of the doctrine in support of social or anthropological agendas, Linn Tonstad points out that it is not clear what the Trinity teaches us about human relationships that we did not already know (Tonstad, God and Difference, p. 12). For a classic and nuanced presentation of social trinitarianism, see Miroslav Volf, ‘“The Trinity is Our Social Program”: The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Shape of Social Engagement’, Modern Theology, 14.3 (1998), 403–23.

263

264

k yl e r a de r

the third and fourth degrees closely (languishing love, unlimited love). It is here that we would most expect to find an effacement of the self for the sake of God, and at first glance, these degrees seems to be exactly that. Lovers of God in the third degree omne desiderium ad divinum pendet nutum, ad divinum spectat arbitrium (commit all things to God’s managing: all of their wants and all of their desires hang upon the divine good pleasure; they look to the divine will).46 The soul spontaneo quodam desiderio…seipsam accommodat (adapts itself with spontaneous desire).47 It is even said to die. In the fourth degree, the soul descendit sub semetipsum (descends beneath itself),48 patterning itself on the self-emptying of Christ. But what Richard describes in the third degree is not self-effacement, but self-forgetfulness. It is not a sacrifice, but an act of trust (divine dispositioni omnia committunt).49 Nor is it a denial of one’s own will so much as a transformation of it. The languor of the third degree which was presented as complete powerlessness in the love of creaturely things is now a liberation from the constraints of its single, solid form, similar to how Tonstad calls the effect of the presence of God on the world an ‘intensification’ of the material.50 Richard adopted the metaphor of molten metal. As a liquid, it cannot be broken, and it can take on any shape, even as it retains all the properties that make it the metal it is. Furthermore, rather than the metaphors of creating distance and making space for another to truly be an other, a liquid does not need to do that. Two liquids can occupy the same container, bringing to mind Tonstad’s language of co-locality: at Christ’s banquet, bodies can occupy the same space, so there is always enough room for all comers.51 The kingdom of heaven is bigger on the inside than on the outside. The molten metal metaphor is continued in the fourth degree, which offers us the ability to love ‘in God’s way’. Here is where we might expect the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for one another to be invoked, but instead we find the humility of Christ. And by the humility of Christ, we do not mean the disposition of the Son toward the Father, but of Jesus for the world. The molten metal descends from the crucible when an opening appears below it. It is a state of compassion for one’s fellow creatures. Richard certainly uses the language of kenosis (Philippians 2. 7), but the self-emptying called for is not self-abnegating, for several reasons. First, the lover of God in the fourth degree is not renouncing her own desires for the sake of others, let alone her own needs. This is a soul that has already been transformed, moulded into the image of Christ such that it ‘adapts with spontaneous desire to

46 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 41, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 293. 47 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 42, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 293. 48 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 47, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 296. 49 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 41, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 293. 50 Tonstad, God and Difference, p. 239. 51 Tonstad, God and Difference, p. 239.

f re e and ab u ndant love

each of God’s decisions’.52 The salvation of all people is thus her own desire, not a mandate imposed from without. Her own good and the good of the whole creation do not conflict at the most fundamental level, even if the sinfulness of fallen creation causes her legitimate but less than ultimate desires to conflict with the world’s ultimate good. Richard speaks of a sort of imperviousness: Secundum aliquem igitur modum anima in hoc gradu efficitur immortalis et impassibilis. Quomodo enim mortalis est si mori non potest? Aut quomodo mori potest si ab eo separari non potest qui vita est? Therefore, in this degree the soul is made in some way immortal and impassible. How could the soul be mortal, if it cannot die? How could it die, if it cannot be separated from him who is life?53 But we can perhaps go farther than Richard, remembering that the soul is still liquid in the fourth degree, and a liquid cannot be broken like a solid. The sea was no worse off for Xerxes’ lashes! Not only is the soul able to assume the form of Christ (which is not a fixed shape, but can become all things to all people), but it is able to move around barriers or gradually wear them down. Its very existence and survival will eventually destroy whatever oppresses it, especially since it is metal, and will neither evaporate like water, nor become hardened again, because it carries the source of heat with it. Human beings are thus able to experience the highest degree of love for other human beings by grace rather than by nature (or by the transformation of their nature by grace). On the basis of his own experience, others’ testimonies, or even the lives of the saints, Richard is able to make his arguments about the nature of the divine love and the Trinity. One might still critique Richard’s argument for the Trinity on other grounds. For example, one might argue that the infinite difference between God and us makes such a project as Richard’s impossible. While he preceded the Fourth Lateran Council’s declaration that ‘between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them’,54 that insight was already present in the Dionysian tradition, on which Richard and the other Victorine authors drew heavily, so it cannot be said that Richard was unaware of the difficulties, but I leave it to others. But turning to the problem we have already raised of whether Richard undermines his account of the equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through his use of ‘owed love’, we are now in a position to argue that Richard’s trinitarian thought does not do justice to his account of love, but that the latter has the potential to correct the former.

52 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 42, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 293: see n. 45 above. 53 Richard of Saint-Victor, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, 45, ed. and trans. by Dumeige; Richard of Saint-Victor, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Kraebel, p. 294. 54 Fourth Lateran Council, Canon 2. See Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. by Norman P. Tanner, SJ, vol. 1 (London: Sheed & Ward, 1990), p. 232.

265

26 6

k yl e r a de r

Love in the first, second, and third degrees might be said to be ‘owed’ in some sense. It is certainly appropriate to speak of a human being’s love for God as such. We could eliminate the financial metaphor and say that our love for God is necessary for our own good. Without it, we lack something. We could even say that a certain sort of love for one another is necessary in the same way, since we are social animals who cannot live without others. But when God is loved, then love for others in the fourth degree is gratuitous. All wants are supplied by God. The third degree is parallel to the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for each other. But unlike the love of the persons of the Trinity for one another, God’s love for creation is not necessary for God in any way. God could enjoy the supremely blessed love Richard searches for without having created the world. But God does love the world, and the person who has come to love God in the third degree of love does not remain in that degree, but loves others just as God loves them, for no reason at all. Rather than a sacrifice, it is a pleasure that requires no justification. Furthermore, there is another sense in which a human being’s love for God is gratuitous rather than owed. God is superior to us, but also became our equal. It is through Christ, our God-become-our-equal, that we receive the benefits of grace and glory which are the bonds that draw us to love God in the first place. The love that God wants from us is not merely that which we owe by virtue of God’s giving us our very selves in creation. God wants us to love God with the love of equals in the supremely blessed way in which the persons of the Trinity love one another. For that, God has to seduce us. God does not demand something that we owe, but wins us over so that we freely love as we are freely loved. But if the love that God evokes even from us, who are not divine by nature, is a free, equal, and gratuitous love, then the love of the persons of the Trinity must not be something less. It is surely gratuitous in every sense, and owed in none. And it is not given because they need one another, but because they delight in one another (‘In you I am well-pleased!’ Mark 1. 11).55 But if the pattern of God’s love that is to be imitated, as enacted in Christ, is pleasure that requires no justification, might this give us licence to shift how we read On the Trinity? Might it be that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not because any of them needs the other two in order to be God, but simply because it is a pleasure, requiring no justification or explanation? This is what Richard discovers when he sets out to analyze God in terms of love. His language could not do justice to his insight in On the Trinity, but On the Four Degrees authorizes us to correct it.

55 Greek: ἐν σοὶ εὐδόκησα. Vulgate: in te conplacui.

Thomas Gallus

Csaba Németh

Dionysian Elements, Structures, and Limits Thomas Gallus, Interpreter and Spiritual Author*

Unlike Hugh, Richard, and other Victorines, Thomas was rediscovered only in the twentieth century; the edition of his extant works was only published less than a decade ago. Traditionally he is regarded as the last remarkable canon among the Victorines, an eminent Dionysian scholar and an important spiritual author of the first half of the thirteenth century. Thanks to the works of Gallus now published for the first time, these judgements of scholarship certainly will be refined. The present study gives an overview of the main structures, themes, and limits of Thomas’ thought. Before that, however, this article will consider two themes by way of introduction: what is known about Thomas’ works, and what are the reasons that make Thomas’ writings so starkly alien to earlier Victorine works, both in style and concept?

Status Quaestionis The earliest information about Thomas Gallus locates him in 1218 at the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris, as a canon regular of unknown age and origin, writing on the vision of Isaiah.1 He left Paris in 1219 in order to establish a new monastery and hospital in Vercelli, in northern Italy. He became first prior, then by 1226 the abbot



* The research for the present study was supported by the Hungarian National Research Found OTKA K 101503. I thank Declan Lawell for his suggestions and corrections. 1 The origin of Thomas is unknown; popular speculations based on his surname ‘Gallus’ make him native of France (or just coming from there). The theory of his Welsh or English origin, convincingly argued by Paul Saenger, so far remained unnoticed; see his ‘The British Isles and the Origin of the Modern Mode of Biblical Citation’, Syntagma: Revista del Instituto de Historia del Libro y de la Lectura, 1 (2005), 77–123 (pp. 87–90). Saenger notes that the surname ‘Gallus’ for Thomas is absent from medieval sources and appears only with seventeenth-century historians. Csaba Németh PhD  •  (Central European University, Budapest, 2013) is an independent scholar ([email protected]). His research interests focus on twelfth-century spirituality, reception of Victorine authors, and manuscript studies. His monograph on Victorine theology, entitled Quasi aurora consurgens. The Victorine Theological Anthropology and its Decline, appeared recently. Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus, ed. by Robert J. Porwoll and David Allison Orsbon, CURSOR 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 269–295 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.122090

270

cs a ba n é m e t h

of the new foundation of Saint Andrew’s (San Andrea), and spent most of his life there until his death in 1246. The oeuvre of Thomas is well-defined; most of his works are extant, and even dated by himself.2 These writings portray him as an author with focused interest, concentrating on the interpretation of the Corpus Areopagiticum and the Canticle of Canticles.3 The first extant work of Thomas is a short fragment from a commentary or treatise on the throne vision of Isaiah (Isaiah 6. 1–3), written in 1218. It is preserved in his much later commentary (Explanatio or Expositio) on the Celestial Hierarchy.4 This text of Thomas has particular importance: while giving a tropological interpretation of the three-storey building of the Temple of Solomon, the nine angelic orders, and the two Seraphim, it presents the core ideas of his spirituality: the duality of intellect and affect, their gradual and parallel progress in the cognition of God until the affect becomes immediately united with God, without any working of the intellect. Thomas displays this cognitive progress by the pattern of the hierarchy of nine angelic orders, which becomes a constant and even indispensable reference for him. In his later works Thomas elaborates and repeats the concepts presented here. His next extant work is the Gloss on the Celestial Hierarchy (1224). Later on, his major works are devoted to the interpretation of Areopagitic corpus and the Canticle. He wrote a so-called Second Commentary on the Canticle (1237–1238; the First Commentary is lost) and the Extractio, an explanatory paraphrase of the four extant Dionysian treatises and Letter 9, based on the Latin translations of Eriugena and Sarracenus (finished in 1238). The Extractio became so important a text for medieval readers that it was incorporated into the thirteenth-century composite Areopagitic textbook, the Corpus Dionysiacum Parisiense.5 Paraphrases were followed by detailed commentaries (Explanationes) of the four treatises and five of the ten letters (1241–1244) and his Third Commentary on the Canticle (1242). The two Canticle commentaries are written by the same principle: the words of the Spouse, the Bridegroom and their friends refer to the various states of the affect and intellect, named after the angelic



2 For a list of Thomas’ writings see Jeanne Barbet, ‘Thomas Gallus’, in Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, ed. by Marcel Viller, Charles Baumgartner, and André Rayez, xv (Paris: Beauchesne, 1991), cols 800–16. 3 The Areopagitic corpus consists of four treatises and ten letters. When referring to the treatises and their various interpretations the following abbreviations are used in the notes: MT (Mystical Theology), DN (Divine Names), EH (Ecclesiastical Hierarchy), and CH (Celestial Hierarchy) or AI (in references to Thomas’ works, standing for Angelica Ierarchia). References to Thomas’ Explanationes (also calledExpositiones) are given as Super and the abbreviations above (page numbers refer to Thomas Gallus, Explanatio in libros Dionysii, ed. by Lawell); Comm. II and Comm. III refer to the Second Commentary and Third Commentary on the Canticle. (For further bibliographical details, see notes 6–12 below). In the references, words in parentheses give the lemma commented; the following numeral marks the commented chapter, and the letter the section of the text (division established by Thomas). 4 Below I refer to this text as Vidi Dominum fragment. Thomas’ own references to this lost work suggest both a treatise (tractatus, whose final part is transcribed: Super AI X A, p. 632) and a commentary on the vision of Isaiah (see Super MT I, p. 4: expositio; Glose AI III C, p. 32: explanatio illius visionis Is. 6). 5 See the magistral work of Dondaine, Le Corpus Dionysien de l’Université de Paris au xiiie siècle (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1953). The way and the agency by which Thomas’ Extractio (written in Vercelli) became part of this collection formed in Paris is still unresearched.

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

orders. The late work Spectacula contemplationis (1244–1246) must also be mentioned: largely based on Richard of Saint Victor’s Benjamin major and De Trinitate, it gives an overview of the subjects of the intellectual contemplation. Thomas’ oeuvre also has its lost and spurious works. As of now, the treatise on Isaiah’s vision is considered lost, like the First Commentary on the Canticle and his Gloss on the Mystical Theology (1232–1233). The identification of the First Commentary with the Canticle commentary Deiformis animae gemitus is now rejected, like that of his Gloss on the Mystical Theology with a set of glosses attributed by earlier research both to Eriugena and Petrus Hispanus. Older literature attributed to him the short treatise De septem gradibus contemplationis which is now considered to be dubious, too.6 It is an often-repeated claim that research literature on Thomas is scarce. It is so largely due to the fact that the majority of his writings, including the immense Areopagitic oeuvre, was inaccessible to the scholarly public, even if their existence was known. Until the 1930s the Extractio was the only printed work of Thomas. Its entirety was edited among the works of Dionysius the Carthusian (1902), but the Dionysiaca, the grand collective edition of works related to the Dionysian corpus, left the Extractio of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy unpublished.7 The discoverer of Thomas, Gabriel Théry, saw the crucial importance of the Explanatio on the Mystical Theology and the Vidi Dominum fragment, and edited both texts (1934 and 1936, respectively).8 However, the edition of the commentary was known by the 1960s, even to French scholars, as unfindable (introuvable).9 Then James Walsh edited the Explanatio on

6 See Un commentaire vercellien du Cantique des cantiques: Deiformis animae gemitus, ed. by Jeanne Barbet and trans. by Francis Ruello (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005). The glosses on the Mystical Theology is part of a set of glosses covering the entire corpus Dionysiacum, by an unknown author influenced by Thomas. Its entirety has been edited by Manuel Alonso as Pedro Hispano. Exposição sobre os livros do Beato Dionisio Areopagita (Expositio librorum Beati Dionysii) (Lisbon: Instituto de Alta Cultura, 1957); the glosses on the Mystical Theology were edited separately twice, first by Migne (PL 122.267–48) attributed to Eriugena), then by James McEvoy, attributed to Thomas Gallus, see Mystical Theology: The Glosses by Thomas Gallus and the Commentary of Robert Grosseteste on ‘De mystica theologia’, ed. by James McEvoy (Leuven: Peeters, 2003). The De septem gradibus contemplationis can be found in Bonaventure’s Peltier edition: Opera omnia, ed. by A. C. Peltier, 15 vols (Paris: Vivès, 1868–1871), xii, 183–86. The latest literature on these non-authentic works is Lawell, ‘Thomas Gallus’ Method as Dionysian Commentator: A Study of the Glose super Angelica Ierarchia (1224), with Some Considerations on the Expositio librorum beati Dionysii’, AHDLMA, 76 (2009), 89–117 (pp. 109–17). 7 The Extractio is printed as ‘Paraphrasis abbatis Vercellensis’ in Doctoris Ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani opera omnia (henceforth Carth.), vol. 15 (Extractio of CH and EH) and vol. 16 (Extractio of DN, MT and Letter 9) (both volumes: Tornaci [Tournai]: Cartusia S. M. de Pratis, 1902), and as ‘Paraphrase de l’abbé de Verceil Thomas Gallus sur les textes précédents’ (of DN, MT, Letter 9), in the first volume of the Dionysiaca: Recueil donnant l’ensemble des raductions latines des ouvrages attribués au Denys de l’Aréopage, ed. by Philippe Chevallier, 2 vols (Paris: Brouwer, 1937, 1950), i, 673–717. For the Extractio of CH see vol. ii, 1041–66#. 8 Gabiel Théry, Thomas Gallus: Grand commentaire sur la Théologie Mystique (vers 1242) (Paris: Haloua, 1934) and ‘Commentaire sur Isaie de Thomas de Saint-Victor,’ La Vie Spirituelle, 47 (1936), 146–62. 9 Barbet mentions it as ‘pratiquement introuvable.’ See ‘Introduction doctrinale’, in Commentaires du Cantique des cantiques, ed. and intr. by Jeanne Barbet, TPMA, 14 (Paris: Vrin, 1967), pp. 43–61, here p. 16. Javelet describes it as ‘presque introuvable’ (Robert Javelet, ‘Thomas Gallus et Richard de SaintVictor mystiques’, RTAM, 29 (1962), 206–33 (p. 207 n. 1) and 30 (1963), 88–121.

27 1

272

cs a ba n é m e t h

the five Dionysian Letters (1963) and Jeanne Barbet the two Canticle commentaries (1967). With these publications, the edition of Thomas’ writings was frozen for decades.10 In 2000, Johannes Vahlkampf edited a short volume of Thomas’ writings. It made accessible, in a new but rudimentary edition, the Explanatio on the Mystical Theology and the Letters and the Vidi Dominum fragment, but also the first edition of opuscules Spectacula contemplationis (short recension) and the sermon Qualiter vita prelatorum.11 The edition drew limited attention and remained unnoticed outside Europe. In a decade’s time, however, the situation spectacularly changed. Thanks to the critical editions of Declan Lawell, Thomas’ inaccessible works became accessible: first two opuscules (Spectacula contemplationis and Qualiter vita prelatorum) appeared with critical studies, then the entire Explanatio, that is all the four explanationes on the four Areopagitic treatises and the letters, together with the glosses on the Celestial Hierarchy (2011).12 The publication of these works certainly will open a new chapter in the study of Thomas, but it also reveals the limitations of the previous literature and demands its revision. Until recently our knowledge about Thomas was defined by a handful of edited texts: both special studies and general surveys on his thought focused primarily on the two Canticle commentaries and the Explanatio on the Mystical Theology.13 Thanks to these works, Thomas entered the historiography of spirituality as a central (even

10 James Walsh, ‘The “Expositions” of Thomas Gallus on the Pseudo-Dionysian Letters’, AHDLMA, 38 (1963), 199–220; Thomas Gallus. Commentaires du Cantique des cantiques, ed. and intr. by Jeanne Barbet, TPMA, 14 (Paris: Vrin, 1967). 11 Thomas Gallus. Kommentar zur Mystischen Theologie und andere Schriften, ed. by Johannes Vahlkampf (Dollnstein: Verlag Neue Orthodoxie, 2001). Lawell’s editions on the same texts are evidently superior. 12 See Declan Lawell, ‘Qualiter vita prelatorum conformari debet vite angelice: A Sermon (1244–1246?) Attributed to Thomas Gallus’, RTPM, 75 (2008), 303–36; Declan Lawell, ‘Spectacula contemplationis (1244–46): A Treatise by Thomas Gallus’, RTPM, 76 (2009), 249–85 (henceforth Spectacula); Thomae Galli: Explanatio in libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Anthony Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011) and Thomae Galli Glose super Angelica Ierarchia. Accedunt indices ad Thomae Galli Opera, ed. by Declan Lawell, CCCM, 223A (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011) (henceforth Glosa AI). 13 See the chapter, ‘Thomas Gallus and the New Dionysianism’ in Bernard McGinn, The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200–1350), The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, vol. iii (New York: Crossroad, 1998), pp. 78–87; Kurt Ruh, ‘Thomas Gallus Vercellensis’, in Kurt Ruh, Die Mystik des deutschen Predigerordens, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, 3 (Munich: Beck, 1996), pp. 59–81; Boyd Taylor Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, Modern Theology, 24 (2008), 615–32 and Boyd Taylor Coolman, ‘Thomas Gallus’ in The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity, ed. by Paul L. Gavrilyuk and Sarah Coakley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 140–58, at p. 152. For the latest overview of the research and bibliography, see Dominique Poirel and Patrice Sicard, ‘Figure vittorine: Riccardo, Acardo e Tommaso’, in La fioritura della dialettica X–XII secolo. Figure del pensiero medievale 2, ed. by Inos Biffi and Costante Marabelli (Milan: Jaca Book and Città Nuova, 2008), pp. 459–537, pp. 539–604 (bibliography). After the completion of the present study (summer 2017) appeared Boyd T. Coolman’s monograph on Thomas: Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) and his chapter ‘Magister in hierarchia: Thomas Gallus as Victorine Interpreter of Dionysius,’ in A Companion to the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris, ed. by Hugh Feiss and Juliet Mousseau (Leiden: Brill, 2018), pp. 516–45.

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

if less researched) spiritual author of the thirteenth century and the pioneer of the so-called affective Dionysianism. This image is basically true to Thomas. It is he himself who makes clear that the Mystical Theology and the Canticle have a privileged place among all the Biblical and Areopagitic writings (since the former teaches the theory of the ‘wisdom of Christians’, the latter teaches the practice of that wisdom, what is the ultimate experience of God in this life), and their commentaries indeed expose the main spiritual doctrines of Thomas. However, the lack of printed editions precluded nearly any research into the doctrinal background and historical context of Thomas:14 the content of the unedited writings was tacitly left uninvestigated after the 1970s. This changed recently with Declan Lawell’s studies which, based on the hitherto unedited texts, open new perspectives for the research, by giving detailed and new analyses of the central concepts of Thomas (synderesis, apex mentis, scintilla synderesis) and outlining his Dionysian system of ontology.15 Lawell’s studies also provoke a reconsideration of Thomas’ role in the thirteenth-century Dionysian renaissance. Thomas’ works were the first thirteenth-century interpretations on Dionysius, followed by the commentaries of Robert Grosseteste, a slightly later contemporary (1239–1243), then those of Albertus Magnus (c. 1248–1251) and his student Thomas Aquinas (commenting on the Divine Names only, c. 1261–1268). Following Paul Rorem’s distinction, we also used to talk about an affective Dionysianism, pioneered by Thomas, and an intellectual one, represented by Albertus Magnus,16 but otherwise not much is known about the relations between the Areopagitic works of these authors.17 When Francis Ruello studied the commentaries on the 14 The most notable exceptions were Francis Ruello, Les ‘Noms divins’ et leurs ‘raisons’ selon Albert le Grand, commentateur du ‘De divinis nominibus’ (Paris: Vrin, 1963), pp. 133–53 for Thomas on Divine Names; Robert Javelet, ‘Ontologie et connaissance chez Thomas Gallus’, in Die Metaphysik im Mittelalter: ihr Ursprung und ihre Bedeutung (Miscellanea mediaevalia 2), ed. by Paul Wilpert (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1963), pp. 282–88, Javelet, ‘Thomas Gallus et Richard de Saint-Victor mystiques’, RTAM, 29 (1962), pp. 206–33 and 30 (1963), pp. 88–121; James Walsh, ‘Thomas Gallus et l’effort contemplatif ’, Revue d’histoire de la spiritualité, 51 (1975), 17–42. 15 See Declan Lawell, ‘Affective Excess: Ontology and Knowledge in the Thought of Thomas Gallus’, Dionysius, 26 (2008), 139–74; Declan Lawell, ‘Ne de ineffabili penitus taceamus: Aspects of the Specialized Vocabulary of the Writings of Thomas Gallus’, Viator, 40 (2009), 151–84, and Declan Lawell, ‘Ecstasy and the Intellectual Dionysianism of Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great’, in Thomas Aquinas: Teacher and Scholar, ed. by James McEvoy, Michael Dunne, and Julia Hynes (Dublin: Four Courts, 2012), pp. 155–83. 16 See Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius. A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to their Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 216–26. Rorem’s distinction was based on the commentaries of Thomas Gallus and Albertus on the Mystical Theology; Lawell’s ecstasy study, based on different works, confirms and justifies it. 17 Friar Adam Marsh, a friend of both Thomas and Grosseteste, sent to Thomas a commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy (allegedly by Grosseteste), and asked for his commentaries on the Mystical Theology and the Divine Names (allegedly for Grosseteste), see his Letter 87, in The Letters of Adam Marsh, vol. 1, ed. and trans. by Hugh Lawrence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), pp. 218–23; McEvoy, Mystical Theology: The Glosses, p. 125. The Areopagitic commentaries of Grosseteste are partially published. The commentary on the Mystical Theology was re-published by McEvoy (see above Note 6), correcting Ulderico Gamba’s edition of 1942; the commentary on Celestial Hierarchy has been recently edited by Declan Lawell as Versio Caelestis Hierarchiae Pseudo-Dionysii Areopagitae

27 3

2 74

cs a ba n é m e t h

Divine Names, he could not find traces of influence by Thomas (nor Grosseteste) on Albertus.18 Lawell’s study into the concept of ecstasy in Thomas, Albertus, and Aquinas brought radically different conclusions. Comparing passages of their Divine Names commentaries, Lawell convincingly argues that Albertus’ doctrines on ecstasy are formed in contradistinction to Gallus’ positions (although without explicit references).19 This conclusion, considered in a larger context, modifies what we know about the development of Western Dionysianism. The distinction between affective Dionysianism and intellectual Dionysianism is based exactly on the different interpretations of two Areopagitc concepts that join anthropology, epistemology, and ontology — the supra-intellectual union with God (outlined in the Mystical Theology) and ecstasy (treated in the Divine Names). If Albertus really knew Thomas’ concepts then the intellectual Dionysianism, pioneered by Albertus, emerged not only after the affective one of Thomas but because of and against it, in order to set Dionysius in a substantially different context. In addition to Lawell’s research, our knowledge about the Dionysian renaissance is further enlarged by a study of the late James McEvoy that explores the relation between Thomas Gallus and Grosseteste.20 McEvoy demonstrates, on the one hand, that Thomas used Grosseteste’s translation of the Divine Names in his own commentary; this fact may indicate that the entire body of Grosseteste’s translations and commentaries was at his disposal (a point demanding further research). On the other hand, McEvoy investigates the critical side remarks in Grosseteste’s Areopagitic commentaries and argues (with respect to their connection, their parallel hermeneutical enterprises and the chronology of their works) that the only plausible subject of these remarks may be Thomas.21 Thanks to these pioneering investigations, the two Areopagitic scholars now seem more connected than assumed before, even if not by bonds of scholarly friendship.

18 19 20 21

cum scholiis ex Graeco sumptis necnon commentariis notulisque eiusdem Lincolniensis, CCCM, 268 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015); part of the Divine Names commentary has been edited by Ruello, in Les ‘Noms divins’. See Ruello, Les ‘Noms divins’, p. 38. Lawell even suggests with convincing philological arguments (but postpones the detailed evidences for a later article) that Aquinas used the Explanatio while composing his commentary on the Divine Names , see Lawell, ‘Ecstasy and the Intellectual Dionysianism’, p. 172 n. 50. See James McEvoy, ‘Thomas Gallus Vercellensis and Robertus Grossatesta Lincolnensis. How to Make the Pseudo-Dionysius Intelligible to the Latins’, in Robert Grosseteste: His Thought and its Impact, ed. by Jack P. Cunningham, Papers in Medieval Studies, 21 (Toronto: PIMS, 2012), pp. 3–43. McEvoy isolates examples where the bishop, without ever naming his opponent(s), defends his own translations against someone who finds it obscure and lenghty, or repeatedly talks about someone who undertakes the interpretation of the Celestial Hierarchy without the slightest knowledge of Greek and without the Greek original at hand (thus only conjecturing the intended meaning of the original); elsewhere he mocks the interpreters who pile up literal quotations from the Bible simulating a thorough Scriptural knowledge. These remarks indeed fit the character of Thomas’ Extractio (created in order to give an easy access to the Areopagitic texts) and his commentaries (often giving lenghty strings of Scriptural references).

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

The Otherness of Thomas Scholarly literature already has begun to situate Thomas both in the Victorine and the thirteenth-century tradition; after the edition of his oeuvre, such comparative articles certainly will multiply. Here I would resort to a common and visceral experience of his readers, namely that although Thomas is considered a Victorine author, his writings are largely unintelligible only on the basis of the works of those Victorines (nearly a dozen authors) who constitute the flowering Victorine school in the twelfth century. His works have a distinctively alien character, both in content and form. This is largely due to the fact that Thomas applied the new methodology of the thirteenth-century textual scholars, used sources unread by twelfth-century Victorines, and incorporated the ideas found therein. Approaching the Authority

With the scholarly innovations of the early thirteenth century at his fingertips, Thomas produced a comprehensive view of both the Bible and the Corpus Areopagiticum. He used these large texts in a researchable, indexed form, relying on the so-called ‘new’, numbered chapter division of the Bible and the division he himself made, by applying the insular model of book-chapter-letter segmentation, on the Areopagitic corpus. Besides the texts he also created adequate finding tools, the concordances.22 Armed with such instruments, Thomas easily summons references into one string thus creating coherence.23 Twelfth-century Victorines had neither this kind of divided texts with research tools, nor the habit to use authoritative textbooks and reference books. Thirteenth-century scholastic theologians, by contrast, were increasingly dependent on such works.24 They read Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica (for the study of Biblical history), Peter Lombard’s Four Books of Sentences (for theology proper) and Collectanea (his commentary on the Pauline Epistles, for Saint Paul’s theology). Thomas Gallus also had reference works for his own special field of interest: for the intellectual cognition of God, Richard’s Benjamin major and De Trinitate; for the theory of super-intellectual

22 See Paul Saenger’s studies: ‘The British Isles’, esp. pp. 87–90 and ‘The Twelfth-century Reception of Oriental Languages and the Graphic mise en page of Latin Vulgate Bibles Copied in England’, in Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible, ed. by Eyal Poleg and Laura Light (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 31–66, here p. 47; Gabriel Théry, ‘Thomas Gallus et les concordances bibliques’, in Aus der Geisteswelt des Mittelalters, ed. by Albert Lang, Josef Lechner, and Michael Schmaus (Münster: Aschendorff, 1935), pp. 426–46. 23 A typical example (from Super AI I A, p. 483): the affective union with God is the part of Mary (Luke 10. 42), the adhesion to God (1 Corinthians 6. 17), the union (unitio) mentioned by Dionysius (Divine Names 7), the chains of love (Osee. 11. 5) and of perfection (Colossians 3. 14). 24 For the role of these then-modern finding devices, see Mary A. Rouse and Richard H. Rouse, Authentic Witnesses: Approaches to Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), esp. the chapter ‘The Development of Research Tools in the Thirteenth Century,’ pp. 221–55; for the ‘modern’ demand for complete sources, Marie-Dominique Chenu, ‘Authentica et Magistralia’, in Marie-Dominique Chenu, La théologie au douzième siècle (Paris: Vrin, 1957), pp. 351–65.

27 5

2 76

cs a ba n é m e t h

cognition of God, the Mystical Theology of Dionysius and for the practice of that cognition, the Canticle of Canticles of Solomon.25 A similar habitual difference can be observed in the approach to the Areopagitic corpus as well. Twelfth-century Victorines were satisfied with a limited knowledge of the Areopagite. Hugh of Saint Victor, as it seems, knew only the Celestial Hierarchy (in Eriugena’s translation), and his commentary on it does not betray any particular interest in, or knowledge of, the other works of the corpus. Richard knew parts of Hugh’s commentary, and Walther some ideas from the same work — but they were also ignorant about the other works.26 Thomas was a different case, in all respects. He knew the entirety of the corpus, in a comprehensive manner: his explanations often give exact references to other loci where the same idea appears. This thorough knowledge was based on a different translation of the Areopagite: the so-called ‘new translation’ by Joannes Sarracenus which gave not only an easier intelligible text for the readers unfamiliar with Greek, but was also free of terms on which Eriugena and Hugh of Saint Victor built complex theories — such as theophania, symbolum, and anagoge.27 Invisible Exemplars and Non-Intellectual Cognition

Thomas elaborated a theological system where central ideas of Dionysius merge with concepts of the early thirteenth century Western theology. From a twelfth-century point of view, two central ideas make Thomas’ theology starkly alien: the necessary inclusion of the so-called theories into spirituality and the concept of a non-intellectual (and even supra-intellectual) cognition. Primordial reasons, that is the forms according to which God has created, were largely left out from the spirituality of Hugh and Richard. In their case, if the cognition of God takes the form of a progress, it involves principally the cognition of the outside world and the human soul (and of the angels, sometimes), but

25 See e.g. Comm. III prologus BC, p. 107 for the Canticle and the Mystical Theology. The references to Richard see below. 26 For an overview of the Areopagitic reception among twelfth-century Victorines (involving Hugh, Richard, Walther and Achard) see Csaba Németh, ‘The Victorines and the Areopagite’, in L’école de Saint-Victor in Paris. Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 333–83. The study attributes a substantial influence to the Celestial Hierarchy permeating Hugh’s entire theology; for an opposite view, considering Hugh’s commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy as a marginal work in his oeuvre, see Paul Rorem’s Hugh of Saint Victor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). For the most recent research on Hugh’s commentary see Dominique Poirel, Des symboles et des anges: Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), along his critical edition Hugonis de Sancto Victore Super Ierarchiam Dionysii, CCCM, 178 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015). 27 The Sarracenus translation of the corpus can be found in the Dionysiaca (vol. 1: DN, MT, Letters; vol. 2: CH, EH), but in a more convenient form in Dionysii Carthusiani opera, vol. 15 (CH, EH) and 16 (MT, DN, Letters).

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

not of the primordial reasons (which appear only in the context of creation).28 Primordial reasons, since they are discussed extensively in the Divine Names, became a major theme for Thomas. According to Dionysius, ‘Good(ness)’, ‘Love’, ‘Ecstasy’, ‘Beauty’, ‘Being’, ‘Wisdom’ (and others) are names of God, but they are also exemplars, that is, ‘substance-generating reasons of the existing things in God, according to which the super-substantial essence brought out everything’.29 Thomas has several names for these pre-existent reasons: ‘theories’ (theoriae) is perhaps the most common one, but he uses the terms ‘causes’ (causae, also as causae ideales, ‘ideal causes’), ‘the invisible things of God’ (invisibilia divina, invisibilia Dei, cf. Romans 1. 20), and ‘spectacles’ (spectacula).30 These theories are in the Word of God but are also the Word of God: they are one, but for the intellect they are divided and distinguished from each other.31 Thomas also takes over from Dionysius the inner hierarchy of theories: the most profound and highest theory that reaches our cognition (pervenit ad nostram speculationem) is Goodness (which is also Beauty), followed by Being (per se essentia, per se esse, existentia), then Life and Wisdom. Being also serves as foundation for other theories which are causes for particular beings (like Life for the living ones, Reason and Intellect for the rational and intelligent ones).32 Equally important are, however, Thomas’ own distinctions: while theories can be objects of intellectual cognition (speculatio), some of them — the more profound ones — can be known only through the supra-intellectual affective union; these theories are only imperfectly comprehensible, even to the highest angels.33 Thomas’ debt to Neoplatonic 28 Although Hugh mentions these reasons (see Didascalicon, i. 6, Homilia XIV in Ecclesiasten, De sacramentis Christianae fidei, i. iv. 26 and i. ii. 2–4), it is unclear if he considers them created or uncreated. Richard seems to omit the subject: the terms ‘causes’ (causae) and ‘reasons’ (rationes) of things, investigated in the second stage of contemplation (see Benjamin Major, i. 6; ii. 7–11) seem to refer merely to causal relation (of divine will and natural causes) but not to primordial reasons, see Richard of Saint-Victor, Benjamin major, esp. ii. 9 (PL 196.87C): ‘physicas rerum rationes invenire […] occultas justitiae causas dijudicare.’ 29 DN 5 (tr. Sarracenus): ‘Exemplaria autem esse dicimus in Deo existentium rationes substantificas […] secundum quas supersubstantialis essentia omnia […] produxit.’ (Carth. 16, p. 378 = Dionysiaca I, p. 360). 30 See also Super MT I C, p. 27: the expression ‘place or places of God’ in the Mystical Theology may refer to the ‘intelligible eternal reasons of all creatures which are in the Word [of God], which Plato called ideas, Dionysius archetypes and exemplars and images’ (‘per locum vel loca Dei possunt hic accipi intelligibiles rationes eterne omnium creaturarum que sunt in Verbo, quas dicit Plato ideas, Dionysius archetypias et exemplaria […] et imagines’). 31 See Super DN V E, p. 337: ‘omnia que sunt in supersimplici Verbo non aliud sint quam ipsum Verbum. Huiusmodi ergo archetypie vel exemplaria [sc. per se bonitas, per se essentia, per se vita etc.] non secundum supersubstantiale esse suum, sed secundum intellectuales theorias distinguuntur in Verbo.’ 32 See Super DN V E, p. 337, Extractio DN V, Carth. 16, p. 237. Also note that sense perception and reason are participations in Wisdom, and the ‘spark of the peak of the affect’ (scintilla apicis affectualis) is a participation in Good(ness), see Super DN V A, p. 328, Comm. III prologus Y, p. 111. 33 Super DN IV H, p. 214: ‘sunt exemplaria Verbi […], quarum quedam habentur aliis profundiores, nec sunt universaliter sed particulariter et imperfecte etiam summis angelis comprehensibiles,’ and ‘theorie non intellectu sed sola unitione cognoscibiles.’ See also Comm. III 2M (in foraminibus petre), pp. 161–62 and Comm. II 2E, p. 83.

27 7

278

cs a ba n é m e t h

ontology defines not only his spirituality (since the Word is identical with the Bridegroom of the Canticle) but also raises an unsettling question. If cognition of God means, practically, cognition of theories (either by intellect or affect), how can that be aligned with such traditional concepts as the face-to-face vision of God (1 Corinthians 13. 12) or seeing God as he is (1 John 3. 2)? The other novelty of Thomas is his concept of an affective and supra-intellectual cognition. With our modern, historical consciousness, it is easy to charge Thomas and his affective Dionysianism with misunderstanding the Areopagitic writings. Such charges rarely if ever consider his intellectual efforts to create a coherent meaning for a text so alien to Latin readers. Reading Dionysius, Thomas had to invent a theory explaining how the unknowable God might be cognized by unknowing. The programme of the Mystical Theology is straightforward, in any accessible Latin translation: in order to attain a cognition of God (conceived as a union with the super-substantial ray of divine darkness), one must leave behind the cognitive operations of sense perception and intellect (sensus et intellectuales operationes), together with their objects, everything sensible and intelligible, and enter into an ecstasy above the mind.34 Making sense out of these propositions of the Areopagite was a particularly difficult challenge in a milieu where any cognition traditionally belonged to the mind and its cognitive faculties. The Divine Names, however, offered additional clues: it confirms that the ultimate cognition of God happens through ignorance, by an ‘union’ (unitio) above the mind,35 also mentions that the mind has, besides a cognitive power to perceive the intelligible, a certain ‘unition’ (unitio) by which it is connected to the things above the mind.36 The same treatise also remarks that divine love causes ecstasy, and that love itself (in its various forms) is an unifying power.37 With all these elements present in Dionysius, Thomas’ ‘affective’ interpretation seems to be much more a coherent reading than a misreading. And there are even more mitigating factors. Thirteenth-century Western theology conceived the cognition of God principally in terms of vision and intellectual cognition. The final state of the blessed was considered as an immediate (face-to-face) vision of God, as he is: this vision is also

34 See MT 1, in Eriugena’s translation: ‘Tu autem […] et sensus desere, et intellectuales operationes, et sensibilia et inuisibilia, et omne non ens et ens; et ad unitatem, ut possibile, inscius restituere ipsius qui est super omnem essentiam et scientiam.’ The same in Sarracenus’ translation: ‘Tu autem […] et sensus derelinque, et intellectuales operationes, et omnia sensibilia et intelligibilia, et omne non exsistentia et exsistentia; et, sicut est possibile, ignote consurge ad eius unitionem qui est super omnem substantiam et cognitionem.’ Dionysiaca I, pp. 567–68. 35 See DN 7 (tr. Sarracenus): ‘Et est rursus diuinissima dei cognitio quae est per ignorantiam cognita, secundum unitionem super mentem, quando mens ab aliis omnibus recedens postea et seipsam dimittens, unita est supersplendentibus radiis […].’ (Carth. 16, p. 382 = Dionysiaca I, p. 406). 36 See DN 7 (tr. Sarracenus): ‘Oportet autem videre mentem nostram habere quidem virtutem ad intelligendum, per quam intelligibilia inspicit; unitionem autem excedentem mentis naturam, per quam conjungitur ad ea quae sunt supra ipsam.’ (Carth. 16, p. 380 = Dionysiaca I, p. 385). 37 See DN 4 (tr. Sarracenus): ‘Est autem faciens et ecstasim divinus amor’, and ‘Amorem sive divinum sive angelicum, sive intellectualem, sive animalem, sive naturalem dicamus, unitivam quaedam et concretivam intelligimus virtutem.’ (Carth. 16, pp. 367, p. 368 = Dionysiaca I, pp. 215, p. 225).

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

a cognitive act. This final state was opposed to the present state (this life, via) where the intellectual cognition of God is necessarily limited and mediated: in terms of vision, this state is described as seeing God through a mirror or not seeing him at all (cf. 1 Corinthians 13. 12, videmus nunc per speculum et in aenigmate tunc autem facie ad faciem). Thomas, too, shared the traditional doctrine on the restricted nature of intellectual cognition in this life but he combined this doctrine with what the Mystical Theology offered. Namely, with the concept of an immediate ‘experience’ of God in the present life (in via) — an experience which is above and outside intellectual cognition, and which is conceived as non-vision of God. The programme outlined in the Mystical Theology implies the devaluation of intellectual activities. Thomas makes that de-emphasis explicit: operations of reason and intellect focusing on creatures are obstacles (offendicula), together with the desires, vices, acts and thoughts pertaining to the active life: they hold back and detain the working of the orders of the highest hierarchy of the mind. Intellectual activities, therefore, necessarily must be ‘cut back’ and suspended when one strives for the union; the ‘removal’ of intellectual cognition even leads to super-intellectual cognition. Rational and intellectual notions about God (based on the knowledge derived from sensible things) must also be rejected.38

Structures, Dynamics, and Limits of Spirituality The majority of Thomas’ writings are written as commentary: thus some of his central ideas and doctrines are rarely exposed in a systematic form. This feature makes the understanding of his mind sometimes particularly difficult. There are a few favourite ideas which he often repeats throughout his writings, but (because of the necessary adhesion to the commented texts) these elements are enclosed either in layers and layers of allegories or paraphrases of Areopagitic passages. The following pages investigate the more important patterns of Thomas’ thought. Such are the duality of intellect and affect with its epistemological ramifications, the concept of hierarchic mind, then the transitional stage Dominions and the final stages Seraphim and Cherubim. These are the structures wherein the dynamics of spiritual experiences and cognition takes place: but for a better understanding of Thomas these subjects must be complemented by his thoughts on the ultimate limits of cognition. Thomas’ ‘mysticism’ is so far the most popular theme of the research. It is rarely if ever considered that his ‘mysticism’ means only a very specific form of (affective and intellectual) cognition, and without knowing its ‘framework conditions’ it is difficult to set it into the proper context. Therefore it is necessary to investigate Thomas’ position on the cognoscibility of God (telling how much

38 Comm. III 2H, p. 155; cf. ‘opus est ut resecamus “intellectuales operationes”.’ Comm. III 2I, p. 158; ‘Ipsa enim intellectualis cognitionis remotio inducit ad superintellectualem cognitionem.’ Super MT II A, p. 31 (also Comm. III prologus interpolatus, p. 113); ‘rationales et intellectuales Dei cognitiones ex preexistente sensibilium cognitione extorte,’ Super AI prefatio, p. 473.

27 9

280

cs a ba n é m e t h

can be known of God at all) and his doctrine on the beatific vision, the final act of cognition granted to humans. Intellect and Affect

In order to understand the novelty of Thomas’ anthropology it is important to see what was the ‘traditional’ Victorine concept of God’s image and likeness in man. Hugh of Saint Victor distinguished two aspects of the soul: a cognitive one oriented toward the truth (called cognitio, ratio, sapientia) and an affective one oriented toward virtue (called dilectio, affectus, amor); he equated the first with the image, the second with the likeness, and this became a standard Victorine concept.39 According to this model, loving and knowing are two separate functions: cognition (even in ecstasy) is strictly a matter of the cognitive faculty. This is the model which Thomas modifies, although without using the terms image and likeness (instead talking about intellectus and affectus). He keeps the original separation of functions, but attributes a cognitive function to the affective aspect; with this innovation he introduces, in addition to intellectual cognition, the concept of an affective cognition.40 This is also his interpretation for the Areopagitic concept of supra-intellectual cognition. He also provides a metaphysical-ontological dimension, by involving the theories: the cognitive aspect (intellectus) is oriented toward the Truth while the affective one (affectus) toward the Good(ness).41 For the articulation of his ideas Thomas utilizes a traditional scheme of cognitive powers (for intellectual cognition) combined with a new element called unitio borrowed from Dionysius (for the affective cognition).42 The intellectual cognitive powers have a limited range: The wisdom of pagans, however, elevates from sense perception to imagination, from imagination to reason, from reason to understanding (intelligentia), and

39 See e.g. Hugh’s De sacramentis christianae fidei, i. vi. 2, col. 264CD (PL 176.173–618) and Homilia 1 in In Salomonis homiliae XIX in Ecclesiasten, col. 141B (PL 175.113–256); the same concept appears in Walther’s Sermon 20, Achard’s Sermons 13 and 15, his De discretione animae, spiritus et mentis, and Richard’s Benjamin minor 1 and 4, and Benjamin major, iii. 13. 40 See e.g. Glosa AI III D, p. 34: ‘Utraque tamen gratia dicitur scientia, quia per utramque Deum cognoscimus. Per primam, intellectualiter videndo […] Per aliam, experiendo, sentiendo, gustando et olfaciendo summa vi anime, que est principalis affectio ascendens in divina in infinitum super intellectum, non enigmatice se exercens in Deum, adhuc imperfecte.’ 41 See Super AI X A, p. 635: ‘Primum autem modus [sc. cognoscendi] consistit in pulcro et claro et hiis delectatur, et naturaliter inquisitivus est veritatis, secundus in dulci et suavi et facit desiderativum bonitatis. Primus dicitur intellectus, secundus affectus.’ 42 For lists of intellectual powers see Comm. III 1F, p. 129 (officium sensus, imaginationis, phantasie, rationis et intelligentie); Super DN VII B, p. 371 (suspensis sensus, imaginationis, fantasie, opinionis, rationis, intelligentie officiis); Super MT I, p. 5 (sensus, imaginationis, rationis, intellectus tam practici quam theorici usus et officia), cf. Extractio DN VII, Carth. 16, p. 267 (definition of theoricus intellectus as virtus per quam mens invisibilia inspicit).

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

makes not further progress but halts in the mirror, and therefore will be necessarily taken away.43 Thomas yet has a theory describing the gradual refinement of intellectual cognition, from sense perception to the working of pura intelligentia, in the framework of the grades of contemplation (located in the Dominions). In contrast to intellectual cognition, affective cognition has only one faculty, called unitio after Dionysius, or ‘the highest power of the soul’, or ‘the highest point (apex) of the affect’.44 The existence of this faculty is not self-evident: it is unknown and unimaginable to those (predominantly to the ‘philosophers’) who are ‘stuck in the existing things’ (dicuntur firmari in existentibus), and must be kept from them.45 Thomas has a few favourite images to explain the properties and relations of intellectual and affective cognition. The master image is the mirror, from 1 Corinthians 13. 12, the equivalent of the creatures and the existing things: Intellectus enim noster et sensus corporeus intra terminos creature exercentur, nec etiam intellectus noster excedit ens aut speculum: I Cor. 13g: Videmus nunc per speculum etc. Unitio autem speculum transit incomparabiliter, et divine substantie unitur tam sublimiter quod nec mentis verbum nec corporis illam unitionem eloqui sufficiat. Our intellect and corporeal sense operate within the limits of creation, and not even our intellect surpasses what exists (ens) or the mirror: 1 Cor. 13g, We see now through a mirror etc. But the unitio transcends the mirror incomparably and becomes united to the divine substance in such a sublime way that no word of mind or body is sufficient to tell that union (unitio).46 Intellectual cognition means seeing God through the mirror; affective cognition ‘surpasses the mirror’, being an immediate attachment, an adhesion to God. The main metaphors for the two ways of cognition are the senses: sight (and hearing) for the intellectual cognition, while tasting, touching, and smelling for the affective.47 This division of senses (as metaphors) is based, practically, on their range: seeing is terminated by the surface of the thing seen (thus cannot penetrate deeper than

43 Super AI I A (Descendens), p. 482: ‘vera sapientia que est portio Marie, de qua tractatur DN7, que desursum est (Iac. 3g), non ascendit in cor hominis, sed descendit primo in Seraph mentis et deinde ad inferiores derivatur, sicut diligenter tractavi super Cantica. Sapientia vero gentilium ascendit de sensu in imaginationem, de imaginatione in rationem, de ratione in intelligentiam, nec ultra progreditur, sed in speculo sistit et ideo necessario auferetur.’ 44 See e.g. Glosa AI III D, p. 34: ‘summa vis anime, que est principalis affectio’, and Extractio DN VII, Carth. 16, p. 267: ‘unitio […] summus affectionis apex.’ 45 Super MT I B, pp. 18–19. 46 Super DN VII B, p. 370’ 47 Thomas uses, however, these metaphors with a certain flexibility: reason also ‘touches’ its subjects (Super MT I A, p. 13, cf. Comm. III 1L, p. 137); the ‘sight of saints’ (sanctorum inspectio) means the affective experience of the theories (Super AI III D, p. 545), and ‘eye’ and ‘sight’ can stand for any sense (Comm. III 7C, p. 216, cf. Comm. III prologus interpolatus, p. 113: visus siquidem pro quolibet sensu ponitur).

281

282

cs a ba n é m e t h

the mirror, colour or figure), while taste and smelling penetrate into the interior.48 These sense metaphors betray something more specific on epistemology: the intellectual cognition terminates in the reasons (that is, the theories or exemplars): ‘as colors are subjected to the eyes which do not penetrate the interior, the same way these reasons [are subjected] to the intellects which do not touch or penetrate the divine essence’.49 Being a Hierarchic Mind

Perhaps the most awkward and least intelligible feature of Thomas’ theory is the combination of angelic hierarchies with the dynamics of cognition. It is not self-evident what he means by the ‘Seraph’ or ‘Cherub of the mind’, or why this combination of the angelic imagery with the bridal one of the Canticle, or why he uses the framework given by the nine angelic orders at all — but it is evidently a significant idea for him, being present already in his first known work, permeating all his writings, and explained at least four times in his oeuvre.50 The structure in which the angels exist (also called angelic hierarchy) is given by the Celestial Hierarchy. Based on sciptural references, Dionysius defined nine different orders (ordines) of angels and established their hierarchic ranks spanning from the lowest (Angels) to the highest (Seraphim) order. This sequence of orders he also subdivided into three groups called ‘hierarchies’. Thus the structure of angelic world, set between God and mankind, consists of the lower hierarchy (infima hierarchia) formed by the Angels, Archangels, and Principalities; the middle hierarchy (media hierarchia) formed by the Powers, Virtues, and Dominions, and the highest one (summa hierarchia) formed by the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. This structure is what Thomas combines with the concept of the threefold structure of the soul. The latter concept finds its basis in Celestial Hierarchy 10 which mentions that each mind, both celestial and human, has in itself special orders (or arrangements, ordinationes) and virtues (or powers, virtutes), arranged as first, middle, and last. Thomas sees in this incidental mention a ‘profound mystery’, namely that Dionysius, after having explained the three angelic hierarchies and their orders, here reveals that the same structure (ierarchiarum et ordinum distinctio) can be found in the hierarchic mind. Accordingly, he reads the passage as follows (words in capitals mark the original text of Dionysius):

48 For examples of this contrastive use, see Super AI I A, pp. 486–87; Super DN V K, p. 222; Comm. II 1D, p. 72. For a different, epistemological foundation of the sense metaphors see Super AI X, pp. 634–35. 49 See Super MT I C, p. 27: ‘sicut colores subiciuntur oculis qui interiora non penetrant, sic iste rationes intellectibus qui divinam substantiam non attingunt nec penetrant.’ 50 See Super AI X (= Vidi Dominum fragment), the beginning of the two Canticle commentaries, and Spectacula contemplationis. For a detailed discussion of the hierarchies see Barbet, ‘Introduction doctrinale’, Walsh, ‘Thomas Gallus et l’effort contemplatif ’, McGinn, ‘Thomas Gallus and the New Dionysianism’ (with helpful diagrams each).

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

unaquaeque et celestis et humana mens ierarchica habet secundum se ipsam, id est in propria persona vel eius capacitate, speciales ordinationes, id est ordinatas distinctiones, quantum ad imitationem trium ierarchiarum, et virtutes, quantum ad imitationem ordinum vel personarum, primas et medias et ultimas. each hierarchic mind, both celestial and human, has according to itself that is in its own person or capacity, special arrangements, that is, arranged distinctions, regarding the imitation of the three hierarchies and powers, regarding the imitation of orders or persons, first and middle and final ones.51 The predecessors of Thomas read the passage in various ways, referring virtutes either to (cognitive) powers and (moral) virtues, and the sentence itself (along the angels) generally to humans or to the blessed only.52 Thomas’ reading ordinationes as ordinatas distinctiones reveals his engineering, structure-oriented mind not uncommon among Victorines. His approach is very much innovative: projecting the structure of the angelic hierarchies on the human soul he creates a detailed backdrop to describe and analyse the movements inside the soul. The arranged distinctions can constitute a mental diagram, a mnemonic device: a structure with three times three distinct grades, each having its summit and characteristic name. But the abstract concept of the hierarchy is more than that. It is one, well-defined unit with a static and layered inner structure. It also has its internal dynamics of movements and counter-movements: the more-than-simple single ray of light descends into the hierarchy, while each orders attempts to attain it by receiving the illumination from the order above and transfusing it into the order below. The Areopagitic hierarchy also has a definite aim (hierarchiae intentio): the assimilation to and union with God (see Celestial Hierarchy 3). Thomas interprets this twofold aim as assimilation by virtues and union by affective ecstasy.53 51 Super AI X A, p. 632. 52 For the Maximus/Anastasius gloss, the three orders refer to the soul’s substance, power and arrangement (MS Cologne Dombibliothek 30 fol. 18rv). Eriugena interprets them as a reference to intellectual (theological), rational (physical, that is, natural philosophical) and moral virtues. See [attributed to John the Scot Eriugena], Expositiones in Ierarchiam coelestem, ed. by Jeanne Barbet, CCCM, 31 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975), pp. 156–57. Hugh of Saint Victor interprets them as grades of virtues (gradus virtutum), that is virtues disposed in an order that makes an ascent possible (see his In hierarchiam caelestem S. Dionysii, ix, e.g. PL 175.1103C–1104D). In Joannes Sarracenus’ (unedited) commentary (e.g. MS Paris BN 18061, fol. 115v–116r) the hierarchy refers to the angels and the saints; the meaning of orders –that is, having a cleansed mind as internal eye, turning it toward God (aspectus) and seeing God — is taken from Augustine’s Soliloquia, i. 6, 12 (PL 32.876, 869–905). McEvoy points out that Grosseteste’s commentary on this very passage gives not only a syntactical explanation based on the Greek text (which makes Thomas’ interpretation untenable) but also a wry remark: ‘some who have no knowledge of the Greek language have perhaps thought otherwise,’ see his ‘Thomas Gallus Vercellensis and Robertus Grossetesta’, pp. 21–22. 53 Super AI III B, p. 538: ‘intentio ierarchie est assimilatio et unitio ad deum, id est assimilari per bonos habitus et operationes Deo et uniri eo, quod nec scripto nec verbo nec intellectu concipi potest, sed experientia affectuali. […] Qui autem hac intentione privatur non est ierarchica persona.’ Cf. Super AI III D, p. 549: ‘in hac unitione terminatur et completur intentio ierarchica’.

283

284

cs a ba n é m e t h

The three hierarchies represent all operations and experiences of the soul: the lower hierarchy the purely natural operations of the soul (the lower hierarchy, labelled ‘nature’), the middle hierarchy the cooperation of nature and grace (labelled ‘efforts’, industria) and the highest hierarchy the grace (labelled ‘grace’ or ‘ecstasy of the mind’, gratia, excessus mentis).54 The content filling up this structure is the different motions; the nine angelic names denote different, well-defined states of the mind. Thomas’ wording reveals how this model is constructed: for example, cognitions of the affect and intellect ‘are contained’ in the order of Cherubim, and fervors experienced by the affect ‘constitute’ the order of Seraphim.55 In this framework one’s affect and intellect move toward assimilation and union with God. In this process three orders demand our particular attention: Dominions, Cherubim, and Seraphim. Dominions: Six Stages

Dominions is the highest and last order of the middle hierarchy — in other words, it is the final level of human agency (industria, where human effort is helped by grace): beyond it lies the realm of ecstasy (the highest hierarchy of Cherubim, Seraphim, and Thrones). In a psychological and ontological language, Dominions ‘contain’ the commands of free will which order to expand the powers of affect and intellect to their extremes, in order to attain the intellectual cognition of beauty and affective union with the Good(ness).56 The characteristic image in the case of Dominions is the ascent to its summit where the mind becomes ‘suspended’ and thus ready for ecstasy; ‘extended over everything existing, will not be able run into anything except God by ascending’.57 Since Dominions is the phase directly before (and preparatory for) ecstasy, it may be particularly interesting for the study of mysticism, being the place designated for rational (that is not experience-based) discussion about phases of contemplation and ecstasy. Thomas has several, more or less harmonized, patterns for this intellectual ascent. One pattern is suggested by the Celestial Hierarchy: it starts with the study and understanding of the Scripture (especially regarding angels), then progresses to the cognition and the contemplation of angels, and from there to the contemplation of the majesty and beauty of God.58 Here the contemplation of angels prepares the contemplation of the ‘more special spectacles of the eternal Wisdom’ what, in turn,

54 Comm. II prologus, pp. 66–67; Comm. III prologus, pp. 108–09. 55 Super AI X A, p. 638 (for similar expositions see also Comm. III prologus). Thomas reminds the reader that what is said about the hierarchic operations of the angels (in the Canticle commentary) must be understood metaphorically (per quamdam similitudinem): Comm. III 4F, p. 184. 56 ‘Ordo vero Dominationum […] continet imperia liberi arbitrii, quorum auctoritate iubentur omnes intelligentie vires extendi in speculationes pulcrifice pulcritudinis et omnes affectuales in desiderium et unitionem bonifice bonitatis, et usque ad extremas et summas nature adiute et illuminate possibilitates omnes dictas vires tota virtute suspendit.’ Spectacula IV, p. 277. 57 ‘Mens siquidem suspensa in summitate ordinis Dominationum suarum et super omne ens extenta, nihil preter divinitatem poterit ascendendo incurrere.’ Super Ep. ad Dorotheum, p. 730. 58 Glosa AI I, pp. 4–5; Super AI prefatio, pp. 472, p. 475.

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

prepares the mind to be taken up to the Thrones, then to the Cherubim, and finally to Seraphim.59 Another pattern given by Thomas is the six ‘stages of contemplation’ (gradus contemplationis), where the contemplative mind runs its course through six subsequent contemplative stages (decursis seriatim sex gradibus contemplativis), and thereafter it becomes caught up into the order of Thrones.60 Short references to the six stages are present already in his early gloss on the Celestial Hierarchy (1224), in the Areopagitic commentaries and in the Third Commentary on the Canticle, but a coherent exposition appears only in the Super MT, and its exhaustive discussion in the Spectacula contemplationis, perhaps his last work.61 This pattern seems to be Thomas’ standard but implicit framework for intellectual contemplation; as such, it is compatible but not necessarily connected to the other, grand pattern of the nine angelic orders. The six stages of contemplation, on the one hand, comprise all the possible objects which are within reach of the imagination, reason, and intellect. The same pattern, on the other hand, also describes the progress of intellectual cognition by these powers, from the observation of the external world to the cognition of divine attributes and properties (that is, the theories). Here, at the pattern of six stages Thomas pays his tribute to Richard, since the stages, the objects investigated therein and the cognitive process all are based on the Benjamin major and De Trinitate. For the intellectual ascent, the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades are the more important ones (the first three stages use imagination and deal with the sensible qualities and natures, reasons and causes of the visible things).62 It is the fourth stage where the operation of imagination halts: from then onward the mind investigates the qualities of various invisible things. In the fourth stage the mind focuses on itself and its own simplicity: it is to this stage that the acquisition of self-knowledge belongs, in its fullest context. The Spectacula gives an exhaustive list of the subjects considered by the fourth grade of contemplation. Such are the essence of the soul, its powers and their perfections; the three angelic hierarchies above men, their operations; the hierarchic distinctions as present ‘in any hierarchic mind, angelic or human’, and finally the Trinitarian image of God in the mind.63 Thomas also pays his debt here to the ontology of the Divine Names: in the fourth and higher stages of contemplation the mind’s high point (acies mentis) turns 59 Super AI I C, pp. 496–97. 60 See e.g. Comm. II 1B, p. 70 (cf. Comm. III prologus Q, pp. 109–10), Super DN VII I, pp. 384–85. 61 See Glosa AI I A, p. 5; Super MT I, pp. 3–4, and Spectacula; see further Javelet, ‘Thomas Gallus et Richard’ (comparing the Super MT with Richard’s Benjamin major) and Lawell’s introduction to the Spectacula (for a more comprehensive overview, in Lawell, ‘Spectacula contemplationis (1244–46)’. 62 For a short summary see Super MT I, pp. 3–4: ‘primus et secundus et tertius versantur circa visibilium sensibiles et invisibiles proprietates et invisibiles naturas, rationes, causas etc., et illi tres imaginationi immiscentur nec puram intelligentiam contingunt. Quartus gradus semoto imaginationis officio illis solis intendit que imaginatio non attingit, id est invisibilibus invisibilium naturis, proprietatibus, virtutibus, viribus, dispositionibus etc. […] Quintus assurgit in divina et eterna spectacula tantum intellectu apprehensibilia et humane rationi consona. Sextum philosophia mundana ignorat.’ 63 See Spectacula IV, ed. Lawell, pp. 275–78. Note that discussing this subject above, unintentionally, also exercises the readers’s mind in the fourth grade.

285

286

cs a ba n é m e t h

toward the mind itself, and sees the exemplars of the Word in their mental images.64 In the fifth and sixth stages the ‘divine spectacles’ are the objects of cognition. These spectacles are those ‘invisible divine things’ (that is, the theories), which can be known, to some extent, by reason and intellect, and it was Richard who made them understandable (in communem intellectum ducit).65 The fifth grade of contemplation considers the divine essence, Goodness, omnipotence, wisdom, eternity; the sixth grade, ‘unknown to worldly philosophy’, the personal and notional attributes of God.66 Cherubim and Seraphim

Among the three orders of the highest hierarchy (that is, the degrees of ecstasy), the interplay of the middle (Cherubim) and the highest orders (Seraphim) deserves special attention. The order of Cherubim is the last degree where both intellect and affect are operative until, at its summit, the intellectual cognition halts: there is no intellectual operation in Seraphim. The characteristic element of Cherubim is the simplification of the two cognitive modes: in the language of Thomas’ Canticle commentaries, the two ‘pinnacles’ of affect and intellect (the eyes of the Spouse) become simplified as they turn from the multitude of creatures to the more-than-simple Bridegroom (that is, to the Word of God).67 ‘Meditations, affections, intentions, discretions, speculations and various movements’ are another kind of multitude (multiplicity, multiplicitas) characteristic to the middle hierarchy; one may interpolate that these must also be got rid of.68 Although simplification as such is a necessary accommodation on behalf of the mind to the simplicity of the descending divine ray, the often-repeated doctrine that all

64 See Super DN IV B, p. 185. While the exemplars of the existing things are in the Word, in our minds only their images are present (which Thomas also calls ‘mental images’, imagines mentales); a direct, immediate cognition of the exemplars is given only to the glorified minds. 65 Comm. III 3A, p. 167. For Thomas’ main references to Richard’s works see Comm. III 2H, p. 155, apparatus (MS B gives an ascending order of Richard’s writings: Adnotatio in Ps. 2, Benjamin minor, Benjamin major, De Trinitate); Super MT III A, p. 36 (a summary of the De Trinitate); Super AI X, p. 641 (the allegorical praise of Richard as Seraph and his role), Spectacula, p. 270 (naming Richard’s Benjamin major and De Trinitate as the source for the six grades of contemplation). 66 Super MT I, pp. 3–4: ‘Quintus assurgit in divina et eterna spectacula tantum intellectu apprehensibilia et humane rationi consona. Sextum philosophia mundana ignorat.’ Cf. Spectacula V: ‘Quintum genus contemplationis consistit in intellectu secundum rationem et versatur maxime circa divina invisibilia essentialia.’ and VI: ‘Sextus gradus consistit in intellectu super rationem et versatur in divinis invisibilibus personalibus et notionalibus.’ (pp. 279 and 280). For a discussion of the phrase ‘philosophia […] ignorat’ see Lawell’s introduction, pp. 263–65, with reference to Javelet, but also note that notions about a trinitarian God and the persons of the Trinity were traditionally regarded as specifically Christian mysteries (contrasted to the notions accessible to philosophers, e.g. the existence of a God who authored the universe). 67 See Comm. III 1O, p. 141. 68 Comm. II 1D, p. 72: ‘introduxerunt me ad munitionem et custodiam ordinum medie hierarchie in quibus est multiplicitas meditationum, affectionum, intentionum, discretionum et speculationum et variorum motuum, et hoc est pluraliter vineis.’

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

the intellectual operations come to a halt in the last, Seraphic stage, while affective cognition still works, may seem at first sight arbitrary. Recently Boyd Coolman gave a tentative interpretation on the simplification in the Cherubic stage and its transition into the Seraphic, arguing that ‘in some fashion the intellectus is taken up into or absorbed into the affectus and thus the two powers are contracted or simplified into a single cognitive modality’.69 This tempting interpretation, in our opinion, does not hold: not only because Thomas is adamant about its opposite, but also because the discontinuation of intellectual cognition in Seraphim is neccessary for theological reasons (as I try to show below). Thomas makes clear that the order of Cherubim means the last phase of intellectual activity: the affect in the Seraphic order, operating alone, perceives both intellectual and affective knowledge, and transmits it to the Cherubic order where both cognitive modes are active.70 He also gives a particularly instructive illustration for this downward movement of knowledge from Seraphim to Cherubim, by his interpretation of the two Seraphim of the throne vision of Isaiah 6 and their doxology. For Thomas the two seraphic figures represent the Seraph and the Cherub of the mind: the superior Seraph teaches the inferior Cherub, by the doxology, the mystery of Trinity, because ‘the philosophical intellect was unable to prove or discover the trinity of unity the way the Church holds this [doctrine], but rather learned it only’ (Sed Trinitatem unitatis prout eam tenet ecclesia intellectus philosophicus demonstrare aut invenire non potuit, sed magis didicit). Thomas concludes with an homage to Richard: Tandem vero inventus est aliquis, qui talentum intellectus fideliter multiplicans novam artem super experimentum affectus fundavit et necessariis satis rationibus sanctus, sanctus, sanctus per Seraph suum clamavit, scilicet prior Richardus in libro suo qui dicitur Iustus meus. Finally, however, there has been found someone who, multiplying the talent of intellect in a faithful manner, based a new art on the experience of affect and, with quite cogent reasons, claimed ‘Holy, holy, holy’ through his Seraph — that is, prior Richard in his book Justus meus.71 The allegory has at least two layers: the reader (Cherub) learns from Richard’s De Trinitate (the doxology) the mystery of the Trinity (Justus meus is the alternate title

69 See Boyd Coolman, ‘Thomas Gallus’, p. 152 and passim. While Coolman admits that ‘Gallus himself nowhere makes this claim explicitly’ (p. 156) and bases his theory exclusively on the two Canticle commentaries, there is at least one passage where Thomas states explicitly that intellect does not enter into Seraph, not even in a contracted form, see Comm. III 4A (oculi tui), p. 91: ‘sed longe commendabilior est intimus et precipuus affectus ordinis seraphim, quo non pervenit intellectus, nec etiam contractus, et affectus.’ 70 See Super DN IV E, pp. 203–04: ‘Nota quod lumen divini radii non solum est splendidum et intellectualibus visionibus pulcrum, sed et piis affectibus dulce ad gustandum […] et gustus eius previum est intellectuali cognitioni quam et acquirit. Noster enim Seraph influit Cherub nostri […].’ and Super AI VII K, p. 597: ‘premittitur affectualis [sc. cognitio] intellectuali quia affectualis […] acquirit lumen cognitionis intellectualis’ (also VII H, p. 593). 71 See Super AI X (Vidi Dominum fragment), p. 641.’

287

288

cs a ba n é m e t h

of De Trinitate); at the same time, but on the individual level, the reader’s Cherub (where both affect and intellect are operative) also learns the mystery from the Seraph (where only the affect is active). The disruption of intellectual cognition in the Seraph seems to be a necessary structural demand. We may not forget that the so-called ‘mystical doctrines’ of Thomas (which fill the Canticle commentaries) are nothing more than theories of the cognition of God elaborated for the case of viatores, the wayfarers in this life (via). While Thomas continuously repeats that intellectual cognition happens through a mirror (speculum, thus it is properly a speculatio), the reader must be continuously aware that this description is valid only for the condition of via, the present life.72 That vision of God which is not through the mirror but face to face belongs to patria, the life hereafter. The discontinuation of the intellective operations in the Seraphim is what guarantees the difference between the cognition of via and that of patria — that is, the difference (also the separation) between the mediated and the immediate (per speciem) intellectual cognition of God. Assuming any intellectual activity in Seraphim would be contrary to the explicit statements of Thomas and the programme of the Mystical Theology demanding the abandonment of intellectual operations.73 Removing the discontinuity of the operation of intellect would also ruin the entire system of Thomas. His thought is based on the premise that during this life the affect alone can have an immediate access to God (conceived, ultimately, as an experience and a loving union): the cognition by the intellect remains mediated. This also means that an immediate experience of God may be given only by the affect in this life. The immediacy, made possible through the supra-intellectual union, counterbalances not only the discontinuity of the intellectual operations: it is also superior to faith. The ‘unifying knowledge’ derives from the gift of wisdom (donus sapientie) obtained by love, while faith comes from the gift of understanding (donum intellectus) obtained by the ‘exercise of the mind’, and the gift of wisdom is higher (superius) than that of understanding.74 A Note on the Reception of Thomas’ Hierarchic Pattern

For Thomas, the scheme of nine orders was the ultimate pattern that encompassed the totality of cognitive experiences, both intellectual and affective, both below and beyond ecstasy. Later spiritual authors, however, reduced his model to an additional pattern of (intellectual) ascent, to one out of the many similar ones.

72 See e.g. Comm. III 5I, p. 204: ‘Intellectus enim speculativus est, et necessario consistit is speculo quod est creatura, Cor. 13: videmus nunc per speculum etc.’ 73 See e.g. Comm. III 1F (nigra sum), p. 129 and Comm. II 1C, p. 72: the blackness and colorlessness of the Spouse is the allegorical equivalent of the mind suspended in Seraphim and, in turn, of having been entered into the divine darkness (caligo) of the MT. 74 See Super DN VII I, p. 386 and Super DN VII K, p. 389; cf. Super AI X (Vidi Dominum), p. 641: ‘Sic ergo fides que est in via pertinet ad Cherubim, sicut caritas ad Seraphim.’

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

An unpretentious example of this change appears in the De septem itineribus aeternitatis by the Franciscan Rudolf of Biberach (c. 1270–1326).75 Rudolf discerns seven forms of spiritual experiences, arranges them in an ascending manner, and documents each one with ample quotations from spiritual literature (including the works of Hugh, Richard, Thomas, and Grosseteste). Under the heading ‘contemplation’ (Iter III) Rudolf juxtaposes four different patterns: the nine-fold angelic scheme of Thomas Gallus, the six-fold model from Richard’s Benjamin major, another one based on the Ps-Augustinian De spiritu et anima, and a fourth one attributed to Origen. It is somehow ironic that the models of Thomas and Richard are grouped together under the same heading, since Thomas himself considered Richard’s Benjamin major as a work of intellectual contemplation, and his own model intended to display the superiority of affective union. But for Rudolf contemplation is just the third way of the seven. Above it is, for example, ‘revelations’ (Iter V), culminating in supra-intellectual revelation (explained by, among other sources, the Mystical Theology, its commentary by Grosseteste, and the Canticle commentary of Thomas). The case of Saint Bonaventure shows a somewhat different form of reception. ‘Whether Gallus influenced Bonaventure is debatable’, wrote Paul Rorem more than two decades ago.76 The question still seems unanswered (even uninvestigated), but in the case of angelic hierarchies of the soul, as the theme appears in the Itinerarium (1259) and the Collationes in Hexaemeron (1273–1274), Bonaventure left a clue. In the Itinerarium the fourth degree of contemplation is the contemplation of God in the restored image, in the soul. This means just an intermediary stage, before the ontological speculations of the fifth and sixth stages and the affective super-intellectual union of the seventh. In the fourth degree, after acquiring theological virtues and the restoration of spiritual senses, the soul becomes similar to the Heavenly Jerusalem what is also becoming ‘hierarchised’: afterward, the soul enters itself and sees God in this internalized hierarchy. The human spirit ‘becomes hierarchised’ (hierarchicus efficitur) when grades of nine orders ‘make a mark’ on it (gradibus insignitur), by ‘setting in order’ in the soul nuntiatio, dictatio, ductio, ordinatio, roboratio, imperatio, susceptio, revelatio, and unctio (or unitio, another manuscript variant) which ‘gradually correspond’ to the nine angelic orders. Bonaventure does not explain the meaning of these terms in the Itinerarium, only adds that they, three by three, belong to nature, to human effort (industria) and grace.77 The string of terms, as present in the Itinerarium, is

75 See in Peltier’s edition of Bonaventure: Opera omnia, viii, pp. 393–482. Reading the Mystical Theology interpretations of Gallus and Grosseteste together, in a complementary way, was a practice present already in Rudolf ’s treatise ; this tendency culminates in the southern German area of the early fifteenth century where these works circulate together, see McEvoy, ‘Thomas Gallus Vercellensis and Robertus Grossetesta’, pp. 31–43. 76 See Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary, p. 231. 77 See Itinerarium IV, 4: ‘per reformationem imaginis, per virtutes theologicas et per oblectationes spiritualium sensuum et suspensiones excessuum efficitur spiritus noster hierarchicus, scilicet purgatus, illuminatus et perfectus. Sic etiam gradibus novem ordinum insignitur, dum ordinate

289

290

cs a ba n é m e t h

arbitrary and largely unintelligible in itself; one must read Thomas’ prologues to his Canticle commentaries to understand the way and the reason the nine abstract terms refer to mental and spiritual activities and are connected to angelic orders. Bonaventure’s innovation here is that he creates abstract nouns from Thomas’ descriptions.78 In the late work Collatio 22 in Hexaemeron, Bonaventure repeats the ideas of the Itinerarium in an embellished and corrected way. The content is similar: the hierarchized soul becomes similar to Jerusalem through its re-structuring by stages, what is now threefold, and the imprinting of angelic hierarchies now is called ‘hierarchisation according to ascent’ (hierarchizatio secundum ascensum).79 The stages, again, bear the names seen in the Itinerarium (only the last grade is called unio instead of unitio or unctio), but now Bonaventure cares to give some etymological details that connect the names of the stages and the names of the angelic orders. Unlike in the Itinerarium, Bonaventure here gives some credit to Thomas by a terse reference, noting that Abbas Vercellensis assignavit tres gradus, scilicet naturae, industriae, gratiae. Sed non videtur, quod aliquo modo per naturam anima possit hierarchizari. Et ideo

in eo interius disponitur nuntiatio, dictatio, ductio, ordinatio, roboratio, imperatio, susceptio, revelatio, unctio, quae gradatim correspondent novem ordinibus Angelorum, ita quod primi trium praedictorum gradus respiciunt in mente humana naturam, tres sequentes industriam, et tres postremi gratiam.’ Bonaventure, Opera omnia, v, 307. Compare Bonaventure’s natura — industria — gratia triad with that of Thomas: ‘Infima mentis hierarchia consistit in ipsa eius natura, media in industria […] summa in excessu mentis. In prima operatur sola natura, in summa sola gratia, in media simul operantur gratia et industria.’ Comm. II prologus, p. 67 (also Comm. III prologus E, p. 108). 78 See the following examples from Comm. III prologus, pp. 108–09. I give the number of order and its name, then the relevant parts of Thomas’ description, followed by the names used by Bonaventure (set in parentheses; emphases are mine): 1) Angeli: apprehensiones naturales … que tanquam angeli, id est nuntii aliquid anime simpliciter annuntiant (nuntiatio); 2) Archangeli: continet dictationes apprehensorum (dictatio); 3) Principatus: tertius … ordo prebet ducatum inferioribus in divinis (ductio); 4) Potestates: quartus ordo … continet voluntarios motus … ordinantes mentem (ordinatio); 5) Virtutes: quintus … continet valida mentis robora virtutum (roboratio); 6) Dominationes: sextus … continet authentica imperia liberi arbitrii (imperatio); 7) Throni: septimus ordo per mentis excessum susceptivus est superadventus divini, unde thronorum nomine censetur (susceptio); 8) Cherubim: octavus ordo continet omnimodam cognitionem intellectus attracti divina dignatione (revelatio); 9) Seraphim: Iste ordo Deum amplexatur et sponsi amplexibus amicitur, speculum nescit … In hoc ordine sponso et sponse lectulus collocatur (unitio, unio). 79 See Bonaventure, Collatio 22 in Hexaemeron, 24–27: ‘Disponuntur autem [the hierarchic grades, gradus hierarchici] in anima tripliciter: secundum ascensum, secundum descensum et secundum regressum in divina […] Tres autem sunt gradus industriae sive actus, scilicet nuntiatio, dictatio, ductio. Nuntiatio respondet Angelis, dictatio Archangelis, ductio Principatibus. … Secundus est gradus industriae cum gratia … prima ordinatio est in Deum, quae est Potestatum … necessaria est roboratio, quae est Virtutum … sequitur imperatio, quae est Dominationum. … Tertia hierarchizatio est gratiae super naturam et industriam … Ista tria sunt susceptio, revelatio, unio, ultra quam non procedit mens. … Susceptio respondet Thronis, revelatio Cherubim, unio Seraphim. Et haec hierarchizatio est secundum ascensum.’ See Bonaventure, Opera omnia, v, 441.

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

nos debemus attribuere industriae cum natura, industriae cum gratia, et gratiae super naturam et industriam. the Abbot of Vercelli marked three degrees, namely, of nature, of effort and of grace. But it is implausible that the soul could become hierarchised by nature in any way. For this reason, we must assign [grades] to effort with nature, to effort with grace, and to grace beyond nature and effort.80 What is not much of a credit: Bonaventure silently borrows a complex set of ideas from Thomas, but mentions his name only when corrects one element of it (which one, however, he copied earlier, without any reservation, into the Itinerarium). The Final Limits

During those decades while Thomas resided in Vercelli and worked on his commentaries, theologians of Paris — like Alexander Hales, Hugh of Saint-Cher, Philip the Chancellor, Roland of Cremona — saw a most fertile period of doctrinal development of scholasticism. Central issues related to the cognition of God (such the cognoscibility of God, beatific vision and raptus) were discussed methodologically, and the theological literature of Paris is relatively transparent on these issues. In the case of the visio beatifica the development had a normative turn: while the Greek position on radical incognoscibility (invisibility) of the divine essence was taught in Paris of the 1220s by, for example, Hugh of Saint-Cher and Alexander of Hales; the Periphyseon was condemned to be burnt in 1225, and in 1241 that doctrine was condemned as heretical.81 Thomas’ case is unique in this context. His positions regarding cognition in patria and the cognoscibility of God can be reconstructed only from hints.82 So far it is clear that Thomas devised a parallel hierarchy of ontology and epistemology. The 80 See Collatio 22 in Hexaemeron, pp. 24–28, here p. 24: Bonaventure, Opera omnia, v, 441. 81 On the doctrinal history of seeing God, see H.-F. Dondaine, ‘L’objet et le “medium” de la vision béatifique chez les théologiens du xiiie siècle’, RTAM, 19 (1952), 60–130, Nikolaus Wicki, Die Lehre von der himmlischen Seligkeit in der mittelalterlichen Scholastik von Petrus Lombardus bis Thomas Aquin (Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitäts-Verlag, 1954), pp. 95–174 (both with ample source material); Marie-Dominique Chenu, ‘Le dernier avatar de la théologie orientale en Occident au xiiie siècle,’ in Mélanges Auguste Pelzer. Études d’histoire littéraire et doctrinale de la Scolastique médiévale offertes à Monseigneur Auguste Pelzer (Louvain: Bibliothèque de l’Université, 1947), pp. 159–81, and Christian Trottmann, La vision béatifique des disputes scholastiques à sa définition par Benoît XII (Rome: École Francaise de Rome, 1995). 82 A systematic study would also demand Thomas’ concept of prelapsarian cognition and raptus. Here I can only indicate that Thomas, contrary to twelfth-century Victorine convictions but in accord with scholastic ones, taught that Adam both before and after the sin saw God through a mirror, not per speciem (Comm. III 2F, Comm. II 2D). His far less clear position on raptus demands further investigation: as it seems, he considers Acts 22 an affective rapture (Super DN IV P), but interprets 2 Cor. 12 (the textual basis of the Latin raptus theology) an intellectual but not a per speciem vision of God (Super AI IV C). For a comparison to monastic models and uses of the rapture narrative, see my chapters ‘Paulus raptus to raptus Pauli. Paul’s rapture (2 Corinthians 12. 2–4) in the Pre-Scholastic and Scholastic Theologies’, in A Companion to St Paul in the Middle Ages, ed. by Steven R. Cartwright

291

292

cs a ba n é m e t h

existing things (meaning mostly the creatures) are the realm of intellect, while the source of being (entitas) is above the intellect and can be known by the far superior, supra-intellectual unitio. But beyond and above the realms of intellectual and affective cognition still there is the ‘ineffable and unknowable divine supersubstantiality’, the ‘divine substance’.83 It is still a question how this model and Thomas’ (rather implicit) concept of beatific vision relates to the reality of Latin orthodoxy. In 1241 the University of Paris outlined and condemned ten errors, including: Primus [error], quod divina essentia in se nec ab homine nec ab angelo videbitur. Hunc errorem reprobamus et assertores et defensores auctoritate Wilhermi episcopi excommunicamus. Firmiter autem credimus et asserimus quod Deus in sua essentia vel substantia videbitur ab angelis et omnibus sanctis et videtur ab animabus glorificatis. The first [error] is, that the Divine essence in itself will not be seen by [any] man or angel. We condemn this error, and by the authority of William, the bishop, we excommunicate those who assert and defend it. Moreover, we firmly believe and assert that God in His essence or substance will be seen by the angels and all saints, and is seen by glorified souls.84 Any study into Thomas’ doctrines on beatific vision is preceeded by the pioneering attempts of H.-F. Dondaine.85 His observations, although based only on manuscripts samples of Super DN I and Super AI, still hold, but the recently edited material permits to give a fuller picture. Regarding the terminology, Dondaine rightly noticed that Thomas avoids the terms ‘essence’ and ‘substance’ (central terms in the discussions of the period), and uses a vocabulary close to the Biblical one, being his favourite expression for the final vision is seeing God per propriam speciem. On the basis of the now accessible texts we may add that this is the expression Thomas regularly uses as the opposite of seeing God per speculum, through a mirror. This choice of term cannot be accidental. More traditional theologians keep with the original scriptural locus 1 Corinthians 13. 12 and oppose seeing per speculum to seeing facie ad faciem. The expression videre facie ad faciem, however, has a hint of ambiguity: it means literally ‘face to face’ but metaphorically ‘immediately’. Thomas replaces this expression by seeing God per speciem. The expression is also biblical (based on 2 Corinthians 5. 7: per fidem enim ambulamus et non per speciem) but its polivalence well serves his own theology. Since species means, among others, external appearance, form and surface, seeing something per speciem means both seeing something immediately (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 349–92, and ‘Ascending to the Third Heaven? A Missing Tradition of Latin Mysticism’, in The Immediacy of Mystical Experience in the European Tradition, ed. by M. Vassányi, E. Sepsi, and A. Daróczi (Cham: Springer, 2017), pp. 39–61, esp. pp. 44–47. 83 See e.g. Super AI I A, p. 486, Extractio DN V, Carth. 16, p. 236; see also Super DN VII H, pp. 381–82: for its ontological background see Lawell, ‘Affective Excess: Ontology and Knowledge,’ p. 153 passim. 84 See Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. by H. Deniflé and E. Chatelain vol. 1 (Paris: Delalain, 1889), p. 170 (for the condemnation of the Periphyseon see pp. 106–07). Slightly altered translation of Paul Halsall, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/uparis-cond1241.html (accessed 29 May 2012). 85 See Dondaine, ‘L’objet et le “medium”’, pp. 90–91.

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

and seeing only its surface. Thomas’ revealing example is looking at the Sun (which is the analogue of God): we see it directly, in propria specie (that is, in its own form, as it appears to us) but our sight cannot penetrate it.86 Thomas’ position regarding beatific vision can be summarized in this way. The final cognition of God has at least two limitations: the glorified soul can contemplate God (per speciem) only as far as God grants this vision,87 and it cannot be a full comprehension of God (more precisely, of the divine spectacles) because that would mean an equality with God.88 The duality of intellectual and affective cognition is present in the glorified state too. Intellectual cognition happens not through a mirror anymore but face to face, meaning that the glorified minds purely and perfectly contemplate the exemplars and become assimilated to them.89 The most perfect cognition and knowledge of God, both in this life and the next, in via and in patria, is the affective experience of the ‘profound and super-intellectual’ theories, perceived still by the Seraph of the mind.90 This union assimilates to God better and deifies fuller than the per speciem intellectual cognition.91 However, the ‘infiniteness of divine abyss and highness’ can be penetrated only by the omnipotent Wisdom, not by us.92 Dondaine remarked that the passages he saw satisfied the Latin doctrine about beatific vision by asserting a clear, manifest, and comprehensive contemplation of

86 See Comm. III 3A, p. 167: the eagle sees the Sun in propria specie and cannot penetrate; see also Super DN I G (Si enim cognitiones), below. Note that for medieval thinkers a distinctive feature of eagles was their unique ability to gaze directly into the Sun. 87 Super AI I A, pp. 486–87: ‘Nec miretur aliquis quod divina profunditas dicitur “non intelligi”, cum omnes mentes glorificate angelice vel humane Deum per speciem propriam divinam contemplentur, maxime autem et quantum omnipotentia dare potest intelligentie create, mens Verbo eterne personaliter unita.’ (emphasis added). 88 Super MT V A, p. 45: ‘De statu autem futuro electorum legitur I Ioh. 3a: videmus eum sicuti est, id est non per speculum ut nunc, sed in propria forma. Verumtamen neque homo purus neque angelus aliquod divinum et eternum spectaculum plene comprehendit. Qui enim unum plene comprehendit […] eque sciens esset sicut Deus, et per consequens eque potens, eque magnus etc.’ 89 Super DN IV B, p. 185: ‘Comprehensores vero intellectuales suas species in dicta exemplaria pure et perfecte et facie ad faciem extendentes, beatas et perfectas et sublimes contemplationes et cognitiones inde exhauriunt, et intime reponentes perfecte conformantur contemplatis.’ 90 Super AI III C, p. 546: ‘Hec ergo sanctorum inspectio intelligitur profundarum et superintellectualium theoriarum affectualis experientia […]. Ista autem divinorum cognitio a Seraph mentis percipitur […]. Nulla enim perfectior scientia vel Dei cognitio percipitur sive in via secundum statum viatorum sive in patria secundum conditionem comprehensorum.’ Cf. Super AI X, p. 638: ‘nec se possunt angelici ordines ultra istum [sc. ordinem Seraphim] extendere quia non potest divina plenitudo aliquo sublimiori modo hominibus vel angeli innotescere.’ 91 Super DN I F (mente participantes), p. 92 (cf. Dondaine, ‘L’objet et le “medium”’, p. 91): ‘Habet enim ipsa unio experientiam superintellectualem et in via et in patria. […] Et hoc fiet imitatione supercoelestium mentium, angelorum scilicet, diviniore, id est magis nos assimilante Deo et plenius nos deificante quam cognitio intellectualis etiam per speciem.’ 92 Super DN I G (Si enim cognitiones), p. 102 (cf. Dondaine, ‘L’objet et le “medium”’, pp. 90/91): ‘Verumtamen et angeli et anime primam stolam accipientes Deum in propria specie contemplantur et comprehendunt facie ad faciem, sed infinitatem divinae profunditatis et altitudinis sola penetrat omnipotens Sapientia, sicut nos solem corporeum in propria specie videmus sed penetrare non sufficimus.’

293

2 94

cs a ba n é m e t h

God.93 This may be true only on the surface. The theme of the beatific vision in Thomas certainly demands further research, but our present, much limited investigation suggests that in spite of all Biblical and traditional terminology, a per speciem vision of God is not a per essentiam vision or cognition. The way Thomas constructed his ontology and epistemology makes impossible any essential cognition of God. In his case, the ultimate price of the divine autonomy and supersubstantiality is the incognoscibility of the divine essence (if that hidden sphere of the Godhead may be called so), even if it is not stated explicitly.94 For creatures — that is, for angels and human minds united to the divine Word — there is no deeper cognition than a direct intellectual cognition of theories, ‘divine spectacles’, and an ecstatic affective union with those higher theories which can be known by the faculty ‘union’ (unitio) only. But knowing God through and only by theories (images, ideas, exemplars, archetypes) which also take the forms of the Bridegroom and Word of God may evoke a question raised by Hugh of Saint Victor. Commenting on the Celestial Hierarchy, he warned the reader about ‘certain people’ who set images of a hidden and incomprehensible Godhead between the mind and God, asserting that God can be seen only in and by these images. Hugh asks, then, What else is seeing God only in such images than never seeing him truly and never seeing the truth?95

Conclusion If the aim of ‘mysticism’ or spirituality is to find ways and expressions for a direct, immediate, and unmediated contact with God, Thomas is certainly one of the most important such author after the twelfth century. His anthropology opened up an alternative dimension for the cognition of God by conceiving affectus as a cognitive power and introducing (much after the Areopagitic unitio) the concept of synderesis or apex mentis as the special cognitive-affective faculty which makes possible an immediate union with God in this life. These premises became widely accepted later among theologians. The novelty of Thomas can be better estimated if one considers how the important twelfth-century formulations of the immediacy to God (and the contemplative experience) were tainted by ambiguity. Those authors who admitted that love is 93 Dondaine, ‘L’objet et le “medium”’, p. 90: ‘ses grands Commentaires […] donnent satisfaction suffisante à la doctrine latine en affirmant une contemplation céleste de Dieu “claire, manifeste et compréhensive.”’ 94 See Super Ep. ad Dorotheum, p. 728: [Deus] ‘de infinita et incomparabili sue supersubstantialitatis excellentia et profunditate lumina et radios sue claritatis effundit, que supersubstantialitas non solum sensum et cognitionem intellectualem excedit, sed et ipsam superintellectualem unionem, ut DN 5a.’ 95 ‘Ipsa autem quasi quaedam simulachra absconditae diuinitatis inter rationales animos ac Deum media ponunt, altiora quidem mente, inferiora diuinitate, et hoc quidem solum de Deo uideri et in hoc solo Deum uideri, utpote qui in seipso a nulla mente uel animo uideri possit. [...] Quid est enim in illis solum Deum uideri et extra illa non uideri, nisi nunquam uere uideri et uerum nunquam uideri?’ Hugh of Saint-Victor, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ii, ed. by Poirel, p. 444; Hugh of Saint-Victor, In hierarchiam, ii, 954D (PL 175.923A–1154C).

d i o n ys i an e l e m e n t s, st ru ct u re s, and li mi t s

‘in some way’ cognition, (and usually avoided calling this cognition a ‘vision’), and were unable clearly to formulate in what way love can be cognition (such authors are, most notably, William of Saint-Thierry and Bernard of Clairvaux). Other authors used the metaphor of vision for the cognition of God (like several Victorines): in this case the final, eschatological vision is what interfered with any ‘vision’ of God in contemplation. Thomas’ model solved both problems. On the one hand, he offered a clear formulation for affective cognition and also provided its anthropological foundation. On the other hand, he clearly formulated this cognition in the terms of vision as well: intellectual cognition is clearly a limited vision, and the affective cognition is not a vision at all (rather experiencing, smelling, tasting). In this respect, Thomas’ model filled a niche: it granted, without infringing traditional theological concepts, the possibility of an immediate experience of God. This particular form of spirituality, justified by the authority of the Mystical Theology of Dionysius, became soon accepted: it is repeated by several spiritual works, such as the Itinerarium of Bonaventure, the Viae Sion lugent of Hugh of Balma or the De septem itieribus of Rudolf of Biberach — sometimes even referring to and quoting Thomas. Thomas’ writings transposed the doctrines of the Areopagite into the Latin theology. He was, without much exaggeration, the first Latin theologian after Eriugena with an extensive knowledge of the entire Areopagitic corpus, and this knowledge made him one of the most influential reformers of Western spirituality. The term ‘affective Dionysianism’ is certainly adequate insofar as Thomas’ theories are considered an interpretation of Areopagitic ideas. The recently edited works, however, call for a certain revision of this term. Remarkably enough, both medieval spiritual authors and modern scholars focused primarily on his Canticle commentaries and interpretations of the Mystical Theology. The main concepts which made Thomas a ‘mystical author’ for us are largely the same ones which medieval authors took over from his works — such as the existence of an affective cognitive faculty, the possibility of an affective union with God beyond intellectual cognition, and the model of hierarchized mind. But taking over only these anthropological elements also means staying on the safe ground of orthodoxy. Focusing on the conditions of ‘mystical experience’ of this life, these medieval authors ignored (or simply missed) problematic theories in the background. Thomas’ thought is defined by his coherent reading of Dionysius: not only his anthropology but also his ontology complies with the premises of the Areopagite. Due to the ontology of the Divine Names Thomas assumes, beside the existence of theories, also a radically and essentially incognoscible God (as once Eriugena did), and these philosophical positions define the theological positions on beatific vision. In the late years of Thomas’ life, that doctrine of divine incognoscibility which was known through primarily Greek Patristic sources was declared heretic. Whether this fact influenced the reception of Thomas’ writings is a question left for the future research.

295

Katherine Wrisley Shelby

Thomas Gallus’ Explanatio and Dionysian Thought

In comparison to the works of his predecessors, especially Hugh and Richard of St Victor, the writings of Thomas Gallus (d. 1246) have received relatively little attention from scholars interested in the historical and theological significance of the Victorine School. This is in part because the works of Gallus — otherwise known as the Abbot of Vercelli or Thomas of Paris — were lost to modern readers until their rediscovery by Gabriel Théry in the twentieth century and are themselves ‘not easy to read’.1 The efforts of a few devoted scholars have in recent decades nevertheless shed light upon the pivotal role played by Gallus in the expansion of Victorine thought into the thirteenth century and beyond. Jeanne Barbet, Declan Lawell, and Gabriel Théry have provided critical editions for some of the most important of Gallus’ extant works.2 James McEvoy supplies an edition of Gallus’ gloss on Pseudo-Dionysius’ De Mystica Theologia, which includes an English translation of the text.3 Boyd Taylor Coolman and Bernard McGinn have likewise contributed significantly to scholarship surrounding the Victorine Abbot, especially insofar as they have illuminated the





1 Bernard McGinn, ‘Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism’, Studies in Spirituality, 8 (1998), 81–96 (p. 82). 2 See Thomas Gallus, Commentaires du Cantique des Cantiques, ed. by Jeanne Barbet, TPMA, 14 (Paris: Vrin, 1967). See also Un Commentaire vercellien du Cantique des cantiques: ‘Deiformis anime gemitus’, ed. by Jeanne Barbet and trans. by Francis Ruello (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), which provides an edition for a commentary on The Song of Songs that Barbet and Ruello argue has been falsely attributed to Gallus by Théry. Ruello’s explanation of the divergences between the texts falsely attributed to Gallus and Gallus’ own commentaries on The Song provides an important introduction to Gallus’ theology in its own right. See also ‘Commentaire sur Isaïe de Thomas de Saint-Victor’, ed. by Gabriel Théry, La vie spirituelle, 47 (1936), 146–62; Explanatio in Libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011); Glose Super Angelica Ierarchia: Accedunt indices ad Thomae Galli Opera, ed. by Declan Lawell, CCCM, 223A (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011). 3 James McEvoy, Mystical Theology: The Glosses by Thomas Gallus and the Commentary of Robert Grossetesste on ‘De Mystica Theologia’, Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations, 3 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003). Katherine Wrisley Shelby  •  is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology at Providence College. She specializes in Franciscan theology and spirituality. Victorine Restoration: Essays on Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor, and Thomas Gallus, ed. by Robert J. Porwoll and David Allison Orsbon, CURSOR 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 297–327 BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CURSOR-EB.5.122091

298

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

historical and theological importance of his thought for later medieval views of mysticism and contemplation.4 More specifically, and crucially for understanding Gallus’ place within both the Victorine school of theology and the broader medieval theological climate, these scholars all commonly emphasize his unique role in shaping medieval interpretations of the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Their work of unearthing and explaining the thought of this long-forgotten Victorine has posited Gallus as the champion of an ‘affective Dionysianism’, a medieval school of thought in which theologians reinterpreted the Areopagite’s corpus by positing love above knowledge as the locus of the soul’s mystical union with God. ‘By all accounts, this last of the great Victorines is the primary architect of, and the fundamental source for later participants in this medieval trajectory of affective Dionysianism’, observes Coolman.5 Due to his role as ‘the primary architect’ of this tradition, Coolman, McGinn, and other scholars see the Abbot of Vercelli as a crucial conduit for the flow of Victorine Theology into the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.6 Despite Gallus’ significance in these respects, however, Coolman also affirms that he unfortunately ‘remains the least studied and understood of all these authors’.7 This chapter explores the affective theology of Gallus’ most expansive gloss on the Dionysian corpus, namely, the Explanatio in libros Dionysii (1241–1243), to demonstrate how the text continued the trend of Dionysian interpretation begun by his twelfth-century predecessors at the Victorine School, as well as influenced later interpretations of the Areopagite with regard to its hermeneutic of love. To achieve this aim, I first introduce the historical milieu for Gallus’ authorship of the Explanatio with respect to both his Victorine context, as well as to the other texts within Gallus’ corpus. Next, I expound upon three theological themes that inform Gallus’ interpretive project in the Explanatio so as to emphasize how the Abbot of Vercelli re-flavoured the Dionysian corpus with affective theology: first, through his notion of the hierarchized soul; second, through his emphasis on the relationship



4 See Boyd Taylor Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); Boyd Taylor Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, Modern Theology, 24 (2008), 615–32; Boyd Taylor Coolman, ‘Thomas Gallus’, in The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity, ed. by Paul L. Gavrilyuk and Sarah Coakley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 140–58. See also Bernard McGinn, ‘The Victorine Ordering of Mysticism’, in The Growth of Mysticism: Gregory the Great Through the 12th Century, The Presence of God, vol. ii (New York: Crossroads, 1994), pp. 363–418; and Bernard McGinn, ‘Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism’, Studies in Spirituality, 8 (1998), 81–96. For biographical information on Thomas Gallus, see also Kurt Ruh, ‘Thomas Gallus Vercellensis’, in Kurt Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, Die Mystik des deutschen Predigerordens und ihre Grundlegung durch die Hochscholastik, 3 (Munich: Beck, 1996), pp. 59–81, especialy pp. 61–64. I am grateful for Dr Coolman for introducing me to the Abbot of Vercelli in his graduate course, ‘Late Medieval Mysticism: The Affective Dionysian Tradition’, offered at Boston College in the Fall semester of 2012. The ideas in this paper were first conceived there, albeit in a much different form. I am grateful for his scholarship and mentorship, which has nurtured my own work on Gallus since then. 5 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 618. 6 See, for example, McGinn, ‘The Victorine Ordering of Mysticism’, p. 365. 7 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 618.

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

between the intellect and affect in achieving mystical union with God, an emphasis which pertains to the Explanatio’s theological methodology; and finally, through the Explanatio’s Christology. Specifically, I claim that for Gallus, the Incarnate Christ always initiates the soul’s hierarchization through knowledge and love toward an affective union with God. Finally, I conclude by pointing to the Explanatio’s influence upon later interpreters of Pseudo-Dionysius, particularly insofar as Gallus’ theology seems to have especially impacted certain key thinkers within the medieval Franciscan intellectual tradition.

Contextualizing the Explanatio What was the medieval affective Dionysian tradition, and what was its particular relationship to the Victorine school of theology? How did Thomas Gallus both carry forward and re-define that tradition? To address these questions, I here provide a twofold contextualization for Gallus’ lengthiest Dionysian commentary, the Explanatio: (1) first, with respect to his appellation as the ‘last of the great Victorines’,8 and thus with respect to the Victorine context that produced Gallus’ own affective interpretation of the Corpus Dionysiacum; and (2) second, by providing a brief introduction to the Explanatio itself in relation to Gallus’ other works. This will lay the groundwork upon which those interested in the theology of the Explanatio may come to understand both the text’s indebtedness to prior Victorine theology, while also coming to an appreciation of how Gallus re-flavoured that tradition in his own distinct way. The Victorines and the Affective Interpretation of Dionysian Darkness

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite was an anonymous writer from the early sixth century. As Paul Rorem accentuates in his monumental introduction, Pseudo-Dionysius had great importance for medieval theology and spirituality.9 Rorem provides a commentary on the Areopagite’s entire extant corpus, which includes the treatises, De divinis nominibus, Super mystica theologia, Super angelica ierarchia, Super ecclesiastica ierarchia, and a collection of letters.10 He notes the especial influence of the Super mystica theologia, Dionysius’ shortest but most provocative text within this collection, upon medieval views of mysticism.11 In this text, Dionysius famously describes the



8 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 618. 9 Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to their Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 10 English translations of these works can be found in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. by Colm Luibheid and ed. by Paul Rorem (New York: Paulist Press, 1987). 11 Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, p. 214. Dionysius’ Super mystica theologia is in many ways considered to be a provocative text because of its lack of references to Christ. During the Reformation, Luther even famously charged Pseudo-Dionysius with being plus neoplatonizans quam Christianizans (more Neo-platonizing than Christianizing), a fact with which Pseudo-Dionysian scholars will either strongly agree or sharply contest. For an argument against this charge and for Luther’s statement, see

299

3 00

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

soul’s union with God as a complete apophasis whereby the soul enters a cloud of unknowing and experiences the divine darkness of the God beyond all thought.12 As Rorem aptly addresses, Dionysius’ claims to this effect presented a problem for medieval theologians trying to articulate how the soul’s union with God should be properly conceived because the Super mystica theologia’s apophatic account of mystical union stood in stark contrast to that proffered by St Augustine, who rather seemed to suggest that God could be fully known and loved through beatific vision.13 Moreover, although Dionysius makes room for love within his theology in Chapter 4 of the De divinis nominibus, love is strangely absent within the text of the Super mystica theologia, a fact that similarly raised questions among medieval theologians concerning the role of love in relation to the apophasis described therein by Dionysius.14 Simply put, therefore, the medieval affective interpretation of the Dionysian corpus sought to explain these discrepancies by ‘champion[ing] love … over knowledge in the pursuit of union with God’.15 According to this reading of the Areopagite, the soul is overcome with love at the point in the Super mystica theologia where all knowledge ceases and words no longer speak. The seemingly opposing accounts of mystical union described by Augustine and Dionysius — both considered to be of the highest spiritual authority by medieval theologians — were in this sense no longer contradictory, but entirely compatible. Hugh of St Victor is the father of this tradition. Once assessed by Richard Southern as being the ‘dimmest of all the great figures of the twelfth century’, this prominent master at the Abbey of St Victor has in recent years emerged as one of the most important twelfth-century theologians.16 Aside from authoring what is now Alexander Golitzin, Mystagogy: A Monastic Reading of Dionysius Areopagita (Collegeville: Cistercian Publications, 2013), esp. p. xxxiv. Against Golitzin, Perl reads the Dionysian corpus almost entirely in terms of Neoplatonism; see Eric D. Perl, Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007). 12 ‘The Mystical Theology’, in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. by Luibheid and ed. by Rorem, p. 135. 13 See Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, p. 215, wherein Rorem identifies John Scotus Eriugena as an important figure in the marriage of Augustinianism with Dionysianism. Rorem nonetheless holds that Eriugena’s view disappeared for three centuries, until it was picked up again by Hugh of St Victor. See also Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 618. The fifteenth book of Augustine’s De Trinitate, whereby Augustine claims that the Holy Spirit is the charity by which we love God and are united to the Trinity, provides a good example of Augustine’s thought to this effect (Augustine of Hippo, De Trinitate libri XV, ed. by W. J. Mountain, CCSL, 50 [Turnhout: Brepols, 1968]; for English translation, see The Trinity, 15.5, trans. by Edmund Hill, The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, vol. 5 [New York: New City Press, 2005], pp. 421–31). 14 Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, pp. 215–16. 15 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 619. 16 Richard W. Southern made this comment in his ‘Presidential Address: Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 2. Hugh of St Victor and the Idea of Historical Development’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 21 (1971), 149–79 (p. 163). See the articles by Andrew Salzmann, Conrad Rudolph, Rainer Berndt, and Dominique Poirel in this volume for further reading on Hugh. See also Coolman, The Theology of Hugh of St Victor, for an excellent introduction to the importance of Hugh’s theology: The Theology of Hugh of St Victor: An Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

perceived as the first great medieval theological summa,17 Hugh is further credited with originating this ‘affective’ reading of the Corpus Dionysiacum within his commentary on Dionysius’ Super angelica ierarchia. Those familiar with the Areopagite’s celestial hierarchy will recall that Dionysius considers a total of nine angelic orders, which he arranges in three hierarchically ascending orders that encircle the throne of God: the lowest order consists of the Angels, Archangels, and Principalities; the middle consists of the Powers, Virtues, and Dominions; and the highest consists of the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. In his own commentary on the Super angelica ierarchia, Hugh re-reads Dionysius’ celestial hierarchy specifically in terms of love and knowledge, whereby he claims that the Cherubim represent the fullness of divine knowledge and the Seraphim represent the fullness of divine love, calling the Seraphim ‘ardent’ (ardentes) because they encircle God at the highest level of the celestial hierarchy and thus burn with a most fervent love of God.18 Hugh’s interpretation as such implies that this ardent love surpasses knowledge in Dionysius’ heavenly schematic. Coolman has already noted that, by associating the Seraphim with love on the one hand and the Cherubim with knowledge on the other, Hugh was not making an original claim. Similarly, his suggestion that love surpasses knowledge in this schema is also not in any way original.19 What distinguishes Hugh’s commentary on the Super angelica ierarchia from the work of earlier theologians is rather his intimation that Dionysius himself meant to posit Seraphic love above Cherubic knowledge within the Super angelica ierarchia — a bold new assertion in Dionysian interpretive circles.20 Rorem identifies two quite distinct hermeneutical trajectories surrounding the Corpus Dionysiacum in the High Middle Ages that then take their starting point from Hugh’s commentary on the Super angelica ierarchia: one trajectory of Dionysian interpretation would take seriously the Victorine’s intuition that the Areopagite had himself intended to posit love above knowledge in his account of mystical ascent, while the other, following Albert the Great, would rather maintain a ‘speculative

17 Hugh of St Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei (PL 176.173–618). 18 See Hugh of St Victor, In hierarchiam caelestem S. Dionysii, cols 1023B–1026B, esp. cols 1023B–1023C (PL 175.923A–1154C): ‘Seraphim namque, quia ex amore Creatoris sui tanquam vicini et proximi, et in se ardentes sunt et ex se alios accendunt, ardentes sive incendentes interpretantur, non quod soli hoc inter caeteros habeant singulariter, sed cum caeteris, et prae caeteris excellenter. Omnes enim amore Dei ardent, et tamen ipsi specialiter ardentes vocari debuerunt, qui ipsius amoris ignem et primi concipiunt, et fortius ardentes ad caeteros quoque accendendos flammam dilectionis emittunt. Sic et cherubim (quod nomen plenitudo scientiae interpretatur) quia majorem caeteris cognitionem Dei habent, ex eo soli nomen accipiunt quod cum caeteris possidentes prae caeteris omnibus excellentius percipere meruerunt’. 19 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 619. 20 Rorem and Coolman have both summarized Hugh’s place in the history of Dionysian interpretation in this respect. See Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 619; Paul Rorem, ‘Appendix: Hugh and Dionysius’ in Hugh of St Victor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 176: ‘This tangential exposition by Hugh marks a decisive step in a larger tradition of spiritual theology, not only that love surpasses knowledge in the human approach to union with God but also that this insight stems from a higher celestial realm and from privileged apostolic revelation through St Paul to Dionysius, for in the “third heaven” seraphic love is higher than cherubic knowledge’.

301

302

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

Dionysianism’ that refused this affective interpretation of the Corpus Dionysiacum.21 Hugh’s student, Richard of St Victor, would carry the former trajectory forward.22 Unlike Hugh, Richard never wrote a full commentary on any of Dionysius’ works. However, the themes of love and knowledge so central to Hugh’s reading of the Areopagite played an important role in Richard’s mystical theology as well, so that Rorem can claim: ‘together with the twelfth-century Victorines Hugh and Richard set the stage for a full-scale Western appropriation of the Super mystica theologia and of the entire Dionysian corpus into the mainstream of medieval mysticism’.23 It is Thomas Gallus, however, who takes Hugh’s intuition concerning the affective interpretation of the Corpus Dionysiacum to new heights. Whereas Hugh’s commentary on Dionysius was confined to the Super angelica ierarchia,24 and Richard’s references to Dionysius cause questions amongst Richardian scholars,25 Gallus’ extant corpus takes Hugh’s insight as its starting point so as to actually rewrite the Areopagite’s corpus in light of that insight. If Hugh serves as the founder of the affective Dionysian tradition, Gallus has likewise been credited with that tradition’s later growth in the sense that he comments on the entire Dionysian corpus and so interpolates his affective interpretation of the Areopagite throughout it.26 As Coolman writes, ‘the Abbot of 21 McGinn, ‘Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism’, p. 84; Declan Lawell, ‘Ne de ineffabili penitus taceamus: Aspects of the Specialized Vocabulary of the Writings of Thomas Gallus’, Viator, 40 (2009), 151–84 (p. 152); and Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, p. 219. 22 Although Richard died about thirty years at least before Gallus began his work at the Abbey of St Victor, Gallus nonetheless refers to Richard as ‘Prior Richardus’ throughout his works and considers himself to be Richard’s pupil;’ see James Walsh, The Pursuit of Wisdom and Other Works by the Author of the Cloud of Unknowing (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), pp. 14–15. 23 Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, pp. 217–18. 24 Rorem, ‘Appendix: Hugh and Dionysius’, pp. 167–76. 25 See, for example, recent scholarly conversations surrounding Richard of St Victor’s treatise, De Contemplatione (Beniamin maior, or: ‘The Mystical Ark’, trans. by Zinn), whereby scholars debate the place of Dionysius’ apophatic theology in Richardian contemplation. See Steven Chase, Angelic Wisdom: The Cherubim and the Grace of Contemplation in Richard of St Victor (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), and Dale Coulter, Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia: Theological Method in Richard of St Victor, BV, 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), esp. pp. 166–74, for two different considerations of this question. See also Zachary Hayes, ‘Bonaventure’s Trinitarian Theology’, in A Companion to Bonaventure, ed. by Jay M. Hammond, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and Jared Goff, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 48 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 189–243, here pp. 193–97, where Hayes briefly summarizes the scholarly debate surrounding Dionysius’ place in Richard’s thought. Cf. Richard of St Victor, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor 1: De contemplatione (Beniamin maior), ed. by Jean Grosfillier, Sous la Règle de saint Augustin, 13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013); For Zinn’s translation, see Richard of St Victor: The Book of the Patriarchs, The Mystical Ark, Book Three of the Trinity, Classics of Western Spirituality, ed. & trans. by Grover Zinn, Jr (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1979). 26 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, pp. 615, p. 618. Gallus’s rewriting of the Areopagite will indeed appear to many to be a distortion of Dionysius’ text, but as Coolman notes, the Victorine’s intuition, ‘both reflects and effects profound shifts in the history of western theology, the reverberations of which continue to be felt’ with regard to the question of the interaction of love and knowledge in the soul’s ascent to God (p. 615). Coolman’s more recent Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy treats this interaction in full. See also Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, p. 218; one cannot help but note a tone of lament in Rorem’s statement concerning Gallus’ role in thus carrying forward the work of his predecessors in the Victorine School: ‘The final and decisive step in this relentless process was

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

Vercelli has extended Hugh of St Victor’s basic intuition — that Dionysius himself had taught the superiority of love over knowledge in the divine-human encounter — by doing what Hugh (nor, apparently, anyone else) had never done: interpolating that superior love into the very text of The Mystical Theology’,27 an intuition which then shapes Gallus’ reading of the whole Corpus Dionysiacum. Indeed, whereas Hugh’s commentary on the Super angelica ierarchia does not necessarily prove crucial for understanding the entirety of Hugh’s thought,28 the Areopagite takes centre-stage within Gallus’ theology. The earliest known Dionysian commentary by the Abbot of Vercelli was his Glose super Angelica ierarchia completed in 1224, which was followed in the next decade by a set of glosses on the Super mystica theologia known as the Expositio, produced in 1232–1233.29 Gallus followed this gloss with the Extractio in 1238 — a paraphrase of the entire Dionysian corpus — and finally the Explanatio in 1241–1244.30 This detailed commentary on each extant Dionysian text can be regarded as the culmination of Gallus’ previous writings on the Areopagite and is the object of the present study. Alongside his explicit Dionysian commentaries, moreover, Gallus’ scriptural commentaries were also deeply indebted to his reading of the Areopagite, a fact that I will address in more detail below. As Coolman writes, ‘to a far greater extent than later thinkers, Gallus entered into and made his own what René Roques has called ‘L’Universe Dionysien’ […] Gallus’ theology is itself a Dionysian world from beginning to end, even as he introduces non-Dionysian elements into it’.31 Gallus’ ability to construct an entire theological system based on his affective interpretation of the Corpus Dionysiacum evidences an important difference between him and his Victorine predecessors; namely, Gallus distinguishes himself from Hugh and Richard by placing the Areopagite at the very centre of his theological enterprise rather than at the periphery. Gallus, the last of the great Victorine theologians, thus imbibed the insights of his masters even as he expanded them at great length and made them applicable to a new generation of scholars at the thirteenth-century University of Paris. ‘After Thomas Gallus… the tributaries of Dionysian influence diversified considerably’, writes Rorem, ‘But the narrative can be simplified by distinguishing the line that followed the Victorine synthesis of love and knowledge from the line that did not’.32 The importance of the

the interpretation and actual rewriting of Dionysian texts by the abbot Thomas Gallus (d. 1246)’. See also Ruh, ‘Thomas Gallus Vercellensis’, p. 62: ‘Im Mittelpunkt von Thomas Gallus’ Werk stehen seine Dionysius-Bearbeitungen’. 27 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 621. 28 Rorem regards Hugh’s commentary on The Celestial Hierarchy, for example, as thematically uncharacteristic in comparison to Hugh’s other works. See Rorem, ‘Appendix: Hugh and Dionysius’, p. 167. 29 Declan Lawell, ‘Introduction to the Author and the Works’, in Thomas Galli: Explanatio in Libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. vii–ix, at p. viii. 30 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 620; René Roque, L’Univers Dionysien: Structure Hiérarchique du Monde selon le Pseudo-Denys, Études publiées sous la direction de la faculté de théologie S. J. de Lyon-Fourvière (Paris: Aubier, 1954). 31 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 619. 32 Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, p. 219.

303

3 04

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

Victorine ‘affective’ hermeneutic for reading Pseudo-Dionysius as expounded by the Abbot of Vercelli, in other words, cannot be overstated. Following Hugh of St Victor, Gallus’ Dionysian commentaries continued an interpretive trajectory that would be adapted by figures such as St Bonaventure, Hugh of Balma, and the unknown author of The Cloud of Unknowing, essentially recolouring the Western tradition’s portrait of the Areopagite in terms of love.33 The Explanatio within Gallus’ Dionysian Programme

Thomas Gallus’ corpus boasts only a handful of extant texts, which loosely fall into three separate thematic categories.34 First, Gallus produced scriptural commentaries, including commentaries on The Song of Songs,35 as well as a commentary on Isaiah (1218).36 Second, as Declan Lawell points out, ‘two opuscula by Gallus have also come down to us: a sermon entitled Qualiter vita prelatorum conformari debet vite angelice; and a short treatise called Spectacula contemplationis (1244–1246)’.37 Finally, as aforementioned, and most importantly for our purposes, Gallus’ writings include several commentaries on the works

33 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, pp. 616–17. For more on the Victorine tradition as it expanded from Hugh to Gallus, see Jean Châtillon, ‘De Guillaume de Champeaux a Thomas Gallus: Chronique d’histoire littéraire et doctrinale de l’école de Saint-Victor’, Revue du Moyen Âge latin, 8 (1952), 139–62. In addition to carrying forward the affective interpretation of the Dionysian corpus as inaugurated by Hugh, Thomas Gallus’ theological project borrows many theological insights from his predecessors at the Abbey of St Victor; indeed, to explore all the ways in which Gallus’s theology either depends upon, diverges from, or expands the thought of Hugh, Richard, or Achard would be a project that far exceeds the limitations of this chapter. A few notable themes that appear in Gallus’ works and which beg further comparison with his Victorine predecessors include his theological anthropology; his account of the interplay between knowledge and love; his ecclesiology; his angelology; his Trinitarian theology; his theology of grace; and the place of Christology within his larger corpus. 34 Lawell provides a useful summary of these texts and their editions in his introduction to the critical edition of the Explanatio, in ‘Introduction to the Author and the Works’, pp. viii–ix ns 3–7; and in Lawell, ‘Introduction’, in Thomae Galli: Explanatio in Libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Anthony Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. xxiii–xxxii. 35 See again Thomas Gallus, Commentaires du Cantique des Cantiques, ed. by Barbet. Gallus’ composition of Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum is dated sometime before 1224, although there is still some question as to the precise date of composition. See Francis Ruello, ‘Introduction’, in Un Commentaire vercellien du Cantique des cantiques:‘Deiformis anime gemitus’, ed. by Jeanne Barbet and trans. by Francis Ruello (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 29–31; Ruh, ‘Thomas Gallus Vercellensis’, p. 63. 36 A fragment of this commentary appears in an edition by Théry, ‘Commentaire sur Isaïe de Thomas de Saint-Victor’, pp. 146–62. Cf. ‘Spectacula Contemplationis (1244–46): A Treatise by Thomas Gallus’, ed. by Declan Lawell, RTPM, 76.2 (2009), 249–85. 37 Lawell, ‘Introduction to the Author and the Works’, pp. viii–xi, esp. n. 7. Lawell notes as well the possibility of two other opuscula, a sequence entitled Super mentem exultemus, as well as a treatise entitled De septem gradibus contemplationis, an attribution found in the Quaracchi edition of Bonaventure’s Opera Omnia that Lawell finds dubious.

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

of Pseudo-Dionysius, the production of which span the course of his career: his Glose super Angelica ierarchia (1224),38 the Expositio (1232–1233),39 the Extractio (1238),40 and his Explanatio (1241–1244).41 As one of the final works that Gallus produced, the Explanatio represents the Abbot of Vercelli’s mature theological thought and also holds pride of place amongst his works as the longest of his Dionysian commentaries. Gallus wrote it over a period of about four years, beginning with the completion of the Expl. Super mystica theologia in 1241, followed by the completion of the Expl. De divinis nominibus in 1242, the Expl. Super angelica ierarchia and the Expl. Letters in 1243, and finally concluding with the completion of the Expl. Super ecclesiastica ierarchia in 1244.42 Scholars are only now beginning to probe the depth of Gallus’ thought within his final commentary on the Areopagite; Declan Lawell’s critical edition of the text spans no less than 984 pages. As the crowning work from the hand of the affective Dionysian tradition’s architect, the Explanatio remains a treasure trove of un-culled Victorine theology, a bridge upon which scholars devoted to the intellectual history of the Middle Ages can cross from the twelfth-century Abbey of St Victor to the High Scholastics at the University of Paris. I now turn to an introductory exploration of the ways in which the Explanatio acts as this bridge.

The Explanatio’s Affective Theology: The Soul Hierarchized Through the Work of the Incarnate Christ In what follows, I aim to introduce the Explanatio in a systematic way, highlighting three theological themes that build upon one another so as to elucidate the meaning behind Gallus’ Dionysian interpretive project within the text. I have chosen to present these themes — namely, Gallus’ notion of the hierarchized soul, his insistence on the interplay between the intellect and the affect in achieving mystical union, and his Christology — because further examination of all three will reveal the text’s theological significance for later thinkers, especially within the Franciscan tradition.

38 Lawell, ‘Introduction to the Author and the Works’, p. viii; Thomas Gallus, Glose Super Angelica Ierarchia: Accedunt indices ad Thomae Galli Opera, ed. by Declan Lawell, CCCM, 223A (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011). 39 Lawell recognizes an edition of these glosses that were found and subsequently edited by James McEvoy, but he notes that even McEvoy thinks the attribution of these texts to Gallus is now considered dubious. See Lawell, ‘Introduction to the Author and the Works’, p. viii n. 3; McEvoy, Mystical Theology, pp. 3–51. 40 See Lawell, ‘Introduction to the Author and the Works’, p. viii n. 4, for a list of editions. 41 Edited for the first time by Lawell. See Explanatio in Libros Dionysii, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011). 42 Lawell, ‘Introduction’, p. xxiv. Lawell’s edition presents these texts in the order in which Gallus originally produced them.

305

3 06

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

The Hierarchized Soul: Dionysian Thought in Gallus’ Scriptural Commentaries

As aforementioned, aside from his explicit commentaries on the Areopagite, Gallus’ scriptural commentaries also provide important insight into his affective Dionysian theology. Particularly, Gallus’ notion of the hierarchized soul as put forth in both the prologue to his Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum and in his commentary on Isaiah 6 adds great depth to the meaning of his interpretive project in the Explanatio.43 I thus begin my exposition of Gallus’ affective theology within the Explanatio by summarizing this notion: neither my subsequent discussion of the interplay between the intellect and affect nor my concluding analysis of Gallus’ Christology can be approached without first presenting this foundational concept of his thought. In both the prologue to Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum and in his commentary on Isaiah 6, Gallus utilizes the Areopagite’s celestial hierarchy to posit a theological anthropology that describes how the soul itself is hierarchically structured to reach an affective union with God. Gallus introduces this anthropology of the soul in his Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum by recapitulating Dionysius’s assertion in the Super angelica ierarchia that: ‘each and every celestial and human mind holds special first, middle, and highest orders and powers, which are added according to each and every illumination of the hierarchies’ (unaqueque et celestis et humana mens speciales habet et primas et medias et ultimas ordinationes et virtutes additas secundum unamquamque hierarchicarum illuminationum).44 According to Gallus, the lowest hierarchy within the soul consists of the orders of Angels, Archangels, and Principalities; the middle hierarchy includes the Powers, Virtues, and Dominions; and the highest hierarchy is comprised of the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim.45 Gallus’ novelty obviously stems not from his

43 Most previous scholarship on the Abbot of Vercelli affirms the necessity of his scriptural commentaries for understanding his larger theological project. For example, McGinn argues that while Gallus was famous for his Dionysian commentaries in the Middle Ages, he was also widely lauded for being ‘an exegete of the Song of Songs’, so that Gallus effectively ‘combined Dionysian apophaticism with an affective reading of the Song of Songs to form a potent new mystical theory that had a major influence in the later Middle Ages’, especially over the Franciscans (McGinn, ‘Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism’, p. 82). In a similar vein of thought, Coolman likewise even suggests that, ‘it is [Gallus’] multiple engagements with the Song of Songs that contain the fullest expression of his appropriation of Dionysius’ (Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 621). While McGinn and Coolman both refer to the importance of reading Gallus’ Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum as one of his key Dionysian texts, Gallus’ commentary on Isaiah 6 plays a similar role within Gallus’ corpus, especially given its detailed description of Gallus’ hierarchized soul. 44 Gallus, quoting Pseudo-Dionysius’ Super angelica ierarchia in Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum, p. 66. 45 Thomas Gallus, Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum, p. 66: ‘Qualiter autem in singulis mentibus hierarchicis disponantur tres hierarchie et in singulis earum tres ordines iuxta angelicam dispositionem, scilicet, in infima: angeli, archangeli, principatus; in media: potestates, virtutes, dominationes; in summa: throni, cherubim et seraphim, ante annos 1715 evidenter tractavi in claustro Sancti Victoris Parisius super illud Isaie 6: vidi Dominum sedentem super solium, etc., et pro magna parte repetii super 10um capitulum Hierarchie Angelice, in fine’.

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

naming of these orders but rather from his ensuing description of the function of these orders within the soul. In both the prologue to his Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum and in his commentary on Isaiah 6, he insinuates that Dionysius’ nine angelic orders do not form a ladder extrinsic to the soul by which the soul climbs upward toward contemplative union with God, but rather serve to explain the very structure of the soul itself.46 Gallus describes this structure by narrating how each separate celestial order functions in the soul with regard to nature, industry, and grace. He claims in the Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum that the lowest hierarchy of the mind consists in nature alone, the middle in the mind’s industry, which he claims incomparably exceeds nature but works together with grace, and the highest in an excessu mentis where grace works alone in the soul apart from nature.47 For Gallus, human nature is thus ordered toward grace. Consequently, each level of Dionysius’ celestial hierarchy describes how the soul ascends from that which it can accomplish according to its own natural powers to that which it can affectively experience of God through grace. His subsequent narration of how the hierarchized soul functions depends in every instance upon this assertion concerning the relationship between nature, industry, and grace. For example, beginning with the lowest hierarchy of nature, Gallus holds that the lowest order within the soul corresponds to the lowest order within Dionysius’ celestial hierarchy, namely, the Angels, Archangels, and Principalities. According to the Abbot of Vercelli, the soul receives natural apprehensions from the intellect and affect at the level of the Angels, which it then judges to be true or false through the intellect and affect at the level of the Archangels.48 Gallus claims that the soul’s appetites are found at the level of the Principalities, where the soul can either

46 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 622: ‘Perhaps the most insufficient, even distorting, approach to Gallus reads him as narrating a linear itinerary of the soul’s ascent to God through the various angelic orders of the soul […] Gallus’ angelized mind is most fundamentally a dynamic, multivalent, highly-structured state of being, in which love and knowledge are related in reciprocal and mutually reinforcing ways’. Or, as Coolman astutely observes (in Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus, p. 25), for Gallus: ‘the soul always exists hierarchically or as a hierarchy … a hierarchy is simply what one is.’ 47 Thomas Gallus, Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum, p. 66: ‘Infima mentis hierarchia consistit in ipsa eius natura, media in industria, que incomparabiliter excedit naturam, summa in excessu mentis. In prima operatur sola natura, in summa sola gratia, in media simul operantur gratia et industria’. See James Walsh, ‘Thomas Gallus et l’effort contemplatif ’, Revue d’histoire de la spiritualité, 51 (1975), 17–42 (p. 31), for a discussion of the importance of grace with Gallus’ contemplative exercise; for more on the relationship between human nature and grace in Gallus’ theological anthropology, see also Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus, esp. pp. 237–38. 48 ‘Commentaire sur Isaïe de Thomas de Saint-Victor’, ed. by G. Théry, La vie spirituelle, 47 (1936), 146–62 (abbreviated In Is.), p. 154: ‘Primum genus intelligimus consistere in primis et naturalibus apprehensionibus utriusque, affectus scilicet et intellectus, quando tanquam angeli quasi aliquid anime simpliciter annunciant. Secundus dictaciones utriusque continet quibus distat naturaliter de annunciatis, utrum vera an falsa sint, commoda vel in commoda’.

307

3 08

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

accept or flee from what it deems to be either good or evil.49 Gallus describes this as the ‘appetite for the divine light and flight from dissimilitude’,50 the point from which the soul passes from pure nature to industry aided by grace.51 Next, the middle hierarchy of industry primarily involves the movement of free choice within the soul aided by grace. It consists of the middle order within Dionysius’ celestial hierarchy, namely, the Powers, Virtues, and Dominions. Gallus holds that the intellect and affect voluntarily move toward the good at the level of the Powers and are then strengthened to receive ‘divine light’ at the level of the Virtues.52 He next asserts that the affect and intellect are suspended of all their powers for the purposes of receiving this divine light through the order of the Dominions.53 Finally, with nature and industry completely left behind, Gallus’ highest hierarchy within the soul touches the realm of grace. The intellect and affect are made capable of receiving God at the order of the Thrones, and the intellect is then completely drawn into the Divine at the Cherubic Order,54 which for Gallus represents the fullness of knowledge and the consummation of intellectual light.55 When the intellect cannot walk any further, he ascertains that the affect then stretches forth into God at the level of the Seraph. This is the locus of the soul’s union with God where he claims that the affect super-intellectually experiences the burning, all-consuming love of God.56 It is here in Gallus’ angelic anthropology that the soul itself reaches the

49 Thomas Gallus, Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum, p. 66: ‘Tertius continet appetitus et fugas apprehensorum secundum dictationes commodi vel incommodi; fuga autem est mali et appetitus, boni, et ita iste ordo prebet ducatum inferioribus in divinis; quod nomine/principatum signatur’. 50 In Is., p. 154: ‘appetitum divinorum luminum et fugam dissimilitudinem.’ 51 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 622. 52 See In Is., p. 154: ‘Quartus ordo qui est primus in secunda ierarchia continet motus voluntarios affectus et intellectus a libero arbitrio exceptos infusum lumen per industriam et voluntarie totis viribus contrectantes’. See also Thomas Gallus, Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum, p. 67: ‘Quintus, qui est medius medie hierarchie, continet valida mentis robore virtutum naturalium et gratuitorum’; In Is., p. 155: ‘valida mentis robore … Iste igitur mens robusta efficitur ad luminum divinorum suscepciones in suo gradu et ad fortiter tendendum in vere pulcrum et bonum et ad omnem violenciam repellendam et omnem dissimilitudinem, unde et recte Virtutes nominantur’. 53 Thomas Gallus, Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum, p. 67: ‘Sextus, qui est in media hierarchia, continet authentica imperia liberi arbitrii quibus apices affectus et intellectus tota virtute suspenduntur ad suscipiendum divinos superadventus, quantum possibile est libero arbitrio adiuto a gratia’. 54 Thomas Gallus, Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum, p. 67: ‘Septimus ordo per mentis excessum susceptivus est superadventus divini; unde thronorum nomine censetur et, quot sunt mentis sinus, vel capacitates, illius supersubstantialis radii supersimplicis in essentia et multiplicis in efficacia, tot sunt throni. Octavus ordo continet omnimodam cognitionem intellectus attracti divina dignatione’. 55 In Is., p. 156: ‘plenitudine sciencie’; Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum, p. 67: ‘sed ibi habet sue cognitionis et sui luminis consummationem’. 56 Thomas Gallus, Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum, p. 67: ‘Nonus continet principalia in Deum suspiria, superintellectuales extensiones et immisiones, fervidos fulgores et fulgidos fervores, ad quorum omnium sublimes excessus et excedentes sublimitates intelligentia trahi non potest, sed sola Deo unibilis […] Iste ordo Deum amplexatur et sponsi amplexibus amicitur, speculum nescit, Marie portionem que non auferetur […] In hoc ordine sponso et sponse lectulus collocatur. De isto in inferiores ordines seriatim fluit divini luminis inundatio’. Walsh contends that the term, ‘extensiones’,

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

apex of Dionysius’ celestial hierarchy, so that charity is the bond of perfection that finally assimilates the soul with God in a union that transcends the soul’s natural ability of knowing.57 Gallus thus utilizes this angelic anthropology within his scriptural commentaries to describe how the soul itself is hierarchically structured through nature, industry, and grace to enjoy an affective union with God.58 His notion of the hierarchized soul as expressed in his scriptural commentaries affirms that the intellect cannot comprehend the plenitude of the Divine. However, while Dionysius saw naught but intellectual darkness, Gallus describes a sensuous, all-consuming love that gathers the soul together with the Spouse of The Song of Songs in a seraphic, divine embrace.59 For Gallus, the Areopagite’s divine darkness signifies an experience of love whereby the soul may taste, smell, and touch the divine through grace in a charity that surpasses all understanding.60 The Interplay of the Intellect and Affect and the Explanatio’s Theological Methodology

Though Gallus’ account of the hierarchical soul thus culminates in this super-intellectual charity experienced at the level of the Seraph, his account nonetheless also emphasizes a constant interplay between the intellect and affect as the soul rises through nature and industry to grace so as to reach the ecstasy of affective union with God.61 Against those who would see an anti-intellectualist strand of thought within Gallus’ affective reading of the Corpus Dionysiacum, the intellect and affect notably work together within every level of his angelic anthropology other than the

describes the contemplative exercise par excellence in Gallus’ thought; its appearance here in the ninth level of Gallus’ theological anthropology should thus come as no surprise, since the Seraphic level represents the height of the soul’s contemplative effort. See Walsh, ‘Thomas Gallus et l’effort contemplatif ’, p. 28, and p. 32: ‘L’extension consiste donc en l’effort de la volonté pour coopérer avec la grâce et la connaissance divines qui se manifestent si librement dans le cinquième degré de la contemplation et au delà’. 57 In Is., p. 157: ‘Illi vero fervores fulgidi seu fulgores fervidi quos experitur affectus nec post comprehendere vel estimare intellectus, ordinem Seraphym constituunt nec se possunt angelici ordines ultra istum extendere, quia non potest divina plenitudo aliquo sublimiori modo angelis vel hominibus innotescere. In isto siquidem completur intencio ierarchica, de qua supra 3 b (I), scilicet assimilacio et unicio ad Deum, et Col. III d: super omnia autem hec, caritatem habete, quod est cinvulum perfeccionis’. 58 Coolman, McGinn, and Walsh have charted Gallus’ angelic anthropology as such. See Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus, esp. pp. 237–38; McGinn, ‘Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism’, p. 93; and Walsh, ‘Thomas Gallus et l’effort contemplatif ’, p. 24. 59 Thomas Gallus, Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum, p. 74: ‘sic intelligentia […] usque in hunc ordinem pervenit, sed in secretum sinum seraphim transire non potest […] scilicet intelligentie, que intelligentie influunt hucusque, quasi cum sponsa collocantur; quibus pertransitis, per seraphim pervenit in dilectionem’. 60 For more on Gallus and the spiritual senses, see Coolman, ‘Thomas Gallus’, pp. 140–58. 61 Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus; cf. ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 622.

309

310

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

Seraphic.62 As such, in Gallus’ account of the hierarchical soul, the affect’s enjoyment of the divine Spouse remains incomprehensible without the intellect’s assistance. The Explanatio lacks the detailed description of the hierarchized soul found in Gallus’ scriptural commentaries, yet this theme of the interplay between the intellect and affect resurfaces again and again throughout the work so much that it informs the theological methodology underlying the whole text. Gallus indeed writes about the relationship between the intellect and affect in the first book of his Expl. De divinis nominibus: Et nota quod prius dicit nos istis splendoribus illuminari, quod pertinet ad perfectionem intelligentie, post figurari, quod pertinet ad perfectionem affectionis principalis, iuxta quod ipsum principium primo dicitur splendor glorie, post figura substantie paterne (Hebr. Ia), quia naturale est prius nosse quam laudare, admirari, desiderare, diligere, quamvis vice versa affectio ad unitionem perducta incomparabiliter clariores fulgores ingignat intellectui, tamquam ordo Seraphim ordini Cherubim, sicut ante XVI annos diligenter tractavi in expositione sublimis Is. 6a. And note that [Dionysius] told us that we are to be illuminated first by those splendors which pertain to the perfection of the intelligence, and that afterwards we are to be formed by that which pertains to the perfection of the affective principle, so that the first principle is called the splendor of glory, and afterwards, the form of the fatherly substance […] because it is natural first to know and then to praise, wonder, desire, and love; contrarily, the affection that has been led to union gives birth to incomparably brighter radiances than the intellect, like the Seraphic order in comparison with the Cherubic order, as I diligently treated sixteen years ago in the exposition of the sublime Isaiah 6a.63 This passage reveals two insights concerning the relationship between the intellect and the affect in Gallus’ angelic anthropology. First, the act of knowing God here naturally comes before the act of loving God. Before the soul receives figura (form) through the perfection of the affective principle, it must receive illuminations from the splendour of glory that perfects the intelligence. Gallus asserts a clear order in this respect whereby the intellect’s Cherubic illumination comes ‘prius’ (first) and the affection’s formation in Seraphic love comes ‘post’ (afterwards). The radiances

62 See Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus and ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’; Ruello, ‘Introduction’, pp. 42–45; and ed. Lawell, ‘Spectacula Contemplationis (1244–46): A Treatise by Thomas Gallus’, p. 261: ‘it is misleading to describe Gallus as an anti-intellectualist tout court […] Love may indeed surpass knowledge, but this surpassing of knowledge presupposes knowledge in the first place’; and p. 266: ‘For Gallus, rapture is an overtaking of, not a rupture with, intellect’. 63 Thomas Gallus, Expl. De divinis nominibus, 1. 647–55, ed. by Declan Lawell, CCCM, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 47–470, at p. 76. Lawell unpacks the importance of Gallus’ phrase, ‘principalis affectio’, in ‘Ne de ineffabili penitus taceamus’, pp. 167–74.

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

of the affection will eventually exceed the illuminations of the intellect but only because the former are built upon the natural priority given by Gallus to the latter.64 Second, Gallus’ citation of Isaiah 6 in the above passage recalls his discussion of the soul’s hierarchization in these same terms within his scriptural commentaries. Importantly, Coolman notes that Gallus’ description of the hierarchized soul should be understood as ‘a dynamic, multivalent, highly-structured state of being, in which love and knowledge are related in reciprocal and mutually reinforcing ways’ that can then be regarded as three separate ‘moments’: ascending, descending, and circling/ spiralling.65 Coolman’s argument in this respect underscores the fact that ‘Gallus has appropriated first and foremost the Dionysian conception of hierarchy in general — namely, a dynamic ascending-descending structure of inter-related entities that mediates revelation from higher to lower and elevates the lower into the higher’.66 In other words, Dionysius’ definition of hierarchy emphasizes the Neoplatonic concept of participation in which higher beings within the hierarchy help lower beings achieve a certain likeness to God.67 All beings that participate in the hierarchy aim at union with God, but the higher beings are thus additionally charged with passing down illuminations to lower beings.68 As Coolman argues, Dionysius’ concept of hierarchy in this sense also plays into Gallus’ view of the relationship between the intellect and affect inasmuch as Gallus understands the affective principle to pass down illuminations to the intellect once it has reached contemplative perfection. Coolman notes that while ‘it is often assumed that in a straightforward manner this affective seraphic union above intellective cherubic knowledge is the stopping point of Gallus’ mystical theology’, Gallus’ Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum rather insists upon a descending movement of the Seraph back down into the Cherubic as well.69 Once affection has

64 For more on this interplay, see especially Boyd Taylor Coolman, ‘Part II: Ascending’, in Boyd Taylor Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 103–95. 65 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, pp. 622–28, esp. p. 622. Coolman explores each of these valences at length in Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus. 66 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 622. For more on Dionysian hierarchy, see Roques, L’Univers Dionysien; Perl, Theophany; Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 311–20, includes a rather succinct but useful re-examination of Dionysian hierarchy in light of feminist critiques against the term. 67 Pseudo-Dionysius, Super angelica ierarchia, 3, pp. 153–54 in Pseudo-Dionysius, trans. by Luibheid. 68 Pseudo-Dionysius, Super angelica ierarchia, 3, pp. 153–54; and ‘Letter Eight’, pp. 269–80 in PseudoDionysius, trans. by Luibheid. See also Perl, Theophany, esp. p. 73: ‘The view that hierarchical order separates the lower ranks of creatures from God depends on the mistaken conception of God as “the first and highest being,” standing above the angels at the peak of the hierarchy of beings […] the entire hierarchy of reality, therefore, from the highest seraph to the least speck of dust, is the immediate presence and manifestation of God, of unity and goodness, according to the different modes and degrees that constitute the different levels of being’; p. 79: ‘The central principles of Dionysian hierarchy […] is immediate mediation: it is by the hierarchical mediation of beings that God is immediately constitutively present to all’. 69 Boyd Taylor Coolman, ‘Part III: Descending’, in Boyd Taylor Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 197–212, at pp. 199–212; ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 625.

311

312

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

enjoyed the perfection of the affective principle at the level of the Seraph, it then flows down to the lower orders — the Cherubic, the Thrones, etc. — to divinize them, too. ‘In short’, continues Coolman, ‘[Gallus] posits within the hierarchized soul, not only an ascent through knowledge to love, but also a descent from love to knowledge’.70 Gallus’ use of Dionysian hierarchy to describe the relationship between the intellect and affect underscores this constant interplay between the two principles. Crucially, this dynamic view of the interplay between the intellect and affect also influences Gallus’ theological methodology throughout the Explanatio, a fact evidenced within the opening pages of his commentary on the Expl. Super mystica theologia, which is notably the first section he completed.71 Here, the Abbot of Vercelli describes two ways that a person can arrive at knowledge of God and thus lays out his own methodological approach for reading the entire Corpus Dionysiacum.72 According to Gallus, the first way that one can come to know God is intellectual. It is achieved through the study of worldly things as one passes from the contemplation of creatures and human teachings to divine things. Philosophers, Catholic teachers, and the Holy Fathers utilize this theological methodology.73 The Abbot of Vercelli notably claims that most of the Corpus Dionysiacum, including the Super angelica ierarchia, the Super ecclesiastica ierarchia , the De divinis nominibus, and the letters, belong especially to this category of knowing God.74 In contrast, Gallus calls the second way ‘super-intellectual’, which he claims is an adjective that applies specifically to the methodology of the Super mystica theologia: In hoc autem libro alium et incomparabiliter profundiorem modum cognoscendi Deum tradidit, scilicet superintellectualem et supersubstantialem quem ideo

70 Coolman, ‘Part III: Descending’, pp. 199–12 ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 626. 71 Lawell, ‘Introduction’, p. xxiv. 72 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 3–4, ed. by Declan Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 3–46, at p. 3: ‘Duplici modo ad Dei cognitionem pervenimus’. For more on this twofold method of knowing God in the Explanatio, see Mario Capellino, Tommaso di S. Vittore, abate vercellese (Vercelli: Biblioteca della Società Storica Vercellese, 1978). pp. 104–07; see also Gallus’ Expl. De divinis nominibus, 2. 208–201, p. 126: ‘Ecce duplicem assignat Dei cognitionem: unam ex collatione creaturarum que est intellectiva, aliam ex experientia radiorum eterne sapientie que est super intellectum et omne ens’. 73 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 4–29, pp. 3–4: ‘Unus est intellectualis et enigmaticus per collationem et contemplationem creaturam sive per doctrinam humanam et studium proprium comparatus. In isto non mediocriter profecerunt mundi philosophi, maxime Aristoteles qui quasi seriatim a visibilibus mundi ad invisiblia Dei ascendere docuit per volumina theorica, physica, et librum De anima, et metaphysica. Ut enim docet prior Richardus in distinctione graduum contemplationis […] Quecumque ergo scientia vel sapientia predictis modis obtinetur et preexistente visibilium cognitione ingignitur aut intellectu apprehenditur, ad primum modum et communem cognoscendi Deum pertinet; et ad istum pertinent omnes doctrine liberales non solum gentilium philosophorum sed doctorum catholicorum et etiam sanctorum patrum que vel studio intellectuali vel doctrina possunt a mortalibus comparari et in facultatem communis intelligentie reduci’. 74 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 29–35, p. 4: ‘Ad istum pertinent omnes libri beati Dionysii qui extant, non quidem per singulas sententias sed principalem materiam et intentionem, scilicet De ierarchia angelica, De ierarchia ecclesiastica, De divinis nominibus, et due qui non inveniuntur, scilicet De divinis caracteribus sive ypotyposibus, et De symbolica theologia, preter istum solum quem pre manibus habemus, et pacuas epistolas’.

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

gentilis philosophus non apprehendit, quia non quesivit nec esse putavit nec vim secundum quam fundatur in anima deprehendit. Putavit enim summam vim cognitivam esse intellectum, cum sit alia que non minus excedit intellectum quam intellectus rationem vel ratio imaginationem, scilicet principalis affectio, et ipsa est scintilla sinderesis que sola unibilis est spiritui divino, sicut tetigi in expositione illius visionis Is. 6a: Vidi Dominum sedentem, etc. But this book treats another and incomparably deeper way of cognizing God, namely, the super-intellectual and super-substantial way, which the gentile philosopher thus did not understand, because he neither inquired about it nor believed that it exists, nor did he perceive a power through which it could be found in the soul. For he thought that the highest cognitive power is the intellect, although there is something else that goes beyond the intellect no less than the intellect goes beyond reason, or reason goes beyond the imagination, namely, the affective principle, and this is the spark of synderesis that alone is capable of being united to the divine spirit, as I have already touched upon in the exposition of that vision in Isaiah 6a: I saw the Lord sitting, etc.75 This passage provides the interpretive key for understanding Gallus’ theological project throughout the Explanatio. According to Gallus, the majority of Dionysian texts treated in the Explanatio pertain to the first way of knowing God, ‘not indeed through single sentences but through their primary subject matter and intention’.76 The Super mystica theologia, on the other hand, applies more appropriately to the second way, which speaks of the affective principle that unites the soul and God in a charity that surpasses all understanding. Although only the ‘spark of synderesis’77 is capable of divine union in Gallus’ reading of the Corpus Dionysiacum, these two ways of knowing God — one through the intellect, and the other through the affect — nonetheless walk hand in hand throughout the Explanatio. Consequently, Gallus’ assessment of the methodologies in Dionysius’ thought lends itself to emphasizing the interplay between the intellect and affect that likewise characterizes his account of the hierarchization of the soul in his Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum and commentary on Isaiah 6. Moreover, Gallus’ categorization of the texts within the Corpus Dionysiacum that appear here in the opening pages of the Expl. Super mystica theologia must be read always in light of his insistence that the perfection of the affective principle depends first upon the perfection of the intellect, as well as his similar insistence that the affect then in-flows divine things back down to the intellect once it has experienced

75 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 35–44, p. 4. For more on the super-intellectual and intellectual ways of knowing God in Gallus’ thought, see Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus; McGinn, ‘Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism’, pp. 89–90; Ruh, ‘Thomas Gallus Vercellensis’, pp. 65–67. 76 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 29–31: ‘non quidem per singulas sententias sed principalem materiam et intentionem.’ 77 For more on the spark of syndersis, see Walsh, ‘Thomas Gallus et l’effort contemplatif ’, p. 36; Lawell, ‘Ne de ineffabili penitus taceamus’, pp. 153–62; Ruh, ‘Thomas Gallus Vercellensis’, pp. 68–74.

313

31 4

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

a mystical union with God. Gallus’ Expl. Super mystica theologia indeed begins the Explanatio by interpolating Hugh’s intuition concerning an affective reading of the Areopagite within the Super mystica theologia itself. Of all Dionysius’ extant corpus, only the Super mystica theologia has divinity in itself as its subject matter: the super-intellectual union with God that involves the highest perfection of the soul in love that can be held in via.78 But just as the affect must ‘in-flow’ to fecundate the intellect at the Cherubic level once it has achieved contemplative perfection at the level of the Seraph, so too does Gallus continue his subsequent commentaries in the Explanatio with a similar ‘in-flowing’ from higher to lower topics. He begins his most expansive Dionysian commentary from the standpoint of the second way of knowing God. That is, Gallus first comments on the affective union he sees described in the Super mystica theologia and then treats those works within the Corpus Dionysiacum that he claims pertain specifically to the first, intellectual way of knowing God. For Gallus, the super-intellectual cognition of God experienced by the affection in the Super mystica theologia cannot occur apart from the work of the intellect as exercised through Dionysius’ De divinis nominibus, Super angelica ierarchia, letters, and Super ecclesiastica ierarchia . The theologian who embarks upon the journey of reading Dionysius’ texts through Gallus’ eyes embarks as well upon a journey to train his or her soul for the purposes of beholding God.79 To participate in the Dionysian theological method through an interplay of the intellect and affect is, for Gallus, to be led up to the highest perfection of the soul in love, but it is also to commit oneself to a vigorous intellectual exercise without which the spark of synderesis would never ignite. The Function of the Word in the Explanatio: Knowing and Loving God Through Christ

Thus far, I have underscored two theological themes necessary for understanding the interpretive project of Gallus’ Explanatio. My detour into Gallus’ scriptural commentaries introduced his anthropology of the hierarchized soul. After noting the importance of the interplay between the intellect and affect in Gallus’ account of the hierarchized soul as such, I then examined his description of the two ways of knowing God as put forward in his Expl. Super mystica theologia to suggest that this interplay informs the theological methodology underlying the entire Explanatio. Gallus’ commentary on the Corpus Dionysiacum has as its aim the loving union described by the Super mystica theologia, but he claims that Dionysius’ other treatises assist the intellect in arriving at an understanding of divine things, providing an intellectual 78 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 94–99: ‘Materia huius libri est divinitas secundum se considerata, excluso omni speculo creature. Intentio: evacuare false nominis sapientiam gentilium philosophorum et construere veram sapientiam Christianorum. Utilitas: summa perfectio anime que habetur in via per unitionem eius ad Deum et superintellectualem Dei cognitionem’. 79 For more on the Victorine theme of re-constructing the soul, see Boyd Taylor Coolman, The Theology of Hugh of St Victor, esp. pp. 1–29, pp. 225–30, although the whole text pertains to this notion; see also McGinn, ‘Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism’, p. 91.

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

illumination that makes possible the affective perfection of the soul at the order of the Seraph. Gallus impregnates Dionysius’ Corpus Dionysiacum with these two ways of knowing God, so that for readers his Explanatio transforms into a text that can assist them in understanding how the soul can be hierarchized for the purposes of tasting, smelling, and touching the Bridegroom in The Song of Songs. These themes come together in an even clearer form in the Explanatio’s Christology. Given that the importance of Gallus’ Christology is repeatedly affirmed by scholars but rarely explored at length in any substantial way,80 I aim to fulfil the lacuna in scholarship surrounding this centrepiece of his theology by examining the function of the Word within the Explanatio. Specifically, I aim to demonstrate how the affective union between the soul and God as described in the Expl. Super mystica theologia cannot be comprehended apart from the work of the Incarnate Christ. This claim is first evidenced by the role of the eternal Word within Gallus’ description of the twofold way of knowing God. Significantly, Gallus explicitly associates both methodologies with the eternal Word in the conclusion of the Expl. Super mystica theologia’s first chapter. There, Gallus first expounds upon the intellectual way of knowing God by referring to the divine locum discussed by the Areopagite in the Super mystica theologia, namely, the ‘serene heaven, the work of sapphire stone, burning fire, [and] the summit of the mountain’ seen by Moses atop Mt. Sinai.81 According to Gallus, these places signify the most sublime heavenly merits that Moses comprehends through intellectual contemplation.82 They also symbolize the rationes (eternal reasons) through which all inferior hierarchies are

80 Other scholars have already avowed the importance of Gallus’ Christology within his reading of the Corpus Dionysiacum. The most extensive treatment is that by Coolman in Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus; see especially therein ‘The Wisdom of Christians,’ pp. 159–96. See also Capellino, Tommaso di S. Vittore, pp. 146–52, esp. p. 148, where Capellino argues that ‘the incarnation is the center of the economy of salvation’ in Gallus’ theology. Robert Javelet has similarly underscored the importance of the Word in Gallus’ dialectic for reading Scripture, since the Word is the exemplar through which any ‘positive’ theology in Gallus’ thought can be comprehended (Robert Javelet, ‘Thomas Gallus ou les Écritures dans une Dialectique Mystique’, in L’Homme devant Dieu: Mélanges offerts au Père Henri de Lubac, Études publiées sous la direction de la Faculté de Théologie S. J. de Lyon-Fourviére, 57 (Paris: Aubier, 1964), pp. 99–110, here pp. 102–03). See also Walsh, ‘Thomas Gallus et l’effort contemplatif ’, p. 42: ‘Le test décisif qui permet de juger du progrès d’une âme dans la vertu, de sa croissance à la ressemblance divine, est son imitation du Christ qui nous a aimés le premier et nous a laissé un exemple’. Walsh repeats this affirmation concerning the centrality of Christ throughout Gallus’ affective theology when naming him as a probable source for the author of The Cloud of Unknowing in The Pursuit of Wisdom and Other Works by the Author of the Cloud of Unknowing, pp. 189–94, esp. p. 194, where Walsh cites Gallus as saying: ‘We turn over innumerable pages and peruse countless volumes in our wretchedness, when all the time the entire nature of religion and the principles of all holiness are found inscribed in the single name of Jesus’. 81 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 553–54, p. 26: ‘Ista autem per locum Dei hic designantur: celum serenum, opus lapidis sapphiri, ignis ardens, cacumen montis’. 82 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 554–59, pp. 26–27: ‘quem locum Dei Dionysius arbitratur significare sublimissimas celestium animorum dignitates que a Moyse et aliis perfectioribus intelliguntur et per contemplationem intellectualem videntur, iuxta quod dicit ipse Dionysius AI7, in fine, tractans illud Ex. 3c: Benedicta gloria Domini de loco suo’.

315

31 6

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

illuminated and to which the inferior hierarchies are ordered.83 These eternal reasons, which Gallus explicitly identifies with Plato’s ideas on the one hand and Dionysius’ archetypes and exemplars on the other,84 exist in the eternal Art of the Word.85 By contemplating creatures, one is led beyond the creature itself to its eternal reason in the Word and thus to knowledge of God through these reasons, albeit through a mirror and in an enigma.86 From here, Gallus continues his reading of the Areopagite in the Expl. Super mystica theologia to expound upon the super-intellectual, affective way of knowing God as well. Having reached the ‘divine places’ of intellectual contemplation through beholding the eternal reasons of creatures within the Word, Gallus recounts how Moses then passes into a cloud of unknowing where he experiences a mystical union with God in an ecstasy of the mind.87 In agreement with Dionysius, Gallus holds that this union takes place above every creaturely understanding in a way that is incomprehensible.88 Here, however, Gallus also does something quite new with Dionysius’ cloud of unknowing, even above and beyond his interpolation of love into the Areopagite’s text. One of the most contentious issues surrounding the modern interpretation of Dionysius’ corpus involves the place of Christology within the Super mystica theologia. Rorem has aptly noted of the text, ‘Whether as bridegroom, lover, the crucified, or savior, Christ is not mentioned in The Mystical Theology, except for one comment summarizing another, non-existent treatise’.89 Strikingly, even despite Dionysius’ own lack of references to Christ in the Super mystica theologia, Gallus interpolates John 14. 16 — where Christ tells his Apostles, ‘he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him’90 — within his interpretation of the Super mystica

83 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 559–62, p. 27: ‘quia prime virtutes prime et summe ierarchie sunt divina loca et requies thearchie, et ille prime essentie sunt quedam rationes subiectorum Deo, quia ab hiis illuminantur et ordinantur omnes inferiores’. 84 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 564–66, p. 27: ‘Vel per locum vel loca Dei possunt hic accipi intelligibiles rationes eterne omnium creaturarum que sunt in Verbo, quas dicit Plato ideas, Dionysius archetypias et exemplaria’. 85 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 187–89, pp. 10–11: ‘Et SIMPLICIA, ibidem, quia in illo summe simplici Verbo omnia eternaliter et summe simpliciter tamquam in prima arte scripta sunt’. 86 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 568–73, p. 27: ‘Ibi habes hanc sententiam secundum quod per illas rationes Deum cognoscimus, et secundum hoc planior videtur littera. Istas siquidem rationes possumus intellectualiter contemplari per speculum et in enigmate (1 Corinthians 13g) per cognitionem creaturarum quarum sunt ipse rationes’. 87 See Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 585–613, p. 28. 88 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 618–19, p. 29: ‘qui extra et supra intellectum omnino est, et incomprehensibilis est’. 89 Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, p. 216, referring to Dionysius, Super mystica theologia 1.3, in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, p. 136, and n. 7: ‘This, at least, is what was taught by the blessed Bartholomew. He says that the Word of God is vast and minuscule, that the Gospel is wide-ranging and yet restricted’. As the translation’s footnote indicates, Bartholomew’s works are now considered apocryphal. 90 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1.622–32, p. 29; John 14. 21.

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

theologia Chapter 1, even as he therein recalls the Areopagite’s citation of Galatians 2. 20 from De divinis nominibus 4 — ‘It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me’ — to explain the text, as well.91 Beyond his affective reading of Dionysius’ text, in other words, Gallus also reshapes Dionysius’ account of mystical union in the Expl. Super mystica theologia by inserting the person of Christ. The Abbot of Vercelli therein expounds upon the super-intellectual way of knowing God by writing: […]Unitus spiritui divino et Verbo scibilia omnia continenti, ipsum Verbum cognoscit et scrutatur profunda Dei (1 Corinthians 2e) […] ET IN EO QUOD NIHIL COGNOSCIT intellective, quia intellectum non exercet sed suspendit, COGNOSCENS EST SUPER MENTEM per sapientiam superintellectualem. [He who is] united to the divine spirit and the Word containing all knowable things, he knows the Word itself and scrutinizes the depths of God (1 Corinthians 2e) […] AND IN THAT WHICH HE KNOWS NOTHING intellectively, because the intellect is not exercised, but rather, suspended, HE IS KNOWING ABOVE THE MIND through a super-intellectual wisdom.92 Gallus’ description of the Super mystica theologia’s affective union is ‘super-intellectual’ precisely because the soul united to the Word is granted access to divine wisdom through the person of Christ, whom Gallus interpolates into the Super mystica theologia through his citations of John 14. 16 and Galatians 2. 20. The wisdom gifted by the Word in this union surpasses the ability of the intellect but is nonetheless still here defined by Gallus as a type of knowing through love.

91 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1.608–13, pp. 28–29; Gal. 2:20. I will refer to Gallus’ explanation of this text in the Expl. De divinis nominibus in greater detail, below. Coolman has likewise noted the significance of this interpolation of the Galatians pericope into Gallus’ reading of the Super mystica theologia and De divinis nominibus; see, for example, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus, pp. 248–49. 92 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1.623–25, pp. 628–30, p. 29. See also the Expl. Super mystica theologia 1.730–49, pp. 80–81. This particular passage demands further explanation, in that it clearly evidences Gallus’ method of commentating on Pseudo-Dionysius throughout the Explanatio, whereby Gallus simply inserts his own commentary within the Pseudo-Dionysian text. Kienzle has noted a similar method utilized by Hildegard von Bingen in her homilies on the Gospels, calling this form of commentary an ‘intratextual gloss’. Referring specifically to Hildegard’s method of commenting on Scripture in her homilies, Beverly Mayne Kienzle writes: ‘The words or phrases scilicet, id est, videlicet (“namely,” “clearly,” “evidently,” “that is,” “in other words”) frequently introduce each unit of commentary and direct the listener, or the reader, to the interpretive narrative. This method of keeping glosses in parallel with the scriptural passage differs from the usual medieval practice of placing glosses outside the text on the manuscript page as either interlinear or marginal notes’. Hildegard’s method of commenting on Scripture foreshadows Gallus’ later method of commenting on the Corpus Dionysiacum in his Explanatio, whereby Gallus borrows many of these same phrases — scilicet, id est, videlicet — in order to interject his own thoughts within the Corpus Dionysiacum. See Beverly Mayne Kienzle, ‘Introduction’, in Hildegard of Bingen: Homilies on the Gospels (Collegeville: Cistercian Publications, 2011), pp. 1–28, at p. 14. For more on Gallus’ method of glossing texts, see Ruello, ‘Introduction’, pp. 34–42.

317

31 8

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

From this, even more importantly, Gallus portrays the Word as that which enables his twofold methodological approach to reading the Corpus Dionysiacum, concluding the Expl. Super mystica theologia by writing: ‘Therefore, these two ways of knowing God that we have designated here are repeatedly found in this chapter, namely, the intellectual way, through the reasons of the Word, and the super-intellectual way, through union’.93 This is indeed a far cry from the original text of Chapter 1 of the Super mystica theologia where the Areopagite only mentions Christ on one occasion. Instead, the Word stands at the very centre of Gallus’ affective interpretation of the Corpus Dionysiacum insofar as the Victorine theologian actually concludes his Expl. Super mystica theologia by suggesting that his interpretation as such depends upon the Word’s role in both the ‘intellectual’ and ‘super-intellectual’ ways of knowing God. For Gallus, the soul that contemplates creatures through the exemplarity of the Word arrives at an intellectual knowledge of God, even as the soul’s affective union with the Word through Christ gifts it with a divine wisdom that surpasses all understanding. If Gallus’ commentary on the Corpus Dionysiacum aims to describe how the soul can be hierarchized for the purposes of finding contemplative rest in divine love through these two ways of knowing God, his theology of the Word as expounded within the first chapter of his Expl. Super mystica theologia simultaneously insists that the logic of such an interpretive project will fall apart without Christ. This logic becomes even clearer in the Explanatio’s theology of the Incarnation, which elucidates Gallus’ reasoning for how the Word makes the soul’s hierarchization possible through knowledge and love. Recalling his anthropology of the soul, Gallus holds that Cherubic knowledge and Seraphic love belong entirely to the realm of grace. While a creature cannot reach the highest hierarchy of the soul through its own natural powers in Gallus’ theology, the Incarnate Word — the eternal Word made flesh — unites divine nature with human nature for the purpose of granting created beings access to this perfect knowledge and love of God. The Incarnation in this sense can be understood as a matter of grace within Gallus’ theology whereby God condescends through ‘gratuitam benignitatem’ (graced benignity) from deity to be united with human nature.94 Gallus’ theology of the Incarnation involves a mutual ecstasy in which the super-substantial God goes out from his divine nature to human nature in order to invite all creatures to ascend to the divine. In Gallus’ anthropology of the soul, the creaturely ascent toward God requires that souls ecstatically exceed their proper natures in order to experience the grace of the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. This ascension is only made possible, however,

93 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super mystica theologia, 1. 637–39, p. 30: ‘In illo ergo capitulo continue inveniuntur iste due Dei cogitationes quas hic assignavimus, scilicet intellectualis, per rationes Verbi, et superintellectualis, per unitionem’. 94 Thomas Gallus, Expl. De divinis nominibus, 2. 1079–1085, p. 157: ‘VNDE QVONIAM, id est quando, Deus A BENIGNITATE, id est per gratuitam benignitatem, VENIT per incarnationem VSQVE AD NATVRAM humanam, tunc ex uirtute huius supernaturalitatis et supersubstantialitatis ipse Deus ET VERE FACTVS SVBSTANTIA creata, manens tamen in sua creatrici deitate; et ipse existens VIR, id est uerus homo, EXISTIT SVPERDEVS, id est Deus omnia ineffabiliter excedens’.

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

through this condescending movement of God into human nature through the Incarnation.95 Indeed, Gallus holds that the union of Christ’s divine and human natures through the Incarnation enables this ascension by opening up the possibility for all creaturely cognition of God, both intellectual and super-intellectual, because the manifestation of the divine nature in Christ’s human flesh invites created beings to know something of God’s hidden divinity.96 For Gallus, the Incarnation reveals the divine mysteries through which humans and angels are led to what eternally remains above and beyond the grasp of their natural powers. The Abbot of Vercelli expounds upon this theme in Chapter 1 of his Expl. Super ecclesiastica ierarchia : Plenitudo siquidem divinam mentem Verbo unitam inhabitans, iuxta sententiam apostoli Col. I, omnibus bonis et beatis mentibus angelicis et humanis per istam influit, et profunditates theoriarum, ante incarnationem etiam summis angelis incontemplabiles, in eam de occulto divinitatis, quantum omnipotentia in creaturam puram effundere potuit, effudit, et in eadem tamquam sibi connaturali proportionaliter contemplabiles facit, ex qua effusione etiam summorum angelorum cognitio excellenter excrevit et gloria. Quicquid ergo divini luminis homo vel angelus percipit, a Christo omnium ierarcha accipit. Accordingly, with the indwelling of the plenitudinous Word that is united to the divine mind, according to the meaning of the Apostle in Col. 1, [God] inflows the profundities of the theoriae — which even the highest angels were unable to contemplate before the incarnation — into all good and blessed angelic and human minds through this, from the hiddenness of divinity; as much as omnipotence can pour out into a pure creature, it pours out, and God proportionally causes the creature to be able to contemplate things that are connatural to Godself, an effusion from which even the cognition and glory of the highest angels grows in a more excellent way. Therefore, whatever a person or an angel perceives of the divine light, it receives it from Christ, the hierarch of all things.97 The term ‘theoriae’ bears a rich history in the Christian mystical tradition. Coolman has well noted that in Gallus’ theology the term specifically refers to: ‘[the] many manifestations of the divine nature, apparently apprehendable in some fashion, which then flow down into created minds properly disposed to receive them. That Gallus should orient the intellectus toward these theoriae does not surprise; but that

95 Thomas Gallus, Expl. De divinis nominibus, 4. 1532–1536, p. 241: ‘tanta est uirtus ueri amoris boni et pulcri quod non tantum facit homines et angelos excedere naturam propriam ut in Deum ascendant, sed etiam Deum quasi naturam propriam egredi ut ad creaturam quasi infra naturam suam procedendo condescendat’. 96 Thomas Gallus, Expl. super epistolam tertiam ad Gaium, ed. by Declan Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 723–24. 97 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super ecclesiastica ierarchia, 1. 196–206, ed. by Declan Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 733–984, at p. 747.

319

3 20

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

he should also see them as the proper object of the affectus is remarkable’.98 Coolman’s emphasis on the fact that the Victorine’s theoriae are divine manifestations within both the intellect and affect elucidates the meaning of the above passage from the Expl. Super ecclesiastica ierarchia . Here, Gallus does not merely refer to an intellectual cognition of God by speaking of these theoriae but rather refers to both the intellectual and affective way of knowing God. Even more importantly, moreover, he explicitly associates these theoriae with the Incarnate Word. Before the Incarnation, neither angelic nor human minds could contemplate ‘the profundities’ of the theoriae. As such, the Incarnate Word holds pride of place in Gallus’ thought because it makes possible any creaturely knowledge of God, whether intellectual or affective. ‘For whatever of the divine light could go forth from eternity or could be given to creatures from omnipotence, the soul of the savior retains it immutably and receives it most fully’,99 writes Gallus in Chapter 7 of the Expl. Super angelica ierarchia. By condescending to humble flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, the Word reveals his divine nature to all creatures who otherwise could not properly contemplate God, inflowing this divine light throughout them so as to deify all those who participate within the hierarchies.100 Gallus thus affirms Dionysius’ naming of the Incarnate Word as the principium deificandi (deifying principle) for every human and angel striving for union with God.101 While Gallus borrows the Areopagite’s terminology in this respect, as well as the Areopagite’s appellation of Christ as the principle hierarch of every hierarchy,102 the Abbot of Vercelli nonetheless adds his own distinctive flair to this concept by describing deification in terms of the Incarnate Word’s inflowing of the divine theoriae into both the intellect and affect. In stark contrast to Dionysius’ own project in the Corpus Dionysiacum — where scholars must scrounge to affirm the centrality of Christ — Gallus places Christ at the centre of his account of deification by repeatedly affirming that Christ himself provides the means through which the hierarchical soul will enjoy its affective union with God. The Christ of the Explanatio is he who unites and simplifies the many distractions of cogitations and affections within created minds by gathering together the movements of the affect and intellect.103 He is likewise the sun of justice and understanding who ‘inflames the affection for the love of goodness and illuminates the intellect for 98 Coolman, ‘Thomas Gallus’, p. 150. For a more expanded treatment of these theoriae, see especially Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus, p. 174. 99 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super angelica ierarchia, 7. 317–19, p. 592: ‘Quicquid enim luminis divini ab eternitate egredi potuit aut ab omnipotentia dari creature, plenissime accepit et immutabiliter retinet anima salvatoris’. 100 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super angelica ierarchia, 7. 313–36, p. 592; 7.372–07, pp. 594–95. 101 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super Epistolam Secundam ad Gaium, 31–33, p. 722: ‘Verbum incarnatum quod dixi superdeum et superbonum, SIT PRINCIPIUM DEIFICANDI ET BONOS FACIENDI angelos et homines DEIFICATOS’. 102 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super ecclesiastica ierarchia, 1. 70–71, p. 742: ‘ierarcha principalis’. 103 Thomas Gallus, Expl. Super ecclesiastica ierarchia, 1..70–79, p. 742: ‘ET ipse Dominus Ihesus, tamquam noster ierarcha principalis, CONCLUDIT, id est coadunat et simplificat […] MULTAS ALTERITATES, id est varias cogitationum et affectionum distractiones, quas vocat psalmus in

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

the cognition of truth’ (inflammat ad amorem bonitatis et intellectum illuminat ad cognitionem veritatis).104 The interplay between the intellect and affect that characterizes Gallus’ account of the hierarchical soul is made possible always by the Incarnate Word, the deifying principle whose manifestation of God in human nature serves as the impetus behind the intellect’s enjoyment of the Cherub and the affect’s ardency in the Seraph. Further support for the claim concerning the centrality of Christ within the affective hermeneutic of the Explanatio can be found in Gallus’ commentary on Chapter 4 of the De divinis nominibus, cited already by the Abbot of Vercelli — as we have already seen — in his explanation of the Super mystica theologia. This particular chapter proves fundamental for Gallus’ affective reading of the Corpus Dionysiacum, since it boasts Dionysius’ most substantial treatment of love’s role in bringing about mystical union with God. The Areopagite here defines love (eros) as a certain capacity to effect union whereby a mutual yearning leads a superior within a hierarchy to provide for its subordinate and likewise moves the subordinate to ascend toward her superior.105 Love, in other words, is the driving force behind the movements of higher and lower beings toward one another within a hierarchy. This eros causes an ecstasy whereby the lovers who thus yearn for one another lose themselves within their beloved, so that Dionysius reads Paul’s statement from Galatians 2. 20 in terms of this eros, writing: ‘This is why the great Paul, swept along by his yearning for God and seized of its ecstatic power, had this inspired word to say: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”. Paul was truly a lover and, as he says, he was beside himself for God, possessing not his own life but the life of the One for whom he yearned, as exceptionally beloved’.106 Gallus subsequently expounds upon this Dionysian text in the following way in his Expl. De divinis nominibus, worth repeating in full: VIVO EGO, IAM NON EGO, etc., id est vita naturali per unitionem excessivam ad eternitatis immensitatem quasi absorta et suo officio suspensa, dirigor, moveor, doceor, regor vita supersubstantiali cui unior, qua repleor. Et hoc est: CHRISTUS AUTEM VIVIT IN ME, id est sicut anima sobria me regit naturaliter et disponit ad omnem actum interiorem et exteriorem, sic virtus Christi eterna cui unior me gratuito vivificat et ad omnia disponit. Quamvis autem conemur horum verborum sententiam exprimere, pro certo tamen habemus quod virtus experientie apostolice nec scripto nec dicto nec cogitatione digne exprimitur. Hoc autem dicit SICUT VERUS AMATOR. Verus amor est qui

viris spiritualibus dispersiones Israelis; Os Ig: filii Iuda et Israel, id est motus affectus et intellectus, congregabuntur etc.; Ez. 8a: apprehendit me in cincinno etc.; AMORE BONORUM VIRORUM, quia amor bonos facit […] EXTENTO AD IPSUM Ihesum (hac enim extensione simplificamur […])’. 104 Thomas Gallus, Expl. De divinis nominibus, 1. 527–30, p. 71: ‘Christus est sol iustitie (Mal. 3f), sol intelligentie (Sap. 5b). Ipse enim affectionem inflammat ad amorem bonitatis et intellectum illuminat ad cognitionem veritatis’. 105 Pseudo-Dionysius, ‘The Divine Names’, in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, p. 81. 106 Pseudo-Dionysius, ‘The Divine Names’, in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, p. 82.

321

3 22

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

in solum summe et vere diligibile et desiderabile immediate et propter ipsum solum superintellectualiter tendit […] Unde qui hoc amore Deo uniuntur, veri amatores sunt. Ideo subdit quasi declarans verum amorem et veros amatores: ET EXTASIM PASSUS. Qui mente excedunt extasim pati dicuntur quia aguntur, non agunt […] Et hoc est DEO, id est divina virtute, ET NON SUI IPSIUS VITA naturali, SED vita AMATI, id est Christi; SICUT IPSE Paulus DICIT: VIVO EGO etc. Vita, dico, amati VALDE DILIGIBILI. Ipsa enim est vita eterna et ipse totus est desiderabilis (Cant. 5g). I LIVE, YET NOT I, etc., that is, with the natural life as though absorbed and with its own office suspended through an ecstatic union toward the immensity of eternity, I am directed, moved, taught, ruled by the super-substantial life to which I am united, by which I am fulfilled. And this is: BUT CHRIST LIVES IN ME, that is, just as the sober soul naturally rules me and disposes me to every interior and exterior act, so the eternal power of Christ to which I am united vivifies me through grace and disposes me to all things. But although we have tried to express the meaning of these words, we nevertheless have certainty that the power of the apostolic experience is not worthily expressed through what has been written, spoken, and thought. But he says this AS A TRUE LOVER. A true lover is one who tends super-intellectually into what alone is the highest and truly loveable and immediately desirable in its own right […] Whence, true lovers are those who are united to God through this love. So he adds, as if describing true love and true lovers: AND HE SUFFERED ECSTASY. Those who go out from their mind are said to suffer ecstasy because they are acted upon, and do not act […] And this is BY GOD, that is, by divine power, AND NOT BY the natural LIFE OF ITS OWN, BUT the life OF THE BELOVED, that is, of Christ; AS Paul HIMSELF SAID: I LIVE, etc. The life, I say, of the INTENSELY LOVEABLE beloved. For he himself is eternal life and is totally desirable.107 Here, Gallus borrows the original albeit rare Christological intuition proffered by Dionysius to again definitively insert Christ within his own account of affective union with God. His reference to the ‘natural life’ that is suspended in ecstasy whereby the soul is ‘directed, moved, taught, ruled by the super-substantial life to which I am united’ most certainly references his description of the union enjoyed at the level of the Seraph. At this level, the affect passes beyond nature into the boiling radiances of God’s loving grace in order to ‘in-flow’ divine things back down to the lower orders of the soul. Gallus affirms that the soul thus enraptured experiences this ecstasy through the ‘eternal power of Christ’ as a ‘true lover’ who has lost herself in the all-consuming embrace of God. As Coolman notes in his own reading of this passage from the Explanatio, this nuptial union between the soul and her beloved leads the soul to a sort of ‘resurrection’, since the intellect 107 Thomas Gallus, Expl. De divinis nominibus, 4. 1507–1531, pp. 240–41.

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

experiences a ‘mystical death’ at the level of the Cherubim that then yields to new life in Christ at the level of the Seraph within Gallus’ angelic anthropology. ‘As bride, the soul is now “animated” by Christ, in the same way that she had formerly existed through her natural soul; she is made alive — in a sense resurrected’, so that ‘the ecstatic mode of existence in Christ … here reaches its seraphic fullness’.108 Simply put, for Gallus, Christ is the beloved to whom the hierarchical soul strives and for whom the hierarchical soul yearns, the object of the soul’s affection and deifying principle that drives and crowns the Abbot of Vercelli’s affective reading of Dionysian mystical theology. Those who embark upon Gallus’ journey of reading the Corpus Dionysiacum thus embark upon a journey of knowing and loving God through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ, the Incarnate Word who inflows divine theoriae throughout the hierarchies so as to elevate all created being into the lap of God. The interplay between the intellect and affect which characterizes Gallus’ twofold methodological approach for reading the Corpus Dionysiacum remains, as it were, completely incomprehensible apart from the Word made flesh, where the hidden things of God meet human nature to open the door for created being to know and love the God beyond all nature. The Abbot of Vercelli indeed carries Hugh of St Victor’s intuition concerning an affective reading of the Dionysian corpus forward through the Explanatio, but he does so by simultaneously providing a robust Christology that makes sense of this hermeneutic: the love of Christ provides the motive force behind Gallus’ entire affective theological system.

Conclusion: The Theological Legacy of Gallus’ Explanatio This paper has demonstrated the importance of Thomas Gallus’ Explanatio in terms of its continuation of a Victorine intuition concerning the affective interpretation of the Dionysian corpus. What I have not yet examined, however, is the significance of Gallus’ interpretive project for later thinkers within the Christian tradition, a point with which I will now conclude my analysis of the Explanatio.

108 Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus, p. 171. Coolman continues his analysis of these themes in Gallus’ theology by suggesting that this nuptial union with Christ then yields to a pneumatological moment, whereby the soul resurrected in Christ lives through the Spirit. He also sees here a fruitful way forward for importing a theology of the Cross into Gallus’ reading of the Corpus Dionysiacum. See especially Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus, pp. 248–49: ‘Gallus interposes at this point a kind of mystical theologia crucis, especially in relation to the intellectus, as it undergoes the death of its proper modality and activity. Gallus frequently cites a text from Job here: my soul chooses hanging; my bones death. The operative verse, though, is Gal. 2: no longer I, but Christ lives in me, by which Gallus intimates not the utter annihilation or cessation of the intellectus, but its affective assimilation to a higher mode of operation in the risen Christ, and as Gallus insists, through the Spirit… Given the rather understated role of the incarnate Christ, especially the cross, in the Corpus Dionysiacum, Galllus’ interpolation of this notion here thus suggests that his is not only an affective reception of Dionysius generally, but also a Christological and even cruciform one too.’

323

3 24

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

Only in recent years have scholars of medieval theology begun to explore the importance of Gallus’ Dionysian thought for later theologians. Much work remains with regard to working out the specific details concerning the nuances of influence deriving from Gallus’ interpretive project. Declan Lawell’s article ‘Ne de Ineffabili Penitus Taceamus: Aspects of the Specialized Vocabulary of the Writings of Thomas Gallus’,109 makes great strides forward in this respect, since Lawell presents several key terms within Gallus’ vocabulary that bear upon the work of later interpreters of the Areopagite. For example, Lawell discusses the possibility that Gallus’ vocabulary influenced Robert Grosseteste, Meister Eckhart, and fourteenth-century Carthusian and Benedictine monasteries in Austria and southern Germany.110 Other scholars have pointed to the probability of Gallus’ influence on the fourteenth-century Carthusian Hugh of Balma as well as the anonymous author of the fourteenth-century mystical text The Cloud of Unknowing.111 More than any other school of thought, however, scholars often affirm an especial relationship between Thomas Gallus and the thirteenth-century Franciscan school of theology. Several scholars have underscored the rather personal character of this relationship.112 Gallus left the Abbey of St Victor in Paris in 1219 to found the Abbey of St Andrew in Vercelli, and by 1228, the Franciscans had transferred their studium generale from Padua to Vercelli,113 a move perhaps encouraged by the fact that Gallus purportedly maintained a friendship with the famous Franciscan saint Anthony of Padua.114 Originally an Augustinian canon as well, St Anthony became a Franciscan friar in 1220 and was then given charge over the fraternity’s theological education. A letter from St Francis to Anthony gives Anthony permission to teach theology to the Minorites, ‘providing that, as is contained in the Rule, you “do not extinguish the Spirit of prayer and devotion” during study of this kind’.115 St Anthony’s friendship with Gallus, paired with his role as the first

109 Lawell, ‘Ne de Ineffabili Penitus Taceamus’, pp. 151–84. 110 Lawell, ‘Ne de Ineffabili Penitus Taceamus’, pp. 179–84, esp. p. 184, where Lawell makes a poignantly beautiful comment concerning the need to re-examine the work of Gallus: ‘Gallus’ voice has fallen silent since then, his fertile vocabulary lying fallow for too long in unedited manuscripts, a demise bewailed now by many commentators […] it is to be hoped that Thomas Gallus has not spoken his last words, and that his vocabulary can help to shape contemporary discussions of Neoplatonism as much as it did in the thirteenth century’. See also Pierre Brunette and Paul Lachance, eds, The Earliest Franciscans: The Legacy of Giles of Assisi, Roger of Provence, and James of Milan (New York: Paulist Press, 2015), p. 7, for mention of Gallus’ influence over the Carthusians and Benedictines. 111 Coolman, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, p. 616; McGinn, ‘Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism’, p. 83. 112 See, for example, Lawell, ‘Ne de Ineffabili Penitus Taceamus’, p. 184; Javelet, ‘Thomas Gallus ou les Écritures dans une Dialectique Mystique’, p. 99. 113 Chase, Angelic Spirituality, pp. 217–18. 114 Brunette and Lachance, eds, The Earliest Franciscans, p. 7; McGinn, ‘Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism’, p. 83; Gabriel Théry, ‘Thomas Gallus et Egide d’Assise: le traite De septem gradibus contemplationis’, Revue néoscolastique de philosophie, 36 (1934), 180–90 (p. 189). 115 Francis of Assisi, ‘A Letter to Brother Anthony of Padua’, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, v. 1, The Saint, ed. by Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (New York: New City Press, 1999), p. 107. See also McGinn, ‘Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism’, p. 83.

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

Franciscan theological teacher endorsed by Francis himself, certainly denotes a strong tie between Franciscan theology as it was conceived in its earliest form and the Abbot of Vercelli. Frequent references to Gallus’ relationship with the Franciscans evidences the need for scholars to more clearly clarify the nature of that relationship, especially in terms of Gallus’ theological influence on the thirteenth-century Franciscan school of thought. It is my hope that my analysis of the Explanatio’s affective theology in this present study will lay the groundwork for further developments in this respect. For example, in his work treating Hugh of St Victor’s Christology, Grover Zinn has noted the dearth of scholarship surrounding the path of influence between the Victorines and the Franciscans, pointing to Hugh’s Christology as one tributary through which scholars might eventually expand this territory. Zinn contends that a ‘study of Hugh’s mysticism would suggest that much of the Christocentricity of Franciscan mysticism and the Christocentric nature of Bonaventure’s theological vision have their antecedent formulation in the work of the Victorines’.116 He then points to Hugh and Bonaventure’s shared love of Augustine as one potential point of comparison from which to begin clarifying this relationship.117 My own analysis of Gallus’ Christology within the Explanatio has hopefully pointed to the possibility of tracing an alternative but complementary path of influence between the Victorines and Franciscans. In this vein of thought, I close by simply pointing to St Bonaventure’s famous work the Itinerarium mentis in Deum. In Chapter 4 of that text, the famed Franciscan describes souls reformed by grace, a reformation that Bonaventure associates with ‘believing and hoping in Jesus Christ and loving Him, Who is the incarnate, uncreated, and inspired Word’ (credens, sperans et amans Iesum Christum, qui est Verbum incarnatum, increatum et inspiratum).118 Through the grace gifted by the Word, the soul recovers her spiritual senses, an experience that Bonaventure rather notably claims ‘consists more in the experience of the affections than in the considerations of the mind’ (magis est in experientia affectuali quam in consideratione rationali).119 The Seraphic Doctor then describes how souls who thus rest in Christ become ‘hierarchical’ through grace: Quibus adeptis, efficitur spiritus noster hierarchicus ad conscendendum sursum secundum confirmitatem ad illam Ierusalem supernam, in quam nemo intrat, nisi prius per gratiam ipsa in cor descendat […] Sic etiam gradibus novem 116 Grover A. Zinn Jr, ‘Mandala Symbolism and Use in the Mysticism of Hugh of St Victor’, History of Religions, 12.4 (1972–1973), 317–41 (p. 340). 117 Zinn, ‘Mandala Symbolism and Use in the Mysticism of Hugh of St Victor’, p. 340. 118 Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind into God, trans. by Philotheus Boehner and ed. by Stephen F. Brown (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), p. 24; Bonaventure, Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, 4. 3, in Doctoris Seraphici S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, vol. v (Ad Claras Aquas Quaracchi Prope Florentiam: Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1891), p. 306 (hereafter, Itinerarium).. 119 Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind into God, trans. by Boehner and ed. by Brown, p. 24; Itinerarium, 4.3, p. 306.

325

3 26

k athe r in e w r i s l e y s h e l by

ordinum insignitur, dum ordinate in eo interius disponitur nuntiatio, dictatio, ductio, ordinatio, roboratio, imperatio, susceptio, revelatio, unctio, quae gradatim correspondent novem ordinibus Angelorum, ita quod primi trium praedictorum gradus respiciunt in mente humana naturam, tres sequentes industriam, et tres postremi gratiam. When these things have been attained, our spirit is made hierarchical so that it may continue upward to the degree that it is in conformity with the heavenly Jerusalem. For into this heavenly Jerusalem no one enters unless it first comes down into his heart by grace […] Thus our spirit is sealed with the nine degrees of orders, when in its inner depths the following are arranged in proper order: announcing, dictating, guiding, ordering, strengthening, commanding, receiving, revealing, and anointing, and these correspond, step by step, to the nine orders of angels. In the human mind the first three degrees of the aforementioned orders concern nature; the following three, activity; and the last three, grace.120 Even more strikingly, Bonaventure continues his thoughts in the Itinerarium’s fourth chapter to describe Christ as ‘the supreme Hierarch, Who purifies, enlightens, and perfects His spouse, that is, the whole Church and every sanctified soul’ (summus hierarcha est, purgans et illuminans et perficiens sponsam, scilicet totam Ecclesiam et quamlibet animam sanctam).121 While Bonaventure continues his description of the hierarchical soul by citing St Bernard, his account of the functions of the hierarchical soul — especially with regard to their movements through nature, activity, and grace — corresponds almost perfectly to Gallus’ angelic anthropology as put forward in his scriptural commentaries.122 Moreover, Bonaventure’s association of the hierarchical soul with regard to the soul’s loving union with Christ, identified as the ‘supreme hierarch’ and the Bridegroom of the Song of Songs, further intimates a possible correspondence with the Christology of the Explanatio as I have presently expounded it. Bonaventure’s text, notably among the most famous extant works of medieval mystical theology, here bears a striking resemblance to the Dionysian thought of Thomas Gallus. This resemblance is reaffirmed in the Itinerarium’s concluding chapter where Bonaventure describes Dionysius’ divine darkness in terms of affectivity.123 Much work remains by way of explicating the precise relationship between the work of the Abbot of Vercelli and the Seraphic Doctor, whose very appellation harkens

120 Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind into God, trans. by Boehner and ed. by Brown, pp. 24–25; Itinerarium, 4.4, p. 307. 121 Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind into God, trans. by Boehner and ed. by Brown, p. 25. Itinerarium, 4. 5, p. 307. 122 For a more detailed treatment of the similarities and differences between Gallus and Bonaventure in this particular respect, see Katherine Wrisley Shelby, ‘The Vir Hierarchicus: St Bonaventure’s Theology of Grace’ (unpublished PhD Dissertation, Boston College, 2018), pp. 214–52. 123 Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind to God, trans. by Boehner and ed. by Brown, p. 38; Itinerarium, 7, p. 312 ff.

T h o m as G al lu s’ E x p l anat io and Di o nysi an Tho u ght

back to his Victorine predecessor’s notion of the hierarchized soul.124 Reading the Itinerarium in this new light, we can be reminded of the importance of the all too-often forgotten theology of the Abbot of Vercelli, whose affective reading of the Dionysian corpus in the Explanatio yet demands to be redeemed from behind the shadows of those theological giants who made his mystical insights famous.

124 For more on the relationship between Bonaventure and Gallus, see Coolman, ‘Thomas Gallus’, p. 140; as well as Coolman, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus, pp. 237–38, where Coolman discusses the differences between their views regarding grace and human nature. Notably, Bonaventure specifically references Gallus in Collationes in Hexaëmeron 22. 24, also in a discussion of the hierarchized soul; see Bonaventure, Collationes in Hexaëmeron, in Doctoris Seraphici S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, vol. v (Ad Claras Aquas Quaracchi Prope Florentiam: Ex Typographica Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1891), pp. 329–454 (p. 441). For more on Bonaventure’s use of Gallus in Hexaëmeron 22, see Wrisley Shelby, ‘The Vir Hierarchicus: St. Bonaventure’s Theology of Grace’, pp. 230–48.

327

Works Cited

Abbreviations AHDLMA BV CS CWS CCCM CCSL CV MGH PL

PG RSR RTAM RTPM SC TPMA VTT

Archives d’histoire doctrínale et littéraire du moyen âge (Paris, 1926–) Bibliotheca Victorina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991–) Cistercian Studies (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publication, 1970–) Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah: Paulist, 1978–) Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971–) Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954–) Corpus Victorinum (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008–) Monumenta Germaniae Historica (1826–) Patrologiae cursus completus, sive bibliotheca universalis, integra, uniformis, commoda, oeconomica, omnium SS. Patrum, doctorum scriptorumque ecclesiasticorum qui ab aevo apostolico ad Innocentii III tempora floruerunt… series Latina, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, 221 vols (Paris, 1844–1864) Patrologiae cursus completus sive bibliotheca universalis, integra, uniformis, commoda,… series graeca, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris, 1857–1876) Recherches de science religieuse (Paris: Centre Sèvres, 1910–) Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale (Leuven: Peeters, 1929–) Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales, (Leuven: Peeters, 1997–2014) Sources Chrétiennes (Paris: Cerf, 1942–) Textes philosophiques du moyen âge (Paris: Vrin, 1958–) Victorine Texts in Translation (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010–)

Manuscript Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris MS. Lat. 15009

Primary Sources Abelard, Peter, The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, trans. by Betty Radice (New York: Penguin Classics, 2003) ———, Theologia christiana, see Petri Abaelardi opera theologica, ed. by Eligius Buytaert and Constant Mews, CCCM, 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969)

330

wo r k s c i te d

———, Theologia ‘summi boni’ and Theologia ‘scholarium’, see Petri Abaelardi opera theologica, ed. by Eligius Buytaert and Constant Mews, CCCM, 13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1987) Achard of Saint-Victor, Achard of St Victor: Works, ed. by Hugh Feiss OSB, CS, 165 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2001) Adam, Marsh, friar, Letter 87, in The Letters of Adam Marsh, ed. and trans. by Hugh Lawrence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), i, 218–23 Andrew of Saint-Victor, Expositio hystorica in librum Regum, ed. by Frans van Liere, CCCM, 53A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996) ———, Expositio super Danielem, ed. by Mark Zier, CCCM, 53F (Turnhout: Brepols, 1990) ———, Expositio super heptateuchum, ed. by Charles H. Lohr and Rainer Berndt CCCM, 53 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986) Anonymous, Athanasian Creed, in Early Christian Creeds, ed. by J. N. D. Kelly (London: Continuum, 2006) Anonymous, ‘Epistola anonymi ad Hugonem amicaum suum’, in Thesaurus Novus Anecdotum, ed. by Edmond Martène and Ursin Durand, vol. i (Paris, [1717]), pp. 486E–490D Anonymous, Pedro Hispano. Exposição sobre os livros do Beato Dionisio Areopagita (Expositio librorum Beati Dionysii), ed. by Manuel Alonso (Lisbon: Instituto de Alta Cultura, 1957) Anonymous, A Translation of the Chronicle of the Abbey of Morigny, France, c. 1100–1150, trans. by R Cusimano (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 2003) Anonymous, [Deiformis anime gemitus] Un Commentaire vercellien du Cantique des cantiques: ‘Deiformis anime gemitus’, ed. by Jeanne Barbet and trans. by Francis Ruello (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005) Anselm of Canterbury, Monologion, in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, ed. by Brian Davies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) ———, De processione Spiritus sancti, see: ‘On the Procession of the Holy Spirit’, in Anselm of Canterbury: Major Works, ed. by Brian Davies and G. R. Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 390–434 ———, Proslogion, in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, ed. by Brian Davies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions, trans. by Maria Boulding, OSB, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, vol. i.1 (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1997) ———, Confessionum libri XII, ed. by L. Verheijen, CCSL, 27 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981) ———, De diversis quaestiones octoginta tribus, ed. by Almut Mutzebecher, CCSL, 44A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975) ———, Enarrationes in Psalmos, ed. by Eligius Dekkers and Iohannes Fraipont, CCSL, 38–40 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1956) ———, Sancti Aureli Augustini De Genesi ad litteram, ed. by Iosephus Zycha, CSEL, 28.1 (Wien: Tempsky, 1894) ———, In Iohannis euangelium tractatus, ed. by Radbodus Willems, CCSL, 36 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954) ———, ‘Augustine: De Magistro (On the Teacher)’, trans. by T. Brian Mooney, in Understanding Teaching and Learning: Classic Texts on Education by Augustine, Aquinas,

wo rk s ci t e d

Newman and Mill, ed. by T. Brian Mooney and Mark Nowacki (Charlottesville: Imprint Academic, 2011), pp. 67–103 ———, The Monastic Rules, trans. by Agatha Mary, SPB and Gerald Bonner (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2004) ———, Sermo 126, ed. by Cyril Lambot, in ‘Le sermon CXXVI de saint Augustin sur le thème foi et intelligence et sur la vision du verbe’, Revue Bénédictine, 69 (1959), 177–90 ———, Sermones, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 38 (Paris, 1844–1864) ———, Soliloquies: Augustine’s Inner Dialogue, trans. by Kim Paffenroth (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2000) ———, Teaching Christianity: Translation of St Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana, The Works of St Augustine, vol. x.1 (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1996) ———, De Trinitate libri XV, ed. by W. J. Mountain, CCSL, 50 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968) ———, The Trinity (De Trinitate), trans. by Edmund Hill, OP, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, 5 (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1991) The Augustine Catechism: The Enchiridion of Faith, Hope, and Charity, trans. by Bruce Harbert (New York: New City Press, 2008) Bede, Homeliae euangelii, ed. by David Hurst, CCSL, 122 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955) Catholic Church, and Benedict XVI, [Verbum Domini] Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini of the Holy Father Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Clergy, Consecrated Persons and the Lay Faithful on the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2010) Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘On the Steps of Humility and Pride’, in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, trans. by Gillian R. Evans, CWS (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 99–144 ———, Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, trans. by Samuel Eales (London: Ballantyne Press, 1904) ———, Sancti Bernardi Opera Vol. 7: Epistolae, ed. by J. LeClercq, OSB and H. Rochais (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1974) Boethius, ‘Contra Eutychen’, in The Theological Tractates, trans. by H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand, and S. J. Tester, Loeb Classical Library, 74 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, [1918]) Bonaventure, Opera omnia, ed. by Collegium a S. Bonaventura, 10 vols (Quaracchi: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1882–1902) ———, Opera omnia, ed. by Adolphe Charles Peltier, 15 vols (Paris: Vivès, 1864–1871) ———, Collationes in Hexaëmeron, in Doctoris Seraphici S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, vol. v (Ad Claras Aquas Quarrachi Prope Florentiam: Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1891), pp. 327–454 ———, Collations in Hexaëmeron, trans. by J. de Vinck, The Works of St Bonaventure, 5 (New York: St Anthony’s Guild Press, 1970) ———, Itinerarium mentis in Deum, in Doctoris Seraphici S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, vol. v (Ad Claras Aquas Quarrachi Prope Florentiam: Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1891), pp. 295–316 ———, The Journey of the Mind into God, trans. by Philotheus Boehner and ed. by Stephen F. Brown (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993) ———, On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology, trans. by Zachary Hayes, OFM (St Bonaventure: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1996)

331

332

wo r k s c i te d

———, De reductione artium ad theologiam, in S. Bonaventurae opera omnia, vol. v: Tria opuscula. Breviloquium, Itinerarium mentis in Deum et De reductione artium ad theologiam, ed. by Collegium S. Bonaventurae (Roma: Quaracchi, 1890), V, pp. 329a–449b Cassiodorus, Institutiones, ed. by R. A. B. Mynors, in Cassiodori senatoris institutiones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961) Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. by H. Deniflé and E. Chatelain, vol. i (Paris: Delalain, 1889) Chrodegang, Regula canonicorum, in The Chrodegang Rules: The Rules for the Common Life of the Secular Clergy from the Eighth and Ninth Centuries. Critical Texts with Translations and Commentary, ed. by Jerome Bertram FSA (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 27–83 Fourth Lateran Council, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. by Norman P. Tanner, SJ, vol. i (London: Sheed &Ward, 1990) Concilium claremontanum, in Concilia Galliae, 511–696, ed. by Charles de Clercq, CCSL, 148A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1963) Concilium romanum centum [Lateran Synod, 1059], in Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ed. by Giovanni Mansi, 59 vols (Paris: H. Welter, 1901–1927), xix, 898–906 Vatican II Council, Dei Verbum, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, in Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. by A. Flannery (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1975) Codex diplomaticus ordinis sancti Rufi, ed. by Ulysse Chevalier (Valence: Jules Céas et fils, 1891) Damian, Peter, Die Briefe des Petrus Damiani, vol. i, MGH: Die Briefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit iv (München, 1983) Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, ed. and trans. by Robert M. Durling, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) De Botton, Alain, ‘Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person’, The New York Times Sunday Review, 28 May 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/whyyou-will-marry-the-wrong-person.html?_r = 0 [accessed 16 February 2017] Duns Scotus, John, Ordinatio. Liber Primus. Distinctiones 11–25, in Opera Omnia, vol. v (Vatican: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1959) ———, Reportatio Parisiensis, vol. iii in Opera omnia, xxiii (Paris: Vives, 1894) Francis of Assisi, ‘Epistola ad sanctum Antonium’, in Fontes Franciscani, ed. by Enrico Menesto and Stefano Brufani, Medioevo francescano, 2 (Assisi: Porziuncula, 1995) ———, ‘A Letter to Brother Anthony of Padua’, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. i, The Saint, ed. by Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (New York: New City Press, 1999), p. 107 Gilbert of Poitiers, ‘A Commentary on the Pseudo-Athanasian Creed by Gilbert of Poitiers’, ed. by N. M. Häring, Mediaeval Studies, 27 (1965), 23–53 Godfrey of Saint-Victor, Fons philosophiae, ed. by Pierre Michaud-Quantin, Analecta Mediaevalia Namurcensia, 8 (Namur: Godenne, 1956) ———, The Fountain of Philosophy, trans. by Edward Synan (Toronto: PIMS, 1972) ———, ‘The Fountain of Philosophy’, trans. by Hugh Feiss, OSB in Interpretation of Scripture: Theory: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor, and of Robert Melun, ed. by Franklin Harkins and Frans van Liere, VTT, 3 (New York: New City Press, 2013), pp. 373–425

wo rk s ci t e d

Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia, ed. by Raymond Étaix, CCSL, 141 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999) ———, Homiliae in Hiezechielem prophetam, ed. by Marcus Adriaen, CCSL, 142 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971) ———, Moralia in Iob, ed. by M. Adriaen, CCSL 143, 143A, 143B (Turnhout: Brepols, 1979–1985) Hildebert of Lavardin, Epistola 1, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 171 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 141–43 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Adnotationes elucidatoriae in Pentateuchon, in Genesim, ed. by JacquesPaul Migne, PL, 175 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 29–61B ———, De archa Noe. Libellus de formatione arche, ed. by Patrice Sicard, CCCM, 176 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001) ———, L’œuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor, 2: Super Canticum Mariae. Pro Assumptione Virginis. De beatae Mariae virginitate. Egredietur virga, Maria porta, ed. by Bernadette Jollés (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000) ———,Cronica, ed. by Rainer Berndt, in Hugonis de Sancto Victore operum Editio auspiciis Gilduini abbatis procurata et IV voluminibus digesta, novissime vero a Rainero Berndt restituta, vol. i, ed. by Rainer Berndt and José Luis Narvaja, CV, Textus historici, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2017), pp. 43–164 ———, Dialogus de sacramentis, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 176 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 17–42 ———, Descriptio mappe mundi, ed. by Patrick Gautier Dalché, La ‘Descriptio mappe mundi’ de Hugues de Saint-Victor: Texte inédit avec introduction et commentaire (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1988) ———, Didascalicon de studio legendi, ed. by José Luis Narvaja, in Hugonis de Sancto Victore operum Editio auspiciis Gilduini abbatis procurata et IV voluminibus digesta, novissime vero a Rainero Berndt restituta, ed. by Rainer Berndt and José Luis Narvaja, CV, Textus historici, 3, vol. i (Münster: Aschendorff, 2017), pp. 331–430 ———, Didascalicon: Hugonis de Sancto Victore Didascalicon de studio legendi, ed. by Charles H. Buttimer, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin, 10 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1939) ———, The Didascalicon of Hugh of Saint Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, trans. by Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991) ———, Hugonis de Sancto Victore operum Editio auspiciis Gilduini abbatis procurata et IV voluminibus digessa, novissime vero a Rainero Berndt restituta, ed. by Rainer Berndt and José Luis Narvaja, CV, Textus historici, 3, vol. i (Münster: Aschendorff, 2017) ———, In hierarchiam caelestem S. Dionysii, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 175 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 923A–1154C ———, Hugues et Richard de Saint-Victor, ed. and trans. by Roger Baron (Bloud & Gay, 1961) ———, Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, ed. by Dominique Poirel, Hugonis de Sancto Victore Super Ierarchiam Dionisii, CCCM, 178 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015) ———, ‘On Meditation’, trans. by Frans van Liere, in Writings on the Spiritual Life: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Adam, Achard, Richard, Walter, and Godfrey of St Victor, ed. and trans. by Christopher Evans, VTT, 4 (Turnhout, Brepols, 2013), pp. 381–94

333

334

wo r k s c i te d

———, ‘Miscellanea’, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 177 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 469–900 ———, ‘Notes on Genesis’, trans. by Jan van Zwieten, in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. and trans. by Frans van Liere and Franklin Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 53–117 ———, Notule in Pentateuchum, ed. by Rainer Berndt, in Hugonis de Sancto Victore operum Editio auspiciis Gilduini abbatis procurata et IV voluminibus digesta, novissime vero a Rainero Berndt restituta, ed. by Rainer Berndt and José Luis Narvaja, CV, Textus historici, 3, vol. i (Münster: Aschendorff, 2017), pp. 167–313 ———, Hugonis de Sancto Victore opera propaedeutica, ed. by Roger Baron (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966) ———, De sacramentis christianae fidei, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 176 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 173–618 ———, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Textus historici, 1 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008) ———, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Roy Deferrari, Medieval Academy Books, 58 (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1976) ———, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. by Roy Deferrari (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2007) ———, ‘Prologue for Sentences on Divinity’, trans. by Christopher P. Evans, in Trinity and Creation: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Richard, and Adam of St Victor, ed. by Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter, VTT, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 113–29 ———, In Salomonis Homiliae XIX in Ecclesiasten, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 175 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 113–256 ———, De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 175 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 9–28 ———, ‘On Sacred Scripture and its Authors’, trans. by Frans van Liere, in Interpretation of Scripture: Theory: A Selection of the Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor, and of Richard Melun, ed. by Franklin Harkins and Frans van Liere, VTT, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), pp. 213–52 ———, Hugh of Saint-Victor: Selected Spiritual Writings, ed. by Aelred Squire, OP (New York: Harper & Row, 1962) ———, ‘Sentences on Divinity’, trans. by Christopher Evans, in Trinity and Creation: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Richard, and Adam of St Victor, ed. by Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter, VTT, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 113–77 ———, Sententiae de divinitate, ed. by Ambrogio Piazzoni, ‘Ugo di San Vittore, “auctor” delle “Sententie de divinitate”’, Studi Medievali, 23 (1982), 861–955 ———, Hugues de Saint-Victor: Six Opuscules spirituels: La méditation; La parole de Dieu; La réalité de l’amour; Ce qu’il faut aimer vraiment; Les cinq septénaires; Les sept dons de l’Esprit-Saint, ed. and trans. by Roger Baron, SC, 155 (Paris: Cerf, 1969) ———, The Three Best Memory Aids for Learning History, trans. by Mary Carruthers, The Medieval Craft of Memory, ed. by Mary Carruthers and Jan Ziolkowski (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 32–40

wo rk s ci t e d

———, On the Three Most Important Circumstances of Deeds, that is, Persons, Places, and Times, trans. by Grover Zinn, Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. and trans. by Frans van Liere and Franklin Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 135–45 ———, De tribus diebus, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 176 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 811–38 ———, Hugonis de Sancto Victore De tribus diebus, ed. by Dominique Poirel, CCCM, 177 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002) ———, De tribus diebus: ‘Hugh of St Victor: On the Three Days, trans. by Hugh Feiss, OSB, in Trinity and Creation: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Richard, and Adam of St Victor, ed. by Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter, VTT, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 61–102 ———, ‘Hugo of St Victor: De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, ed. by William M. Green, Speculum, 18.4 (October 1943), 484–93 ———, De triplici archa, ed. by José Luis Narvaja, in Hugonis de Sancto Victore operum Editio auspiciis Gilduini abbatis procurata et IV voluminibus digesta, novissime vero a Rainero Berndt restituta, ed. by Rainer Berndt and José Luis Narvaja, CV, Textus historici, 3, vol. i (Münster: Aschendorff, 2017), pp. 607–85 ———, De vanitate mundi, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 176 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 703–40 ———, Hugonis de Sancto Victore, De uanitate rerum mundanarum, Dialogus de creatione mundi, ed. by Cédric Giraud, CCCM, 269 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015) Pseudo-Hugh, Adnotaniunculae elucidatoriae in Joelem prophetam, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 175 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 322–372 ———, Expositio moralis in Abdiam, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 175 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 371–406 ———, In Nahum, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 96 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 705–58 Institutio canonicorum aquisgranesis, in MGH: Legum Sectio III. Concilia aevi Karolini, 2.1 (Hannover: Hahn, 1906), pp. 307–421 Jean Gerson, Jean Gerson: Early Works, ed. by Brian McGuire, CWS (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1998) Jerome [Hieronymus], Commentariorum in Esaiam libri I–II, ed. by Marcus Adriaen, CCSL, 73 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1963) ———, Liber de situ: Liber de situ nominibus locorum hebraicorum, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 23 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 859–928 ———, Prologus in Pentateucho; Biblia sacra iuxta vulgata versionem, ed. by Robert Weber (Stuttgart: Württemburgische Bibelanstalt, 1969) John of Toulouse, Richardi canonici et prioris s. Victoris parisiensis vita, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 196 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols ix–xiv John Scotus Eriugena [Iohannes Scotus Eriugena], De diuina praedestinatione liber, ed. by Goulven Madec, CCCM, 50 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978) ———, Expositiones in Ierarchiam coelestem, ed. by Jeanne Barbet, CCCM, 31 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975)

335

3 36

wo r k s c i te d

Julius Caesar, The Gallic Wars, in Caesar I, trans. by H. J. Edwards, Loeb Classical Library, 72 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917) Lactantius, Diuinae institutiones, ed. by Samuel Brandt, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 19 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1890) Necrologium abbatiae Sancti Victoris Parisiensis, ed. by Ursula Vones-Liebenstein, Monika Seifert, and Rainer Berndt, SJ, CV, Textus historici, 1 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2012) Orosius, Historia adversus Paganos, ed. by Marie-Pierre Arnaud-Lindet, Histoires (Contre le Païens), 3 vols (Paris: n. pub., 1990–1991) Pascal, Blaise, Pascal’s Pensées (New York: Dutton, 1958) Peter Lombard [Petrus Lombardus], Four Books of Sentences: The Mystery of the Trinity, trans. by Giulio Silano, 4 vols (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2007) Peter Comestor [Petrus Comestor], Historia Scholastica, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 198 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 1053–1722 Pius XII, Humani Generis, in The Encyclical ‘Humani generis’: With a Commentary, trans. by A. C. Cotter (Weston: Weston College Press, 1951) ———, Divino Afflante Spiritu: Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Vatican Council (Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1965) Pseudo-Dionysius, Corpus Dionysiacum, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PG, 3 (Paris, 1857– 1876), cols 119–1122 ———, Corpus Dionysiacum, ed. by Beate Suchla, Günter Heil, and Adolf Ritter, Patristische Texte und Studien, 33, 36, 62 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990–) ———, Dionysiaca. Recueil donnant l’ensemble des traductions latines des ouvrages attribués au Denys de l’Aréopage, ed. by Philippe Chevallier and others, 2 vols (Paris: Brouwer, 1937, 1950) ———, La hiérarchie céleste, ed. by Günter Heil and Maurice de Gandillac, SC, 58 (Paris: Cerf, 1958) ———, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. by Colm Luibheid and ed. by Paul Rorem, CWS (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987) Richard of Saint-Victor, Richardus de Sancto Victore Opera Omnia, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 196 (Paris, 1844–1864) ———, In Apocalypsim Joannis libri septem, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 196 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 683–888 ———, [De arca Moysi / Benjamin   Maior / De arca mystica] ‘The Mystical Ark’, Richard of St Victor: The Twelfth Patriarchs, The Mystical Ark, Book Three of the Trinity, trans. and introduction by Grover A. Zinn, preface by Jean Chatillon, CWS (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), pp. 149–370 ———, Benjamin minor, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 196 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 1–64 ———, Beniamin minor, ed. by Jean Châtillon and Monique Duchet-Suchaut, Richard de Saint-Victor. Les Douze Patriarches ou Beniamin minor, SC, 419 (Paris: Cerf, 1997) ———, Contemplatio. Philosophische Studien zum Traktat Benjamin Maior des Richard von St Victor. Mit einer verbesserten Edition des Textes, ed. by Marc-Aeilko Aris (Frankfurt am Main: Josef Knecht, 1996) ———, De Contemplatione, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 196 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 63–192

wo rk s ci t e d

———, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor 1: De contemplatione (Benjamin maior), ed. by Jean Grosfillier, Sous la Règle de saint Augustin, 13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) ———, De Emmanuele, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 196 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 601–66 ———, De eruditione hominis interioris, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 196 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 1229–1366 ———, De exterminatione mali et promotione boni, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 196 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 1073–1116 ———, ‘The Four Degrees of Violent Love’, trans. by Andrew B. Kraebel, in On Love: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Adam, Achard, Richard, and Godfrey of St Victor, ed. by Hugh Feiss OSB, VTT, 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), pp. 261–300 ———, Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. and trans. by Frans van Liere and Franklin Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015) ———, On Isaiah: Interpreting ‘He calls to me from Seir’, trans. by Hugh Feiss, OSB, and Dale Coulter, in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. and trans. by Frans van Liere and Franklin Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 227–58 ———, Liber exceptionum, texte critique avec introduction, notes et tables, ed. by Jean Châtillon, TPMA, 5 (Paris: Vrin, 1958) ———, Mysticae Adnotationes in Psalmos, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 196, (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 265–402 ———, Nonnullae allegoriae tabernaculi foederis, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 196 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 191–202 ———, Opuscules théologiques: Texte critique avec notes et tables, ed. by Jean Ribaillier, TPMA, 15 (Paris: Vrin, 1967) ———, Richard of Saint-Victor: La Preparazione dell’Anima alla Contemplazione: Beniamino Minore, ed. by Mary Melone (Milan: Paoline: 2012), pp. 9–104 ———, De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, trans and ed. by Gervais Dumeige, Ives Épître à Séverin sur la charité. Richard de Saint-Victor Les quatres degrés de la violente charité, TPMA, 3 (Paris: Vrin, 1955), pp. 126–77 ———, Richard of St Victor: The Book of the Patriarchs, The Mystical Ark, Book Three of the Trinity, ed. and trans. by Grover Zinn, Jr, CWS (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1979) ———, Sermones centum, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 177 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 899–1210 ———, Richard de Saint-Victor: Sermons et opuscules spirituels inédits, ed. by Jean Châtillon and William-Joseph Tulloch (Paris: Desclée, 1949) ———, Spiritual Formation and Mystical Symbolism: A Selection of Works of Hugh and Richard of St Victor, and of Thomas Gallus, ed. by Dale Coulter and Grover A. Zinn, VTT, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming) ———, De statu interioris hominis, ed. by Jean Ribaillier, AHDLMA, 42 (1967), 7–128 ———, ‘On the State of the Interior Man’, trans. by Christopher Evans, in Writings on the Spiritual Life: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Adam, Achard, Richard, Walter, and Godfrey of St Victor, ed. by Christopher Evans, VTT, 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 241–314 ———, De Trinitate, ed. by Jean Ribaillier, Richard de Saint-Victor De Trinitate. Texte critique avec introduction, notes et tables, TPMA, 6 (Paris: Vrin, 1958)

337

338

wo r k s c i te d

———, La Trinité: Texte latin, introduction, et notes, ed. by Gaston Salet, SC, 63 (Paris: Cerf, 1959) ———, On the Trinity, trans. by Christopher Evans, in Trinity and Creation: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Richard, and Adam of St Victor, ed. by Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter, VTT, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 195–382 ———, In visionem Ezechielis, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, PL, 196 (Paris, 1844–1864), cols 527–600 ———, Writings on the Spiritual Life: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Adam, Achard, Richard, Walter, and Godfrey of St Victor, ed. and trans. by Christopher Evans, VTT, 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) Robert Grosseteste, Versio Caelestis Hierarchiae Pseudo-Dionysii Areopagitae cum scholiis ex Graeco sumptis necnon commentariis notulisque eiusdem Lincolniensis, CCCM, 268 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015) Roscelin, Epistola ad Abaelardum, ed. by Joseph Reiners, in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, viii. 5 (Münster: Aschendorff Buchhandlung, 1910) Rupert of Deutz [Rupertus Tuitiensis], Commentaria in euangelium sancti Iohannis, ed. by Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM, 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969) ———, De gloria et honore filii hominis super Matheum, ed. by Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM, 29 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1979) Suger, The Deeds of Louis the Fat, trans. by R. Cusimano and J. Moorhead (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1992) Thomas Gallus, [Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum], Thomas Gallus: Commentaires de Cantique des Cantiques, ed. by Jeanne Barbet, TPMA, 14 (Paris: Vrin, 1967) ———, ‘Commentaire sur Isaïe de Thomas de Saint-Victor’, ed. by Gabriel Théry, La vie spirituelle, 47, (1936), 146–62 ———, Explanatio in libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Anthony Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011) ———, Explanatio super mystica theologica, in Explanatio in Libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Anthony Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 3–46 ———, Explanatio de divinis nominibus, in Explanatio in Libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Anthony Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 47–470 ———, Explanatio super angelica ierarchia, in Explanatio in Libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Anthony Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 471–716 ———, Explanatio epistolae, in Explanatio in Libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Anthony Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 717–32 ———, Explanatio ecclesiastica ierarchia, in Explanatio in Libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Anthony Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 733–984 ———, ‘The “Expositions” of Thomas Gallus on the Pseudo-Dionysian Letters’, ed. by James Walsh, AHDLMA, 38 (1963), 199–220 ———, Extractio super angelica ierarchia, Paraphrasis abbatis Vercellensis, in Doctoris Ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani opera omnia, vol. xv (Tournai: Cartusia S. M. de Pratis, 1902), pp. 3–311 ———, Extractio super ecclesiastica ierarchia, Paraphrasis abbatis Vercellensis, in Doctoris Ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani opera omnia, vol. xv (Tournai: Cartusia S. M. de Pratis, 1902), pp. 343–595

wo rk s ci t e d

———, Extractio ex Libris Dionysii, in Dionysiaca: Recueil donant l’ensemble des traditions latines des ouvrages attribués au Denys l’Aréopage, ed. by Philippe Chevalier, 2 vols (Paris: Desclée, 1937), i, 673–717 ———, Extractio de divinis nominibus, Paraphrasis abbatis Vercellensis, in Doctoris Ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani opera omnia, vol. xvi (Tournai: Cartusia S. M. de Pratis, 1902), pp. 1–349 ———, Extractio de epistola nona, Paraphrasis abbatis Vercellensis, in Doctoris Ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani opera omnia, vol. xvi (Tournai: Cartusia S. M. de Pratis, 1902), pp. 557–74, 578–83 ———, Extractio super mystica theologia, Paraphrasis abbatis Vercellensis, in Doctoris Ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani opera omnia, vol. xvi (Tournai: Cartusia S. M. de Pratis, 1902), pp. 443–69 ———, Glose super Angelica Ierarchia. Accedunt indices ad Thomae Galli Opera, ed. by Declan Anthony Lawell, CCCM, 223A (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011) ———, Kommentar zur Mystischen Theologie und andere Schriften, ed. by Johannes Vahlkampf (Dollnstein: Verlag Neue Orthodoxie, 2001) ———, Doctoris ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani Opera omnia, vol. xv (Tornaci [Tournai]: Typis Cartusiae S. M. de Pratis, 1902) ———, ‘Qualiter vita prelatorum conformari debet vite angelice: A Sermon (1244–1246?) Attributed to Thomas Gallus’, ed. by Declan Lawell, RTPM, 75 (2008), 303–336 ———, ‘Thomas Gallus, Spectacula contemplationis (1244–1246): A Treatise by Thomas Gallus’, ed. by Declan Lawell, RTPM, 76 (2009), 249–85 ———, ‘Thomas Gallus et Egide d’Assise. Le traité ‘De Septem gradibus contemplationis’, ed. by Gabriel Théry, Revue Néo-Scolastique de Philosophie, 36 (41) (1934), 180–90 Tyconius of Carthage, Tyconius: The Book of Rules, Latin and English, Introduction, Notes, and Translation, William S. Babcock, Society of Biblical Literature: Texts and Translations, 31 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) [Walter of Saint-Victor] Galteri a Sancto Victore Sermones, ed. by Jean Châtillon, CCCM, 36 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976) William of Saint-Thierry, Epistola Domni Willelmi ad Fratres de Monte Dei, ed. by Jean Déchanet, Guillaume de Saint-Thierry. Lettre au frères du Mont-Dieu, SC, 223 (Paris: Cerf, 1985) Yves de Chartres, Le Prologue. Traduit, introduit et annoté par Jean Werckmeister, ed. by Jean Werckmeister, Sources canoniques, 1 (Paris: Cerf, 1997)

Secondary Works Anderson, C. Colt, The Great Catholic Reformers: From Gregory the Great to Dorothy Day (New York: Paulist Press, 2007) Andrée, Alexander, ‘Anselm of Laon Unveiled: Glosae super Iohannem and the Origins of the Glossa Ordinaria on the Bible’, Mediaeval Studies, 73 (2011), 217–60 Aris, Marc-Aeilko, Contemplatio. Philosophische Studien zum Traktat Benjamin Maior des Richard von St Victor. Mit einer verbesserten Edition des Textes (Frankfurt am Main: Josef Knecht, 1996)

339

340

wo r k s c i te d

Baldwin, John, ‘The Kingdom of the Franks from Louis VI to Philip II: (a) Crown and Government’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History IV, ed. by David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith, 7 vols (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), iv, 510–29 Banitt, Menahem, Rashi Interpreter of the Biblical Letter (Tel-Aviv: The Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 1985) ———, ‘Le commentaire biblique de Raschi: L’ouvre d’un humaniste’, Comptes rendus des séances, 3 (1990), 590–96 Barbet, Jeanne, ‘Introduction doctrinale’, in Commentaires du Cantique des cantiques, ed. and introduction by Jeanne Barbet, TPMA, 14 (Paris: Vrin, 1967), pp. 43–61 ———, ‘Un Apocryphe de Thomas Gallus: Le commentaire ‘Deiformis animae gemitus’ du Cantique des Cantiques’, Divinitas, 11 (1967) 471–90 ———, Un Commentaire du Cantique attribué à Thomas Gallus (Paris: BéatriceNauwelaerts, 1972) ———, ‘Thomas Gallus’, in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, ascétique, et mystique, doctrine et histoire, ed. by Marcel Viller, Charles Baumgartner, and André Rayez, vol. xv (Paris: Beauchesne, 1991), pp. 800–16 ———, ‘Introduction’, in Un Commentaire vercellien du Cantique des cantiques: ‘Deiformis anime gemitus’, ed. by Jeanne Barbet and trans. by Francis Ruello (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 7–84 Baron, Roger, ‘L’influence de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, RTAM, 22 (1953), 56–71 ———, ‘Étude sur l’authenticité de l’œuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor d’après les mss Paris Maz. 717, BN 14506 et Douai 360–366’, Scriptorium, 10 (1956), 182–220 ———, Science et Sagesse chez Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris: Lethielleux, 1957) ———, ‘Hugues de Saint-Victor. Contribution à un nouvel examen de son œuvre’, Traditio, 15 (1959), 223–97 ———, ‘Note sur la succession de l’œuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 57 (1962), 88–118 ———, ‘Le commentaire de la Hiérarchie céleste par Hugues de Saint-Victor’, in Études sur Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris: Brouwer, 1963), pp. 133–213 ———, Études sur Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris: Desclée de Bouwer, 1963) ———, ‘L’œuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor du point de vue chronologique’, in Études sur Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris: Brouwer, 1963), pp. 69–89 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics II: The Doctrine of God, Part 2: Election of God. The Command of God, trans. by Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance (London: T & T Clark, 2004) ———, Kirchliche Dogmatik II 1: Die Lehre von Gott (Zürich: Evangelischer, 1940) Battles, Ford Lewis, ‘Hugo of Saint-Victor as a Moral Allegorist’, Church History, 18.4 (December 1949), 220–40 Bautier, Robert-Henri, ‘Paris au temps d’Abélard’, in Abélard en son Temps: Actes du Colloque International Organisé à l’Occasion du 9e Centenaire de la Naissance de Pierre Abélard, 14–19 Mai 1979 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1981), pp. 21–77 Bazàn, Bernardo C., John W. Wippel, Gérard Fransen, and Danielle Jacquart, eds, Les questions disputées et les questions quodlibétiques dans les facultés de Théologie, de Droit et de Médecine, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, 44–45 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985)

wo rk s ci t e d

Berndt, SJ, Rainer, ‘Gehören die Kirchenväter zur Heiligen Schrift? Zur Kanontheorie des Hugo von Sankt Viktor’, in Zum Problem des biblischen Kanons, ed. by Ingo Baldermann, Jahrbuch für biblische Theologie, 3 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1988), pp. 191–99 ———, André de Saint-Victor (+ 1175). Exégète et théologien, BV, 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991) ———, ‘The School of St Victor in Paris’, in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The History of Its Interpretation. I/Part 2: The Middle Ages, ed. by Magne Sæbø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), pp. 467–95 ———, ‘Hugo von St Victor. Theologie als Schriftauslegung’, in Theologen des Mittelalters. Eine Einführung, ed. by Ulrich Köpf (Darmstadt: n. pub., 2002), pp. 96–112 ———, ‘Scientia und disciplina in der lateinischen Bibel und in der Exegese des hohen Mittelalters’, in ‘Scientia’ und ‘disciplina’. Wissenstheorie und Wissenschaftspraxis im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, ed. by Rainer Berndt, Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, and Ralf M. W. Stammberger, together with Alexander Fidora and Andreas Niederberger, Erudiri Sapientia, 3 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2002), pp. 9–36 ———, ‘Scriptura sacra magistra fidei. Zur Augustinus-Rezeption und der Einführung der “vita regularis” in Sankt Viktor zu Paris’, in Regula Sancti Augustini. Normative Grundlage differenter Verbände im Mittelalter, ed. by Gert Melville and Anne Müller, Publikationen der Akademie der Augustiner-Chorherren von Windesheim, 3 (Paring: n. pub., 2002), pp. 105–25 ———, ‘Vernunft des Heils Die Rationalität der Geschichte in theologischen Summen des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts’, in Vernünftig – Ansätze gegenwärtiger Religionsphilosophie, ed. by Rainer Berndt, 75 Jahre Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen Frankfurt am Main, Religion in der Moderne, 12 (Würzburg: Echter, 2003), pp. 231–62 ———, ‘Exegese des Alten Testaments. Die Grundstruktur christlicher Theologie bei den Viktorinern’, in Bibel und Exegese in Saint-Victor zu Paris. Form und Funktion eines Grundtextes im europäischen Rahmen, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Instrumenta, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2009), pp. 423–42 ———, ‘La raison du salut. L’influence d’Hugues de Saint-Victor sur la formation des sommes de théologie aux xiie et xiiie siècles’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris. Influence et rayonnement du moyen âge à l’époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 285–98 ———, ‘Pseudo-Dionysius in Saint-Victor’, in Kulturkontakte und Rezeptionsvorgänge in der Theologie des 12. und 13. Jahr-hunderts. Wissenschaftliche Studientagung 28. April-1. Mai 2005 Weingarten (Oberschwaben), ed. by Ulrich Köpfund and Dieter R. Bauer, Archa Verbi, Subsidia, 8 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2011), pp. 17–44 ———, ‘The Writings of Hugh of St Victor: An Author and His Contexts’, in Ugo di San Vittore, Atti del XLVII Convegno storico internazionale, Todi, 10–12 ottobre 2010, (Spoleto: Fondazione CISAM, 2011), pp. 1–20 Bertoldi, Francesco, ‘Henri de Lubac on Dei verbum’, trans. by Mandy Murphy, Communio (US), 17 (Spring 1990), 88–94 Biver, Paul, and Marie-Louise Biver, Abbayes, Monastères, et Couvents de Paris: Des Origines (Paris: Éditions d’Histoire et d’Art, 1970) Blastic, Michael William, ‘Condilectio: Personal Mysticism and Speculative Theology in the Works of Richard of Saint Victor’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, Saint Louis University, 1991)

341

342

wo r k s c i te d

Bloch, R. Howard, God’s Plagiarist: Being an Account of the Fabulous Industry and Irregular Commerce of Abbé Migne (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) Böhnke, Michael, Assaad Elias Kattan, and Bernd Oberdorfer, eds, Die Filioque-Kontroverse. Historische, ökumenische und dogmatische Perspectiven 1200 Jahre nach der Aachener Synode, Quaestiones disputatae, 245 (Freiburg: Herder, 2011) Boiadjiev, Tzotcho, Georgi Kapriev, and Andreas Speer, eds, Die Dionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter. Internationales Kolloquium in Sofia vom 8. bis 11. April 1999 unter der Schirmherrschaft der Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale, Rencontres de Philosophie médiévale, 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002) Bonnard, Fourier, Histoire de l’Abbaye Royale et de l’Ordre des Chanoines Réguliers de StVictor de Paris (Paris: Arthur Savaète, 1904) Bournazel, Éric, Le Gourvernement Capétien au xiie Siècle (1108–1180): Structures Sociales et Mutations Institutionnelles (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1975) Bradbury, Jim, The Capetians: Kings of France, 987–1328 (London: Continuum, 2007) Brons, Bernhard, Gott und die Seienden. Untersuchungen zum Verhaltnis von neuplatonischer Metaphysik and christlicher Tradition bei Dionysius Areopagita (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1976) Brun, Markus, ‘Actus purus principia caritative diligentis’. Trinitarische Theologie bei Bonaventura und ihr Ursprung bei Dionysius Pseudo-Areopagita und Richard von St.-Victor (Norderstedt: GRIN, 2005) Brunette, Pierre, and Paul Lachance, eds, The Earliest Franciscans: The Legacy of Giles of Assisi, Roger of Provence, and James of Milan (New York: Paulist Press, 2015) Budde, Timothy R., ‘The Three Recensions of the Versio Dionysii’, Journal of Medieval Latin, 17 (2008), 253–72 ———, ‘The ‘Versio Dionysii’ of John Scottus Eriugena. A study of the manuscript tradition and influence of Eriugena’s translation of the ‘Corpus Areopagiticum’ from the 9th through the 12th century’ (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Toronto, 2011) Bynum, Caroline Walker, ‘Docere verbo et exemplo’: An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979) ———, ‘The Spirituality of Regular Canons in the Twelfth Century’, in Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 22–58 Cacciapuoti, Pierluigi, ‘Deus Existentia amoris’. Teologia della carità et teologia della trinità negli scritti di Riccardo di San Vottore († 1173), BV, 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998) Cahn, Walter, ‘Architecture and Exegesis: Richard of St.-Victor’s Ezekiel Commentary and Its Illustrations’, Art Bulletin, 76.1 (1994), 53–68 Capellino, Mario, Tommaso di S. Vittore, abate vercellese (Vercelli: Biblioteca della Società Storica Vercellese, 1978) Carruthers, Mary, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) ———, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) de Certeau, Michel, La fable mystique. xvie – xviie siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1982) Channing, William Ellery, ‘Unitarian Christianity (1819)’, in The Complete Works of William Ellery Channing (London, Routledge, 1884)

wo rk s ci t e d

Chase, Steven, Angelic Wisdom: The Cherubim and the Grace of Contemplation in Richard of St Victor (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995) ———, Contemplation and Compassion: The Victorine Tradition (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2003) Châtillon, Jean, ‘Les trois modes de la contemplation selon Richard de Saint-Victor’, Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique, 41 (1940), 3–26 ———, ‘Autour des Miscellanea attribués à Hugues de Saint-Victor. Note sur la redaction brève de quelques ouvrages ou opuscules spirituels du prieur Richard’, Revue d’ascétique et de mystique, 25.98–100 (1949), 299–305 ———, ‘De Guillaume de Champeaux a Thomas Gallus: Chronique d’histoire littéraire et doctrinale de l’école de Saint-Victor’, Revue du Moyen Âge latin, 8 (1952), 139–62 ———, ‘Désarticulation et restructuration des textes à l’époque scolastique (xie-xiiie siècle)’, in La notion de paragraphe, ed. by Roger Laufer (Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1985), pp. 23–40 ———, ‘Richard de Saint-Victor’, in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, 13 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1988), cols 593–65 ———, ‘Le crise de l’Église aux xie et xiie siècles et les Origines des Grandes Fédérations Canoniales’, in Le Mouvement Canonial au Moyen Âge: Réforme de l’Église, Spiritualité, et Culture, ed. by Patrice Sicard (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), pp. 3–46 ———, ‘Hugues de Saint-Victor critique de Jean Scot’, in Jean Scot Érigène et l’histoire de la philosophie. Laon, 7–12 juillet 1975, Colloques internationaux du C.N.R.S., 561 (Paris, 1977) , pp. 415–531 = Jean Châtillon, Le mouvement canonial au Moyen Âge. Réforme de l’Église, spiritualité et culture. Études réunies, ed. by Patrice Sicard, BV, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), pp. 419–45 ———, ‘La spiritualité de l’Ordre Canonial’, in Le Mouvement Canonial au Moyen Âge: Réforme de l’Église, Spiritualité, et Culture, ed. by Patrice Sicard (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), pp. 131–49 ———, ‘Thomas Becket et les Victorins’, in Le Mouvement Canonial au Moyen Âge: Réforme de l’Église, Spiritualité, et Culture, ed. by Patrice Sicard (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), pp. 99–118 Chenu, Marie-Dominique, ‘Le dernier avatar de la théologie orientale en Occident au xiiie siècle’, in Mélanges Auguste Pelzer. Études d’histoire littéraire et doctrinale de la Scolastique médiévale offertes à Monseigneur Auguste Pelzer (Louvain: Bibliothèque de l’Université, 1947), pp. 159–81 ———, ‘Authentica et Magistralia’, in La théologie au douzième siècle (Paris: Vrin, 1957), pp. 351–65 ———, ‘The Evangelical Awakening’, in Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on the New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, ed. and trans. by Jerome Taylor and Lester Little (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 239–69 ———, ‘Monks, Canons, and Laymen in Search of the Apostolic Life’, in Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on the New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, ed. and trans. by Jerome Taylor and Lester Little (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 202–38 ———, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968)

343

344

wo r k s c i te d

Claussen, M.A., The Reform of the Frankish Church: Chrodegang of Metz and the Regula Canonicorum in the Eighth Century, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought — Fourth Series, 61 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) Coakley, Sarah, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) Colish, Marcia L., The Mirror of Language: A Study of the Medieval Theory of Knowledge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968) ———, Peter Lombard, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 41/1, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1994) ———, ‘Early Scholastic Angelology’, RTAM, 62 (1995), 80–109 Colker, M. L., ‘Richard of St Victor and the Anonymous of Bridlington’, Traditio,18 (1962), 181–227 Connolly, John, Jean Gerson: Reformer and Mystic (Louvain: Librairie Universitaire, 1928) Constable, Giles, ‘The Interpretation of Mary and Martha’, in Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 1–141 ———, The Reformation of the XIIth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) Coolman, Boyd Taylor, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, Modern Theology, 24 (2008), 615–32 ———, ‘The Medieval Affective Dionysian Tradition’, in Re-Thinking Dionysius the Areopagite, ed. by Sarah Coakley and Charles Stang (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 85–102 ———, The Theology of Hugh of St Victor: An Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) ———, ‘Thomas Gallus’, in The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity, ed. by Paul L. Gavrilyuk and Sarah Coakley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 140–58 ———, Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) ———, ‘Magister in hierarchia: Thomas Gallus as Victorine Interpreter of Dionysius’, in A Companion to the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris, ed. by Hugh Feiss and Juliet Mousseau (Leiden: Brill, 2018), pp. 516–45 Coulter, Dale M., Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia: Theological Method in Richard of St Victor, BV, 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006) ———, ‘Historia and Sensus litteralis: An Investigation into the Approach to Literal Interpretation at the Twelfth-Century School of St Victor’, in Transforming Relations: Essays on Jews and Christians throughout History in Honor of Michael A. Signer, ed. by Franklin T. Harkins (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), pp. 101–24 ———, ‘Contemplation as ‘Speculation’: A Comparison of Boethius, Hugh of Saint-Victor, and Richard of Saint-Victor’, in From Knowledge to Beatitude: St.-Victor, Twelfth-Century Scholars, and Beyond. Essays in Honor of Grover A. Zinn, Jr., ed. by W. Ann Matter and Lesley Smith (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), pp. 204–28 Cousins, Ewert, ‘A Theology of Interpersonal Relations’, Thought, 45.1 (1970), 56–82 Dalché, Patrick Gautier, ‘L’espace de l’histoire: Le rôle de la géographie dans le chroniques universelles’, in L’historiographie médiévale en Europe, ed. by Jean-Philippe Genet (Paris: CNRS, 1991), pp. 287–300

wo rk s ci t e d

———, ‘De la glose à la contemplation: Place et fonction de la carte dans les manuscripts du haut moyen âge’, in Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 41 (Spoleto: Presso la sede del Centro, 1994), pp. 693–764 de Andia, Ysabel, ed., Denys l’Aréopagite et sa postérité en orient et en occident. Actes du Colloque international. Paris, 21–24 septembre 1994, Collection des études augustiniennes, Série Antiquité, 151 (Paris: Institut d’études augustiniennes, 1997) ———, Denys l’Aréopagite: tradition et métamorphoses, ed. by Ysabel de Andia, Histoire de la philosophie, 42 (Paris: Vrin, 2006) ———, L’union à Dieu chez Denys l’Aréopagite (Leiden: Brill, 1996) De Libera, Alain, L’invention du sujet moderne, Cours du Collège de France 2013–2014 (Paris: Vrin, 2015) Den Bok, Nico, Communicating the Most High: A Systematic Study of Person and Trinity in the Theology of Richard of St Victor († 1173), BV, 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996) ———, ‘Das Opfer der Person. Grund und Grenze der Selbstübergabe im Denken Hans Urs von Balthasars’, in Wie beeinflusst die Christusoffenbarung das franziskanische Verständnis der Person, ed. by Herbert Schneider, Veröffentlichungen der Johannes Duns Scotus Akademie für franziskanische Geistesgeschichte und Spiritualität, 16 (Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 2004), pp. 100–48 ———, ‘Eén ding is noodzakelijk. Duns Scotus en het volheidsbeginsel’, in Geloof geeft te denken. Opstellen over de theologie van Johannes Duns Scotus, ed. by H. Veldhuis and A.J. Beck (Assen: Uitgeverij Van Gorcum, 2005), pp. 225–81 ———, ‘Richard de Saint-Victor et la quête de l’individualité essentielle: La sagesse de daniélité’, in L’individu au Moyen Age. Individuation et individualisation avant la modernité, ed. by Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak and Dominique Iogna-Prat (Paris: Aubier, 2005), pp. 123–44 Denner, Eva-Maria, ‘Serua secretum, custodi commissum, absconde creditum: Historischsystematische Untersuchung der Expositio super Canticum Marie Hugos von Sankt Viktor’, Sacris Erudiri, 35 (1995), 133–220 Dereine, Charles, ‘Vie commune, Règle de saint Augustin et chanoines réguliers au xie siècle’, Revue d’Histoire ecclésiastique, 41 (1946), 365–406 ———, ‘Chanoines’, in Dictionnaire d’Histoire et de Géographie Ecclésiastiques, ed. by Alfred Baudrillart, vol. xii (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1953), pp. 350–405 Dickinson, J. C., The Origins of the Austin Canons and Their Introduction into England (London: S.P.C.K., 1950) Dondaine, Hyacinthe-François, ‘L’objet et le “medium” de la vision béatifique chez les théologiens du xiiie siècle’, RTAM, 19 (1952), 60–130 ———, Le corpus dionysien de l’université de Paris au xiiie siècle (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1953) Doyle, Matthew, Peter Lombard and His Students (Toronto: Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies, 2016) Druon, Maurice, The History of Paris: From Caesar to Saint Louis (London: Rupert HartDavis, 1969) Dubarle, OP, A.M., ‘Le Sens Spirituel de l’Écriture’, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 31 (1947), 41–72

345

346

wo r k s c i te d

Duggan, Anne, ‘Jura sua unicuique tribuat: Innocent II and the Advance of the Learned Laws’, in Pope Innocent II (1130–1143): The World vs the City, ed. by J. Doran and D. Smith (New York: Routledge, 2016), pp. 272–310 Dumeige, Gervais, Richard de Saint-Victor et l’idée chrétienne de l’amour (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1952) Ebner, Joseph, Die Erkenntnislehre Richards von St Viktor, Beiträge zur Geschich­te der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Texte und Untersuchungen, 19.4 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1917) Edson, Evelyn, and Savage-Smith, Emilie, Medieval Views of the Cosmos (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2004) Edstam, Torsten, K., ‘From Twelfth-Century Renaissance to Fifteenth-Century Reform: The Reception of Hugh of St Victor in the Later Middle Ages’ (unpublished dissertation, University of Chicago, 2014) ———, ‘The Reception of the Victorines in Later Centuries’, in A Companion to the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris, ed. by Hugh Feiss and Juliet Mousseau (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 547–77 Ehlers, Joachim, ‘Freiheit des Handelns und göttliche Fugung in Geschichtsverstandnis mittelalterlicher Autoren’, in Die Abendländische Freiheit vom 10. bis zum 14. Jahrhundert. Die Wirkungszusammenhang von Idee und Wirklichkeit im europäischen Vergleich. ed. by Johannes Fried (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1991), pp. 205–20 ———, ‘Saint-Victor in Europa. Einzugsbereich und Wirkung der Kanonikergemeinschaft im europäischen Rahmen’, in Bibel und Exegese in der Abtei Saint-Victor zu Paris. Form und Funktion eines Grundtextes im europäischen Rahmen, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Instrumenta, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2009), pp. 17–33 Engelsma, David, Trinity and Covenant – God as Holy Family ( Jenison: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2006) Evans, G.R., Old Arts and New Theology: The Beginnings of Theology as an Academic Discipline (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980) ———, Bernard of Clairvaux (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) Evans, Michael, ‘Fictive Painting in Twelfth-Century Paris’, in Sight and Insight: Essays on Art and Culture in Honour of E. H. Gombrich at 85, ed. by John Onians (London: Phaidon, 1994), pp. 73–87 Fassler, Margot, Gothic Song: Victorine Sequences and Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century Paris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) Feeney, Denis, Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016) Feiss, Hugh, OSB, ‘Learning and the Ascent to God in Richard of Saint-Victor’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, Pontifical Atheneum of Saint Anselm, 1979) ———, ‘Bernardus Scholasticus: The Correspondence of Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of St Victor on Baptism’, in Bernardus Magister, ed. by John Sommerfeldt (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1990), pp. 360–77 ———, ‘Preaching by Word and Example’, in From Knowledge to Beatitude: St.-Victor, Twelfth-Century Scholars, and Beyond. Essays in Honor of Grover A. Zinn, Jr., ed. by W. Ann Matter and Lesley Smith (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), pp. 153–85

wo rk s ci t e d

———, ‘Introduction to The Spiritual Senses in Exegesis and Theology: Two Short Theological Works of Richard of St Victor’, in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. by Frans van Liere and Franklin Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 215–28 Ferruolo, Stephen, The Origins of the University: The Schools of Paris and Their Critics, 1100–1215 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985) Fliche, Augustin, La Réforme Grégorienne I: Formation des Idées Grégoriennes (Louvain: Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, 1924) Franke, John, ‘Good News for All People: Trinity, Plurality, and Mission’, in Revisioning, Renewing, and Rediscovering the Triune Center: Essays in Honor of Stanley J. Grenz, ed. by D. Tidball, B. Harris, and J. Sexton (Eugene: Cascade, 2014), pp. 59–78 Friedman, Russell, ‘The Voluntary Emanation of the Holy Spirit: Views of Natural Necessity and Voluntary Freedom at the Turn of the Thirteenth Century’, in Trinitarian Theology in the Medieval West, ed. by Pekka Käkkäinen, Schriften der Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft, 61 (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Seura, 2008), pp. 124–48 ———, Intellectual Traditions in the Medieval University: The Use of Philosophical Psychology in Trinitarian Theology among Franciscans and Dominicans, 1250–1350, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 108.1 and 108.2, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 2013) Froehlich, K., ed., Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) Frunzeanu, Eduard, and Monique Paulmier-Foucart, ‘Saint-Victor et les premiers dominicains’ in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris: Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’Époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 493–519 Führer, Julian, König Ludwig VI. von Frankreich und die Kanonikerreform, Europäische Hochschulschriften, 3 (Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang, 2008) ———, ‘L’abbaye de Saint-Victor dans la réforme canoniale’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris: Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’Époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 57–77 Gemeinhardt, Peter, ‘Logic, Tradition and Ecumenics: Developments of Latin Trinitarian Theology between c. 1075 and c. 1160’, in Trinitarian Theology in the Medieval West, ed. by Pekka Käkkäinen, Schriften der Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft, 61 (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Seura, 2008), pp. 10–68 Gersh, Stephen, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigation of the Prehistory and Evolution of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1978) Ghellinck, Joseph de, ‘La table des matières de la première édition des œuvres de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, RSR, 1 (1910), 270–89 and 385–396 ———, Le Mouvement Théologique du xiie Siècle: Études, Recherches et Documents (Paris: Librairie Victor Lecoffre, 1914) Giard, Luce, ‘Hugues de Saint-Victor: cartographe du savoir’, in L’abbaye parisienne de Saint-Victor au moyen âge. Communications présentées au XIIIe Colloque d’Humanisme médiéval de Paris (1986–1988), ed. by Jean Longère, BV, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991), pp. 253–69 Gilson, Étienne, La philosophie au Moyen Âge. Des origins patrisques à la fin du xive siècle (Paris: Payot, 1952)

347

3 48

wo r k s c i te d

Giroud, Charles, L’Ordre des Chanoines Réguliers de Saint-Augustin et ses Diverses Forms de Régime Interne: Essai de synthèse historico-juridique (Martigny: Éditions du GrandSaint-Bernard, 1961) Glorieux, P., Pour revalorizer Migne: Tables rectificatives (Lille: Facultés Catholiques, 1952) Golitzin, Alexander, Mystagogy: A Monastic Reading of Dionysius Areopagita (Collegeville: Cistercian Publications, 2013) Goodwin, Deborah, ‘Herbert of Bosham and the Horizons of Twelfth-Century Exegesis’, Traditio, 53 (2003), 133–73 Goy Rudolf, Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos von St Viktor: Ein Beitrag zur Kommunikationsgeschichte des Mittelalters, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, 14 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1976) Grabmann, Martin, Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode, 3 vols (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herersche, 1909) Grabois, Aryeh, ‘The Hebrew Text of the Old Testament and Christian Scholarship: A Chapter in XIIth Century Jewish-Christian Relations’, in Studies in the History of the Jewish People and Land of Israel: In Memory of Zvi Avneri, ed. by A Gilboa and others (Tel-Aviv: University of Haifa, 1970), pp. 97–116 ———, ‘The Hebraica Veritas and Jewish-Christian Intellectual Relations in the Twelfth Century’, Speculum, 50 (1975), 613–34 Grant, Lindy, Abbot Suger of St-Denis: Church and State in Early Twelfth Century France (New York: Routledge, 2013) Grosfillier, Jean, L’œuvre de Richard de Saint-Victor 1: De contemplatione (Beniamin maior), Sous la Règle de saint Augustin, 13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) Hailperin, Herman, ‘Jewish “Influence” on Christian Biblical Scholars in the Middle Ages’, Historia Judaica, 4 (1942), 163–74 ———, Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963) Hamburger, Jeffrey, ‘Speculations on Speculation. Vision and Perception in the Theory and Practice of Mystical Devotion’, in Deutsche Mystik im abendländischen Zusammenhang. Neu erschlossene Texte, neue methodische Ansätze, neue theoretische Konzepte, ed. by Walter Haug and Wolfram Schneider-Lastin (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2000), pp. 353–408 Häring, Nikolaus M., ‘The case of Gilbert de la Porrée, bishop of Poitiers (1142–1154)’, Mediaeval Studies, 13 (1951), 1–40 Harkins, Franklin, Reading and the Work of Restoration: History and Scripture in the Theology of Hugh of St Victor, Medieval Law and Theology, 2 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2009) Harkins, Franklin, and Frans van Liere, ‘General Introduction’, in Interpretation of Scripture: Theory: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor, and of Robert Melun, ed. by Franklin Harkins and Frans van Liere, VTT 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), pp. 31–60 ———, ‘General Introduction’, in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leontius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. by Frans van Liere and Franklin Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 25–50

wo rk s ci t e d

Harley, J. B., and David Woodward, eds, Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, The History of Cartography, vol. i (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) Harris, Robert, Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency, Commentaries on Amos and Jonah (With Selections from Isaiah and Ezekiel) (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2018) Hauréau, Jean-Barthélemy, Hugues de Saint-Victor: Nouvel Examen de l’Édition de ses Œuvres (Paris: Pagnerre, 1859) ———, Histoire de la philosophie scolastique, 3 vols (Paris: Durand & Pedone Lauriel, 1872–1880) Hayes, Zachary, ‘Bonaventure’s Trinitarian Theology’, in A Companion to Bonaventure, ed. by Jay M. Hammond, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and Jared Goff, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 48 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 189–243 Hopkins, Jasper, A Companion to the Study of St Anselm (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972) Hughes, Kevin L., ‘The “Arts Reputed Liberal”’, in Augustine and Liberal Education, ed. by Kim Paffenroth and Kevin L. Hughes (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 95–107 Illich, Ivan, In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh’s Didascalicon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993) Ivanka, Endre von, Plato Christianus, Übernahme und Umgestaltung des Platonismus durch die Väter (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1964) Jaeger, C. Stephen, The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950–1200, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993) ———, ‘Humanism and Ethics at the School of St Victor in the Early Twelfth Century’, Mediaeval Studies, 55 (1993), 51–79 Javelet, Robert, ‘Ontologie et connaissance chez Thomas Gallus’, in Die Metaphysik im Mittelalter: ihr Ursprung und ihre Bedeutung (Miscellanea mediaevalia 2), ed. by Paul Wilpert (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1963), pp. 282–88 ———, ‘Thomas Gallus et Richard de Saint-Victor mystiques’, RTAM 29 (1962), 206–33 and 30 (1963), 88–121 ———, ‘Thomas Gallus ou les Écritures dans une Dialectique Mystique’, in L’Homme devant Dieu: Mélanges offerts au Père Henri de Lubac, Études publiées sous la direction de la Faculté de Théologie S. J. de Lyon-Fourviére, 57 (Paris: Aubier, 1964), pp. 99–119 Joranson, Einar, ‘Stephen Garland’ (unpublished masters thesis, University of WisconsinMadison, 1914) Junod Éric, ‘Apocrypha’, in Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, ed. by Jean-Yves Lacoste, vol. i (New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 69–71 Kamin, Sarah, ‘Affinities between Jewish and Christian Exegesis in Twelfth Century France’, in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, ed. by Moshe Goshen-Gottstein ( Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1985), pp. 141–55 Karfíková, Lenka, ‘Symbol und Unmittelbarkeit. Zur Interpretation des dritten Buches In Hierarchiam coelestem Hugos von St Viktor’, in Ex latere. Ausfaltungen communialer Theologie, ed. by Erich Naab, Extemporalia, 12 (Eichstätt: Franz-Sales, 1993), pp. 32–55 Kasper, Walter, The God of Jesus Christ, trans. by Matthew O’Connell (New York: Crossroad, 1984)

349

3 50

wo r k s c i te d

Kauffmann, C. M., Romanesque Manuscripts, 1066–1190, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Miller, 1975) Kelly, J. N. D., Early Christian Creeds (London: Continuum, 2006) Kessler, Stephan C. ‘Präsenz und Verwendung der Heiligen Schrift bei Gregor dem Großen: Exegese in der Spannung zwischen Antike und Mittelalter und zwischen Mönchtum und Mystik’, in Präsenz und Verwendung der Heiligen Schrift im christlichen Frühmittelalter: exegetische Literatur und liturgische Texte, ed. by Patrizia Carmassi, Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien, 20 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz in Kommission, 2008), pp. 17–32 Kienzle, Beverly Mayne, ‘Introduction’, in Hildegard of Bingen: Homilies on the Gospels (Collegeville: Cistercian Publications, 2011), pp. 1–28 Kleineidam, Erich, ‘Literaturgeschichtliche Bemerkungen zur Eucharistielehre Hugos von St Viktor’, Scholastik, 20–24 (1949), 564–66 Kleinz, John P., The Theory of Knowledge of Hugh of Saint Victor (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1944) Knauer, Peter, ‘Hermeneutische Fundamentaltheologie: Der Glubenstraktat des Hugo von St Viktor’, in ‘Testimonium veritati’. Philosophische und theologische Studien zu kirchlichen Fragen der Gegenwart, ed. by Hans Wolter SJ, Frankfurter Theologische Studien, 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Knecht, 1971), pp. 67–80 Knell, Matthew, The Immanent Person of the Holy Spirit from Anselm to Lombard: Divine Communion in the Spirit (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2009) Kobusch, Theo, Die Philosophie des Hoch- und Spätmittelalters (München: Beck, 2011) Köpf, Ulrich, and Dieter R. Bauer, eds, Kulturkontakte und Rezeptionsvorgänge in der Theologie des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts, Wissenschaftliche Studientagung 28. April 1. Mai 2005 Weingarten (Oberschwaben), Archa Verbi, Subsidia 8 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2011) Kopland, Rutger, Voor het verdwijnt en daarna (Amsterdam: Van Oorschot, 1985) LaCugna, Catherine Mowry, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991) Ladaria, Luis F., ‘Creación y salvación en la cristología de Hugo de San Víctor’, Miscelanea Comíllas 31 (1973), 261–301; 32 (1974), 63–100 Lampe, G. W. H., ‘The Exposition and Exegesis of Scripture: To Gregory the Great’, in The Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. by G. W. H. Lampe, vol. ii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 155–83 Laurentin, René, Traité sur la Trinité. Principe, modèle et terme de tout amour (Paris: Fayard, 2000) Lawell, Declan Anthony, ‘Affective Excess: Ontology and Knowledge in the Thought of Thomas Gallus’, Dionysius, 26 (2008), 139–74 ———, ‘Qualiter vita prelatorum conformari debet vite angelice: A Sermon (1244–1246?) Attributed to Thomas Gallus’, RTPM, 75 (2008), 303–36 ———, ‘Ne de ineffabili penitus taceamus: Aspects of the Specialized Vocabulary of the Writings of Thomas Gallus’, Viator, 40.1 (2009), 151–84 ———, ‘Spectacula Contemplationis (1244–46): A Treatise by Thomas Gallus’, RTPM, 76.2 (2009), 249–85

wo rk s ci t e d

———, ‘Thomas Gallus’s Method as Dionysian Commentator: A Study of the Glose super Angelica Ierarchia (1224), with Some Considerations on the Expositio librorum beati Dionysii’, AHDLMA, 76 (2009), 89–117 ———, Thomae Galli: Explanatio in Libros Dionysii, ed. by Declan Anthony Lawell, CCCM, 223 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011) ———, ‘Ecstasy and the Intellectual Dionysianism of Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great’, in Thomas Aquinas: Teacher and Scholar, ed. by James McEvoy, Michael Dunne, and Julia Hynes (Dublin: Four Courts, 2012), pp. 155–83 Lawrence, C. H., Medieval Monasticism (New York: Longman, 2001) Leclercq, OSB, Jean, ‘Renewal of Theology’, in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. by Robert Benson, Giles Constable, and Carol Lanham (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), pp. 68–87 ———, ‘From Gregory the Great to St Bernard’, in The Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. by G. W. H. Lampe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 183–97 Linde, Cornelia, How to Correct the Sacra Scriptura? Textual Criticism of the Latin Bible Between the Twelfth and Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, 2011) Loewe, Raphael, ‘Hebraists, Christian (1100–1890)’, in Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. viii (New York: Macmillan, 1971), cols 9–71 Longère, Jean, ‘La fonction pastorale de Saint-Victor à la fin du xiie et au début du xiiie siècle, in L’Abbaye parisienne de Saint-Victor au Moyen Age, Communications présentées au xiiie Colloque d’Humanisme médiéval de Paris (1986–1988), ed. by Jean Longère, BV, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991), pp. 291–313 ———, ‘Introduction’, in Les douze patriarches ou Beniamin Minor, Richard of Saint-Victor, ed. and trans. by Jean Châtillon and Monique Duchet-Suchaux (Paris: Cerf, 1997) de Lubac, SJ, Henri, Exégèse médiévale: les quatre sens de l’Ecriture, 4 vols (Paris: Aubier, 1959–1964; repr. Brouwer, 1993) ———, Paradoxes of Faith, trans. by Paule Simon and others (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1987) ———, The Drama of Atheist Humanism, trans. by Edith Riley and others (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995) ———, History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture according to Origen, trans. by Anne Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007) ———, Medieval Exegesis, trans. by E. M. Macierowski, 3 vols (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998–2009) Luchaire, Achille, Louis VI Le Gros: Annales de sa vie et de son règne (1081–1137) (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1890) Luscombe, David E., The School of Peter Abelard. The Influence of Abelard’s Thought in the Early Scholastic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969) ———, ‘The Commentary of Hugh of Saint-Victor on the Celestial Hierarchy’, in Die Dionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter. Internationales Kolloquium in Sofia vom 8. bis 11. April 1999 unter der Schirmherrschaft der Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale, ed. by Tzotcho Boiadjiev, Georgi Kapriev, and Andreas Speer, Rencontres de Philosophie médiévale, 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 159–75

35 1

3 52

wo r k s c i te d

Mandreoli, Fabrizio La teologia della fede nel “De sacramentis Christiane fidei” di Ugo di San Vittore, CV, Instrumenta, 4 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2010) ———, ‘La virtus della fede nel De sacramentis Christiane fidei’, in ‘Fides virtus’: The Virtue of Faith from the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century, ed. by Marco Forlivesi, Riccardo Quinto, and Silvana Vecchio, Archa Verbi Subsidia, 12 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2014), pp. 151–82 Marmion, Declan, and Rik van Nieuwenhove, An Introduction to the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) Marshall, Bruce, ‘Utrum essentia generet: Semantics and Metaphysics in Later Medieval Trinitarian Theology’, in Trinitarian Theology in the Medieval West, Schriften der Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft, 61, ed. by Pekka Käkkäinen (Helsinki: Luther-AgricolaSeura, 2008), pp. 69–87 Matter, E. Ann, ‘Eulogium sponsi de sponsa: Canons, Monks, and the Song of Songs’, The Thomist 49.4 (1985), 551–74 Mayeski, Mary A., ‘Early Medieval Exegesis: Gregory to the Twelfth Century’, in A History of Biblical Interpretation, ed. by Alan Hauser and Duane Watson, vol. ii (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 86–112 McCord Adams, Marilyn, ‘Praying the Proslogion: Anselm’s Theological Method’, in The Rationality of Belief and the Plurality of Faith, ed. by Thomas Senor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 13–39 McEvoy, James, Mystical Theology: The Glosses by Thomas Gallus and the Commentary of Robert Grossetesste on ‘De Mystica Theologia’, Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations, 3 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003) ———, ‘Thomas Gallus Vercellensis and Robertus Grossatesta Lincolnensis: How to Make the Pseudo-Dionysius Intelligible to the Latins’, in Robert Grosseteste: His Thought and its Impact, ed. by Jack P. Cunningham, Papers in Medieval Studies, 21 (Toronto: PIMS, 2012), pp. 3–43 McGinn, Bernard, The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1985) ———, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, vol. i (London: SCM, 1992) ———, The Growth of Mysticism: Gregory the Great Through the 12th Century, The Presence of God, vol. ii (New York: Crossroad, 1994) ———, The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200–1350), The Presence of God, vol. iii (New York: Crossroad, 1998) ———, ‘Thomas Gallus and Dionysian Mysticism’, Studies in Spirituality, 8 (1998), 81–96 McGuinness, Lucy Gabrielle, ‘A Study and Edition of Hugh of St Victor’s Commentary on Lamentations’ (unpublished PhD thesis, King’s College University of London, 1997) Meerson, Michael A., The Trinity of Love in Modern Russian Theology: The Love Paradigm and the Retrieval of Western Mysticism in Modern Russian Trinitarian Thought (from Solovyov to Bulgakov) (Quincy: Franciscan Press, 1998) Meier, Christel, ‘Malerei des Unsichtbaren. Über den Zusammenhang von Erkenntnistheorie und Bildstruktur im Mittelalter’, in Text und Bild, Bild und Text, ed. by Wolfgang Harms, Germanistische-Symposien-Berichtsbände, 11 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1990), pp. 35–65

wo rk s ci t e d

Melone, Mary, ‘Introduction’, in Richard of Saint-Victor: La Preparazione dell’Anima alla Contemplazione: Beniamino Minore, ed. by Mary Melone (Milan: Paoline: 2012), pp. 9–104 Mews, Constant J., ‘Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard’, Cambridge Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. by Brian McGuire (Boston: Brill, 2011), pp. 133–68 ———, ‘Memories of William of Champeaux: The Necrology and the Early Years of SaintVictor’, in Legitur in necrologio victorino. Studien zum Nekrolog der Abtei Saint-Victor zu Paris, ed. by Anette Löffler together with Björn Gebert, CV Instrumenta, 7 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2015), pp. 71–97 Michaud-Quantin, Pierre, ‘La classification des puissances de l’âme au xiie siècle’, Revue du moyen âge latin, 5 (1949), 15–34 Minnis, A. J., Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 2nd edn (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988) Montaubin, Pascal, ‘Les Chanoines réguliers et le service pastoral (xie-xiiie siècles)’, in Les Chanoines Réguliers: Émergence et Expansion (xie-xiiie siècles), ed. by Michel Parisse (Saint-Étienne: Université de Saint-Étienne, 2009), pp. 119–57 Moore, Rebecca, ‘Hugh of St Victor and the Authorship of In Threnos Ieremiae’, Journal of Religious History, 22.3 (1998), 255–69 ———, Jews and Christians in the Life and Thought of Hugh of St Victor, South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism, 138 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998) Mortensen, Lars Boje, ‘Hugh of St Victor on Secular History: A preliminary edition of chapters from his Chronica’, Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen-age Grec et Latin, 62 (1992), 3–30 Mühling-Schlapkohl, Markus, Gott ist Liebe. Studien zum Verständnis der Liebe als Modell des trinitarischen Redens von Gott, Marburger theologische Studien, 58 (Marburg: Elwert, 2000) ———, Liebesgeschichte Gott. Systematische Theologie im Konzept, Forschungen zur systematischen und ökumenischen Theologie, 141 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013) Nakamura, Hideki, ‘Amor Invisibilium’ Die Liebe im Denken Richards von Sankt Viktor († 1173), CV, Instrumenta, 5 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2011) Németh, Csaba, ‘The Victorines and the Areopagite’, in L’école de Saint-Victor. Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à la Renaissance. Colloque international du C.N.R.S. pour le neuvième centenaire de la fondation (1108–2008), ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 333–83 ———, ‘Paulus raptus to raptus Pauli: Paul’s Rapture (2Cor 12:2–4) in the Pre-Scholastic and Scholastic Theologies’, in A Companion to St Paul in the Middle Ages, ed. by Steven R. Cartwright (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 349–92 ———, ‘Contemplation and the Cognition of God: Victorine Theological Anthropology and its Decline’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Central European University, Budapest, 2013) ———, ‘Ascending to the Third Heaven? A Missing Tradition of Latin Mysticism’, in The Immediacy of Mystical Experience in the European Tradition, ed. by M. Vassányi, E. Sepsi, and A. Daróczi (Cham: Springer, 2017), pp. 39–61 ———, Quasi aurora consurgens: The Victorine Theological Anthropology and its Decline, BV, 27 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021)

35 3

3 54

wo r k s c i te d

Neuheuser, Hanns Peter, ‘Domus dedicanda, anima sanctificanda est. Rezeption des Ivo von Chartres und Neuprägung der hochmittelalterlichen Kirchweihtheologie durch Hugo von St Viktor’, Ecclesia orans, 18 (2001), 373–96; 19 (2002), 7–44 ———, ‘Bibel und Sakrament. Die Lehre Hugos von Sankt Viktor über die Heilsinstrumente anhand seiner beiden Hauptwerke Didascalicon und De sacramentis’, in Bibel und Exegese in der Abtei Saint-Victor zu Paris. Form und Funktion eines Grundtextes im europäischen Rahmen, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Instrumenta, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2009), pp. 297–333 Neusner, Jacob, The Classics of Judaism: A Textbook and Reader (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995) Nielsen, L.O., Theology and Philosophy in the Twelfth Century: A Study of Gilbert Porreta’s Thinking and the Theological Expositions of the Doctrine of the Incarnation during the Period 1130–1180, Acta Theologica Danica (Leiden: Brill, 1982) Novikoff, Alex, The Medieval Culture of Disputation: Pedagogy, Practice, and Performance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) Ocker, Christopher, ‘Scholastic Interpretation of the Bible’, in A History of Bible Interpretation, ed. by Alan Hauser and Duane Watson, 2 vols (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 254–79 Ott, Ludwig, ‘Hugo von St Viktor und die Kirchenväter’, Divus Thomas: Jahrbuch für Philosophie und spekulative Theologie, 3rd ser., 27 (1949), 180–200, 293–332 Ouellet, Marc, cardinal, Mystery and Sacrament of Love: A Theology of Marriage and the Family for the New Evangelization, trans. by Michelle Boras and Adrian Walker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 2015) Palmén, Ritva, Richard of St Victor’s Theory of Imagination (Leiden: Brill, 2014) Palmer, Nigel F., ‘Kapitel und Buch. Zu den Gliederungsprinzipien mittelalterlicher Bücher’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 23 (1989), 63–100Pani, Laura, review of Patrice Sicard, Iter Victorinum: La tradition manuscrite des œuvres de Hugues et de Richard de Saint-Victor; Répertoire complémentaire et études, avec un index cumulatif des manuscrits des œuvres de Hugues et de Richard de Saint-Victor, Speculum, 94.1 (2019), 287–88 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Systematische Theologie, vol. i (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1988) Paré, Gérard, Adrien Brunet, and Pierre Tremblay, La Renaissance du xiie siècle. Les écoles et l’enseignement (Paris: Vrin, 1909) Parisse, Michel, ‘Les Chanoines avant les Chanoines Réguliers’, in Les Chanoines réguliers: Émergence et expansion (xie-xiiie siècles), ed. by Michel Parisse (Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne), pp. 7–11 Perl, Eric D.,  Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007) Petit, O. Praem., François, Norbert et l’Origine des Prémontrés (Paris: Cerf, 1981) ———, Spirituality of the Premonstratensians: The Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, trans. by Victor Szczurek (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2011) Piron, Sylvain, ‘Franciscains et Victorins: Tableau d’Une Reception’, in L’école de SaintVictor. Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à la Renaissance. Colloque international du C.N.R.S. pour le neuvième centenaire de la fondation (1108–2008), ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 521–45

wo rk s ci t e d

Plantinga Pauw, Amy, ‘“One alone cannot be excellent”: Edwards on Divine Simplicity’, in Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian, ed. by Paul Helm and Oliver Crisp (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 115–25 Poirel, Dominique, Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris: Cerf, 1998) ———, L’abbé Suger, le manifeste gothique de Saint-Denis et la pensée victorine. Actes du Colloque organisé à la Fondation Singer-Polignac (Paris) le mardi 21 novembre 2000, ed. by Dominique Poirel, Rencontres médiévales européennes, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001) ———, Livre de nature et débat trinitaire au xiie siècle. Le “De tribus diebus” de Hugues de saint-Victor, BV, 14 (Paris/Turnhout: Brepols, 2002) ———, ‘Alter Augustinus - der zweite Augustinus. Hugo von Sankt Viktor und die Väter der Kirche’, in Väter der Kirche. Ekklesiales Denken von den Anfängen bis in die Neuzeit. Festgabe für Hermann Josef Sieben SJ zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. by Johannes Arnold, Rainer Berndt, Ralf M.W. Stammberger together with Christine Feld (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2004), pp. 643–68 ———, ‘Alain de Lille, héritier de l’école de Saint-Victor?’, in Alain de Lille, le docteur universel. Philosophie, théologie et littérature au xiie siècle. Actes du XIe Colloque international de la Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale, Paris, 23–25 octobre 2003, ed. by Jean-Luc Solère, Anca Vasiliu, and Alain Galonnier, Rencontres de philosophie médiévale (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 59–82 ———, ‘Hugo Saxo. Les origines germaniques de la pensée d’Hugues de Saint-Victor’, Francia. Forschungen zur Westeuropäischen Geschichte, 33.1 (2006), 163–74 ———, ‘L’unité de la sagesse chez Hugues de Saint-Victor. Un équilibre précaire’, in Vers la contemplation. Études sur la syndérèse et les modalités de la contemplation de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance, ed. by Christian Trottmann (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2007), pp. 81–119 ———, ‘La boue et le marbre. L’exégèse du Pseudo-Denys par Hugues de Saint-Victor’, in Bibel und Exegese in Saint-Victor zu Paris. Form und Funktion eines Grundtextes im europäischen Rahmen, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Instrumenta, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2009), pp. 105–30 ———, L’école de Saint-Victor de Paris. Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’époque moderne. Actes du Colloque international du C.N.R.S. pour le neuvième centenaire de la fondation (1108–2008), ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010) ———, Des symboles et des anges. Hugues de Saint-Victor et le réveil dionysien du xiie siècle, BV, 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) Poirel, Dominique, and Patrice Sicard, ‘Figure vittorine: Riccardo, Acardo e Tommaso’, in La fioritura della dialettica X–XII secolo (Figure del pensiero medievale 2), ed. by Inos Biffi and Costante Marabelli (Milan: Jaca Book and Citta Nuova, 2008), pp. 459–537 Pollitt, H. J., ‘Some considerations on the Structure and Sources of Hugh of St Victor’s Notes on the Octateuch’, RTAM, 33 (1966), pp. 5–38 Porwoll, Robert, ‘Parisian Pedagogies: The Educational Debates between Peter Abelard, Hugh of Saint-Victor, Peter Lombard, and John of Salisbury’ (Unpublished dissertation, University of Chicago, 2019) Potestà, Gian Luca, ‘Insegnare nelle scholae. Il manuale di Pietro Comestore’, in Scrivere la storia. Narrazioni del cristianesimo nei secoli, ed. by Giovanni Filoramo and Daniele Menozzi (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2015), pp. 97–108

35 5

356

wo r k s c i te d

Prügl, Thomas, ‘Die Bibel als Lehrbuch: Zum “Plan” der Theologie nach mittelalterlichen Kanon-Auslegungen’, Archa Verbi, 1 (2004), 42–66 Rahner, Karl, ‘Der dreifaltige Gott als transzendenter Urgrund der Heilsgeschichte’ in Mysterium Salutis II, ed. by J. Feiner and M. Löhrer (Zürich: Einsiedeln, 1967) Ranft, Patricia, The Theology of Peter Damian: ‘Let Your Life Always Serve as a Witness’, (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. 2012) ———, The Theology of Work: Peter Damian and the Medieval Religious Renewal Movement (New York: Palgrave, 2006) Rikhof, Herwi, ‘The Current Renaissance of the Theology of the Trinity: A Reconstruction’, Bijdragen. International Journal in Philosophy and Theology, 70 (2009), 423–57 Robb, Fiona, ‘The Fourth Lateran Council’s Definition of Trinitarian Orthodoxy’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 48 (1997), 22–43 Robinson, I. S., The Papacy, 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) Roques, René, L’Univers Dionysien: Structure Hiérarchique du Monde selon le Pseudo-Denys, Études publiées sous la direction de la faculté de théologie S. J. de Lyon-Fourvière (Paris: Aubier, 1954) Roques, René and others, ‘Denys l’Aréopagite (le Pseudo-)’, in Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, vol. iii (Paris: Beauchesne, 1954), pp. 244–429 ———, ‘Connaissance de Dieu et théologie symbolique d’après l’In Hierarchiam coelestem sancti Dionysii de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, in Structures théologiques de la Gnose à Richard de Saint-Victor. Essais et analyses critiques, Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, Section des sciences religieuse, volume lxxii, (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1962), pp. 294–364 Rorem, Paul, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to their Influence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) ———, Hugh of St Victor, Great Medieval Thinkers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) ———, ‘The Early Latin Dionysius: Eriugena and Hugh of St Victor’, in Re-thinking Dionysius the Areopagite, ed. by Sarah Coakley and Charles M. Stang (Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 2009), pp. 71–84 Rouse, Mary A., and Richard H. Rouse, Authentic Witnesses: Approaches to Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991) Roux, Simone, Paris in the Middle Ages, trans. by Jo Ann McNamara (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009) Rudolph, Conrad, ‘The City of the Great King: Jerusalem in Hugh of Saint Victor’s Mystic Ark’, in Visual Constructs of Jerusalem, ed. by Bianca Kühnel, Galit Noga-Banai, and Hanna Vorholt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014) pp. 343–352 ———, ‘First, I Find the Center Point’: Reading the Text of Hugh of Saint Victor’s The Mystic Ark (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2004) ———, The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) Ruello, Francis, Les ‘Noms divins’ et leurs ‘raisons’ selon Albert le Grand, commentateur du ‘De divinis nominibus’ (Paris: Vrin, 1963)

wo rk s ci t e d

———, ‘Introduction’, in Un Commentaire vercellien du Cantique des cantiques: ‘Deiformis anime gemitus’, ed. by Jeanne Barbet and trans. by Francis Ruello (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 7–93 Ruh, Kurt, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik. Band I: Die grundlegung durch die Kirchenväter und die Mönchstheologie des 12. Jahrhundert (Munich: Beck, 1990) ———, ‘Thomas Gallus Vercellensis’, in Kurt Ruh, Die Mystik des deutschen Predigerordens und ihre Grundlegung durch die Hochscholastik, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, 3 (Munich: Beck, 1996), pp. 59–81 Saenger, Paul, ‘The British Isles and the Origin of the Modern Mode of Biblical Citation’, Syntagma: Revista del Instituto de Historia del Libro y de la Lectura, 1 (2005), 77–123 ———, ‘The Twelfth-Century Reception of Oriental Languages and the Graphic mise en page of Latin Vulgate Bibles Copied in England’, in Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible, ed. by Eyal Poleg and Laura Light (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 31–66 Salzmann, Andrew Benjamin, ‘The Holy Spirit and the Life of the Christian according to Hugh of St Victor: Dator et Donum, Cordis Omne Bonum’ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Boston College, 2015) ———, ‘Hugh of St Victor’, in A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism, ed. by John P. Bequette (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 142–67 Schilling, Martina, ‘Celebrating the Scholar and Teacher: The Tomb of Thomas Gallus at Sant’Andrea in Vercelli (mid 14th century)’, in A Wider Trecento: Studies in 13th- and 14thcentury European Art, Presented to Julian Gardner, ed. by Louise Bourdua and Robert Gibbs (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 117–43 Schlette, Heinz Robert, ‘Aspiratio: Präreformatorisch Akzente in Abälards Erklärung der vierten Vaterunser-Bitte’, in Petrus Abaelardus (1079–1142): Person, Werk und Wirkung, ed. by Rudolf Thomas, Jean Jolivet, and David Edward Luscombe (Trier: Paulinus, 1980) pp. 211–15 Schmaus, Michaël, Die psychologische Trinitätslehre des hl. Augustinus, Münsterische Beiträge zur Theologie, 11 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1927) Schmitt, Jean-Claude, Die Logik der Gesten im europäischen Mittelalter (Stuttgart: KlettCotta, 1992) Schumacher, Lydia, Divine Illumination: The History and Future of Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) Schwartz, Yossef, ‘Martin Grabmann’, in Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms — Methods — Trends, ed. by Albrecht Classen (New York: Gruyter, 2010), pp. 2323–2328 Sicard, Patrice, Diagrammes médiévaux et exégèse visuelle. Le Libellus de formatione arche de Hugues de Saint-Victor, BV, 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993) ———, ‘Du De archa Noe de Hugues au De arca Moysi de Richard de Saint-Victor: Action, contemplation et sens scripturaires chez deux théoriciens maquettistes’, in Théologies Victorines. Études d’histoire doctrinale médiévale et contemporaine, ed. by Patrice Sicard (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2008), pp. 57–106 ———, ed., Théologies victorines: Études d’histoire doctrinale médiévale et contemporaine (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2008) ———, Iter Victorinum: La tradition manuscrite des œuvres de Hugues et de Richard de SaintVictor; Réportoire complémentaire et études, avec un index cumulatif des manuscrits des œuvres de Hugues et de Richard de Saint-Victor, BV, 24 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015)

35 7

3 58

wo r k s c i te d

Signer, Michael, ‘Peshat, Sensus Litteralis, and Sequential Narrative: Jewish Exegesis and the School of St Victor in the Twelfth-Century’, in The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume, ed. by Barry Walfish, 2 vols (Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1993), i, 203–16 Smalley, Beryl, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 1941, 1952, 1983) ———, The Becket Conflict and the Schools: A Study of Intellectuals in Politics (Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1973) Southern, Richard W., Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970) ———, ‘Presidential Address: Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 2. Hugh of St Victor and the Idea of Historical Development’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 21 (1971), 149–79 ———, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, 2 vols (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995–2001) Spencer, Alan, Incarnation and Inspiration: John Owen and the Coherence of Christology (London: T & T Clark, 2007) Van ’t Spijker, Ineke, Fictions of the Inner Life: Religious Literature and Formation of the Self in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004) ———, ‘Ad commovendos affectus: Exegesis and the Affects in Hugh of Saint-Victor’, in Bibel und Exegese in der Abtei Saint- Victor zu Paris. Form und Funktion eines Grundtextes im europäischen Rahmen, ed. by Rainer Berndt, CV, Instrumenta, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2009), pp. 215–34 ———, ‘Tempus longum … locus asper: Chiaroscuro in Hugh of Saint-Victor’, in How the West was Won: Essays on Literary Imagination, ed. by Willemien Otten and A. Vanderjagt, (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 377–91 ———, ‘Beyond Reverence: Richard of Saint-Victor and the Fathers’, in La réception des Pères de l’Église au Moyen Âge. Le devenir de la tradition ecclésiale, Congrès de Centre Sèvre — Facultés jésuites de Paris (11–14 juin 2008), prepared by Nicole Bériou, Rainer Berndt, Michel Fédou, Adriano Oliva, and André Vauchez, ed. by Rainer Berndt and Michel Fédou, Archa Verbi, Subsidia, 10, 2 vols (Münster: Aschendorff, 2013), i, 439–63 Stammberger, Ralf M. W., ‘De longe veritas videtur diversa iudicia parit: Hugh of Saint Victor and Peter Abelard’, in Pierre Abélard à l’aube des universités, ed. by Jean Jolivet and Henri Habrias, (Nantes: Université de Nantes, 2001), pp. 385–412 ———, ‘Via ad ipsum sunt scientia, disciplina, bonitas. Theorie und Praxis der Bildung in Sankt Viktor im zwölften Jahrhundert’, in ‘Scientia’ und ‘disciplina’. Wissenstheorie und Wissenschaftspraxis im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, ed. by Rainer Berndt, Matthias LutzBachmann, and Ralf M.W. Stammberger, together with Alexander Fidora and Andreas Niederberger, Erudiri Sapientia, 3 (Berlin: Akademie, 2002), pp. 91–126 ———, ‘The Liber Sermonum Hugonis: The Discovery of a New Work by Hugh of Saint Victor’, Medieval Sermon Studies (2008), 63–71 Staubach, Niklaus, ‘L’Influence victorine sur la dévotion moderne’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris: Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’Époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 583–99 Swinburne, Richard, The Christian God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) Tanner, Kathryn, Christ the Key (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)

wo rk s ci t e d

Taylor, Jerome, The Origin and Early Life of Hugh of St Victor: An Evaluation of the Tradition (Notre Dame: Medieval Institute, 1957) ———, intro. and trans., The Didascalicon of Hugh of St Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961) Théry, O.P., Gabriel, ‘Saint Antoine de Padoue et Thomas Gallus’, La Vie spirituelle, 37 (1933), 94–115 ———, Thomas Gallus: Grand commentaire sur la Théologie Mystique (vers 1242) (Paris: Haloua, 1934) ———, ‘Thomas Gallus et Egide d’Assise: le traite De septem gradibus contemplationis’, Revue néoscolastique de philosophie, 36 (1934), pp. 180–90 ———, ‘Commentaire sur Isaie de Thomas de Saint-Victor’, La Vie spirituelle, 47 (1936), 146–62 ———, ‘Thomas Gallus: Aperçu Biographique’, AHDLMA, 12 (1939), 141–208 ———, ‘Documents concernants Jean Sarrazin, Reviseur de la Traduction érigénienne du “Corpus Dionisiacum”’, AHDLMA, 18 (1950–1951), 45–87 Tonstad, Linn Marie, God and Difference: The Trinity, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Finitude (New York: Routledge, 2016) Trottmann, Christian, La vision béatifique des disputes scholastiques à sa définition par Benoît XII (Rome: École Francaise de Rome, 1995) ———, ‘Lectures Chartreuses des Victorins’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris: Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’Époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 547–82 Von Balthasar, Hans Urs, Theologik II: Wahrheit Gottes (Einsiedeln: Johannas, 1985) ———, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory II: Dramatis Personae: Man in God, trans. by Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1990) Verheijen, Luc, La Règle de saint Augustin, 2 vols (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1967) Vernet, F, ‘Hugues de Saint-Victor’, in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. by Alfred Vacant, Eugène Mangenot, and Emile Anriann, vol. vii.1 (1927), cols 240–308 Veyrenche, Yannick, ‘Quia vos estis qui sanctorum patrum vitam probabilem renovatis’, in Les Chanoines Réguliers: Émergence et Expansion (xie-xiiie siècles), ed. by Michel Parisse (Saint-Étienne: Université de Saint-Étienne, 2009), pp. 29–69 ———, ‘Chanoines Réguliers et Sociétés Méridionales: L’Abbaye de Saint-Ruf et ses Prieurés dans le Sud-Est de la France (xie-xive siècle)’, Bulletin du Centre d’Études Médiévales d’Auxerre, 17.2 (2013) ———, ‘Chanoines Réguliers et Sociétés Méridionales. L’abbaye de Saint-Ruf et ses prieurés dans le Sud-Est de la France (xie-xive siècle)’ (unpublished dissertation, Université Lumière-Lyon 2, 2013) ———, Chanoines réguliers et sociétés méridionales: L’abbaye de Saint-Ruf et ses prieurés dans le sud-est de la France (xie-xive siècle), BV, 25 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018) Viviano, Benedict T., ‘The Renewal of Biblical Studies in France 1934–1954 as an Element in Theological Ressourcement’, in Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in TwentiethCentury Catholic Theology, ed. by Gabriel Flynn and Paul D. Murray (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 305–17 Volf, Miroslav, ‘“The Trinity is Our Social Program”: The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Shape of Social Engagement’, Modern Theology, 14.3 (1998), 403–23

359

36 0

wo r k s c i te d

Vones-Liebenstein, Ursula, Saint-Ruf und Spanien: Studien zur Verbreitung und zum Wirken der Regularkanoniker von Saint-Ruf in Avignon auf der Iberischen Halbinsel (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996) ———, Vom Königskloster zur Kongregation, Schriftenreihe der Akademie der AugustinerChorherren von Windesheim, 12 (Paring: Augustiner-Chorherren, 2007) Vos, Antoon, H. Veldhuis, E. Dekker, N.W. den Bok, and A.J. Beck, eds, Duns Scotus on Divine Love: Texts and Commentary on Goodness and Freedom, God and Humans (London: Routledge, 2003) Van Den Eynde, OFM, Damien, ‘Les commentaires sur Joël, Abdias et Nahum attribués à Hugues de Saint-Victor’, Franciscan Studies, 19 (1959), 317–24 ———, Essai sur la succession et la date des écrits de Hugues de Saint-Victor, Spicilegium Pontificii Athenaei Antoniani, 13 (Rome: Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum, 1958, 1960) ———, ‘Nouvelles Précisions Chronologiques sur Quelques Oeuvres Thëologiques du xiie Siècle’, Franciscan Studies, 13.2–3 (1953), 71–118 Van Liere, Frans, ‘Introduction to On Sacred Scripture’, in Interpretation of Scripture: Theory: A Selection of the Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor, and of Richard Melun, ed. by Franklin Harkins and Frans van Liere, VTT, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), pp. 205–11 ———, ‘Andrew of St Victor, Jerome, and the Jews: Biblical Scholarship in the TwelfthCentury Renaissance’, in Scripture and Pluralism: Reading the Bible in the Religiously Plural Worlds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. by Thomas Heffernan and Thomas Burman (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 59–75 Van Liere, Frans, and Franklin T. Harkins, ‘General Introduction’, in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard, and Leonius of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, Peter Comestor and Maurice of Sully, ed. by Frans van Liere and Franklin T. Harkins, VTT, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 25–50 Van Zwieten, Jan W. M., ‘The Preparation to Allegory: Hugh of Saint Victor’s ‘De Sacramentis’ and his Notes on the Octateuch’, Nederlands archief voor kerkgeschiedenis, 68 (1988), 17–22 ———, ‘The Place and Significance of Literal Exegesis in Hugh of St Victor: An Analysis of His Notes on the Penteteuch, the Book of Judges, and the Four Books of Kings’ (PhD dissertation, Amsterdam, 1992) Von Harnack, Adolf, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 4th edn (Tübingen: Morh, 1910) Walker, G. S. M., ‘Richard of St Victor: An Early Scottish Theologian?’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 11 (1958), 37–52 Walsh, SJ, James A., ‘Sapientia Christianorum: The Doctrine of Thomas Gallus Abbot of Vercelli on Contemplation’ (dissertation, Pontifical Gregorian University, 1957) ———, ‘The Expositions of Thomas Gallus on the Pseudo-Dionysian Letters’, AHDLMA, 30 (1963), 199–220 ———, ‘Thomas Gallus et l’effort contemplatif ’, Revue d’Histoire de la Spiritualité, 51 (1975), 17–42 ———, The Pursuit of Wisdom and Other Works by the Author of the Cloud of Unknowing (New York: Paulist Press, 1988)

wo rk s ci t e d

Weber, Edouard-Henri, trans. and intro, Commentaire de la ‘Théologie mystique’ de Denys le Pseudo-Aréopagite, suivi de celui des épîtres I–V, Sagesses chrétiennes, 16 (Paris: Cerf, 1993) Weisweiler, Heinrich, ‘Die Ps.-Dionysiuskommentare In coelestem Hierarchiam des Scotus Eriugena und Hugos von St Viktor’, RTAM, 19 (1952), 26–47 Wicki, Nikolaus, Die Lehre von der himmlischen Seligkeit in der mittelalterlichen Scholastik von Petrus Lombardus bis Thomas Aquin (Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitäts-Verlag, 1954) Wood, Susan K., Spiritual Exegesis and the Church in the Theology of Henri de Lubac (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2010) Wrisley Shelby, Katherine, ‘The Vir Hierarchicus: St Bonaventure’s Theology of Grace’ (unpublished PhD Dissertation, Boston College, 2018) Ypenga, Anko, ‘“Sacramentum: Hugo van St.-Victor († 1141) en zijn invloed of de allegorische interpretatie van de liturgie en de sacramentele theologie vanaf 1140 tot aan Durandus van Mende († 1296): een hermeneutisch-methodologische benadering”. Proefschrift ter verkrijging van het doctoraat in de Letteren aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, op gezag van de Rectof Magnificus, dr. F. Zwarts’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Groningen, 2002) Zinn Jr, Grover A., ‘Mandala Symbolism and Use in the Mysticism of Hugh of St Victor’, History of Religions, 12.4 (1972–1973), 317–41 ———, ‘Historia fundamentum est: The Role of History in the Contemplative Life According to Hugh of St Victor’, in Contemporary Reflections on the Medieval Christian Tradition: Essays in Honor of Ray C. Petry, ed. by G. H. Shriver (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1974), pp. 135–58 ———, ‘Hugh of Saint Victor and the Art of Memory’, Viator, 5 (1974), 211–34 ———, ‘Personification Allegory and Visions of Light in Richard of St Victor’s Teaching on Contemplation’, University of Toronto Quarterly, 46 (1977), 190–214 ———, Richard of St. Victor: The Twelve Patriarchs. The Mystical Ark. Book Three of the Trinity, trans. by Grover Zinn, CWS (New York: Paulist Press, 1979) ———, ‘Hugh of St Victor’s “De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris” as an “Accessus” Treatis for the Study of the Bible’, Traditio, 52 (1997), 111–34 ———, ‘Vestigia victorina: Victorine Influence on Spiritual Life in the Middle Ages with Special Reference to Hugh of Saint-Victor’s De institutione novitiorum’, in L’École de Saint-Victor de Paris: Influence et rayonnement du Moyen Âge à l’Époque moderne, ed. by Dominique Poirel, BV, 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 405–31 Zöckler, Otto, ‘Hugo von St Viktor’, Realenzyklopädie für protest. Theologie und Kirche, 8 (1900), 436–45

361

Index

Aachen, synod of  15–16, 19 Abbey of St Quentin of Beauvais  22, 24 Abbey of St Ruf  17–18 Abbey of St Victor location 11 Necrology of St Victor, 27, 35 school culture  29–32, 84, 92–97, 118, 123–25, 127 school of thought  11–12, 29–30, 297–99, 324 vetus cella 11 Abelard see Peter Abelard accessus (ad auctores)  65 n. 83, 68, 77, 83, 117 Achard of St Victor  12, 33, 36, 229 n. 33, 234 n. 49, 241 n. 82, 304 n. 33 Acts of the Apostles  16, 19–21, 29, 57 n. 55, 60, 94, 96, 144, 152, 169, 243, 291 n. 82 Adam of St Victor  12 affect / affective  193, 194, 198, 199, 193–95, 198–202, 257, 259, 277, 278 affectus  168, 193, 280, 294, 320 affective reading of Dionysian corpus see Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite affective cognition  41, 193–94, 280–81, 287, 292, 293, 295 affective union  275 n. 23, 277, 284, 289, 294–95, 299, 306, 309, 314–15, 317, 318, 320, 322 and intellect  31 n. 100, 270, 279, 286, 299, 306–14, 320–23 and reason  178, 193–95, 306–14 apex of  281 duality of affect and intellect  168, 258, 270, 279 in Hugh  31 n. 100

in Richard  193–95, 198–202, 216, 255 in Thomas  281, 284, 286–88, 305–14, 320–23 see also choice, free; will, free Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus)  273–74, 301 Alexander III, pope  37 Alexander of Hales  38, 171, 244, 245 n. 97, 291 allegory see exegesis; scripture, interpretation Ambrose of Milan, saint  56 Ambrosiaster 56 anagogy  62, 82, 87, 163, 276 see also exegesis; scripture Anastasius Bibliothecarius  154, 169, 170 Andrew of St Victor  12, 36, 67 n. 91, 74 n. 124, 85, 104, 107 n. 29–32, 176 angels  41–42, 127, 148, 152, 155, 161, 162, 165, 166, 171, 240, 270, 276–77, 282–85, 289–90, 292, 294, 301, 306–10, 319, 320, 326 and anthropology  308–10, 323, 326 classification of  156–60 rules for classification of  159 comparison of Dionysian and Gregorian hierarchies  157–59 orders / hierarchies of  301, 306–11, 314–15, 318–19, 325–26 Anselm of Canterbury, saint  12, 25, 41, 46 n. 3, 102, 169, 219, 221–24, 230, 231 n. 41, 235 n. 54, 237, 240 n. 80, 242, 243, 257 n. 17, 259–60 Anselm of Laon  169 Anthony of Padua, saint  38, 324–25 anthropology / anthropological  80, 105, 224, 239, 248, 263, 274, 295 and angels  308–10, 323, 326

364

in d e x

theological  80, 304, 306–10 Victorine 179 in Thomas  280–86, 294–95, 304 n. 33, 306–10, 314, 318 see also choice, free; affect; person; theology; will, free apex mentis  273, 294, 309 apophasis see theology apostolic life  16–22, 105, 322 Archangels see angels archē (ἀρχή)  157 architecture 123–46 Gothic 171–72 Romanesque 171–72 Arianism 221 Aris, Mark-Aeilko  179 Aristotle  106, 118, 148 Aristotelianism  145, 172 medieval reception of  106, 118 Ark of Mother Grace  129, 131 Ark of Noah  64, 78, 100, 109, 114, 125, 128–31, 144, 181 Ark of the Church  129–31, 138–39 Ark of the Covenant  180–81, 195 Ark of Wisdom  64 n. 81, 129, 131 arts, liberal (artes liberales)  56–57, 65 n. 86, 70, 73–74, 77, 83, 113, 118 ascent, mystical  40, 41, 42, 91, 135, 203, 212, 216, 217, 222–23, 223 n. 13 per visibilia ad invisibilia (from visible things to invisible things)  156, 161, 184, 187, 189, 229 practical stages of, in Richard  197–218 see also contemplation Athanasius, saint  97, 221 Athanasian creed  221, 222 Augustine of Hippo, saint  12, 13, 34, 46–47, 49, 50, 56, 58, 60, 73–74, 94, 95, 103–06, 128, 139, 148, 219–22, 224, 226, 228, 230, 234 n. 39, 237, 239 n. 76, 240, 243, 249 n. 113, 255, 300, 325 Augustinian Rule see Rule(s) Augustinian tradition  151 Augustinian-Anselmian tradition  41, 221–24, 245, 248

exegesis  58, 73–74, 83 feast of  37 on contemplation  49–51, 300 on the Trinity  46–47, 53, 72. See also Augustinian-Anselmian tradition; Trinity works (selected) De civitate Dei (City of God) 96, 104 Confessiones (Confessions) 59 n. 60, 124–25, 238, 257 De doctrina christiana (On Christian Teaching)  73–74, 83, 96, 104 De Trinitate (On the Trinity) 72 n. 118, 72, 83, 96, 104, 228 n. 31, 255 n. 7, 262 n. 40, 300 n. 13 Barbet, Jeanne  272, 297 Baron, Roger  51 n. 22, 58, 89 n. 207, 90 n. 220, 92 n. 230 Barth, Karl  246, 261 n. 37 Bede, Venerable, saint  56, 60, 82, 102–03, 151–52 Benedict of Nursia, saint see Rule(s) Benedictine(s) 14–16 see also Rule(s) Berengar of Tours  102 Bernard of Clairvaux, saint  12, 26–27, 35, 99, 151, 193, 222 n. 10, 223, 258, 295, 326 and Hugh of St Victor  99–100 Bernard of Chartres  79, 169 Berndt, Rainer  36 n. 121, 39, 40, 61, 300 n. 16 Bezalel  181, 185 Bible see scripture Blastic, Michael  207–10, 215 n. 87 Boethius  13, 169, 187, 225–28, 248 Bonaventure, saint  12–13, 38, 46, 171, 172, 175, 190 n. 99, 244, 246, 260 n. 29, 289–91, 295, 304, 325–27 and Thomas Gallus  304, 325–27 see also Franciscans Book of Order (Liber ordinis)  103, 105 Bynum, Caroline Walker  18 n. 33, 22, 201 n. 20

i nd e x

canons, regular and secular  11, 12, 14–22, 24, 26–36, 38–39, 99, 103, 123, 126, 175, 176, 192, 201, 208–10, 212, 243, 256, 257 Capetian court, Paris  14, 23–25, 29 Cantica Canticorum see Song of Songs caritas see love Carolingian(s)  14–17, 19–20, 23, 29 Carruthers, Mary  64 n. 81, 71 n. 113 and 115, 72 n. 119, 126, 181 n. 35, 183 n. 52, 190 n. 100, 194 n. 120 Carthusian(s)  13 n. 8, 168, 170, 172, 324 n. 110 Channing, William Ellery  249–50 Charlemagne  14–16, 23 choice, free  308 see also will, free Christ and love  53, 245–46, 316–18, 321–23 see also God, love of as Logos  49, 50 as teacher  49–50 Christocentric  101, 108, 325 humility of  263, 264 Incarnation of  42, 50, 73, 80, 119, 138–40, 223, 237, 315 n. 80, 318–20 Lamb of God  128, 138, 140, 142 resurrected 56 Transfiguration of  202, 217 Word of God  47, 62, 72, 80, 119, 138, 163, 277, 278, 286, 315–18, 320, 323, 325 see also Christology; God; Trinity Christology  80, 101, 190 n. 99, 242, 299, 304 n. 33, 305–06, 315–16, 322–23, 325–26 and the cross  108–09, 112 and the Church  95, 108–10 scriptural  59, 101–02, 105, 108, 118 Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz  15–16, 19 Cicero 71 Cistercians  21, 22, 24, 35, 39 n. 138, 167, 169 Cloud of Unknowing (book)  302 n. 22, 304, 315 n. 80, 324 see also Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite

common life see apostolic life comparatio  200, 216 Comte, Auguste  86 contemplation  29, 30, 41, 50–55, 112, 116, 118, 163, 164, 175–95, 197–218, 284–91, 312, 315–16 contemplative life (vita contemplativa)  46, 177–78, 179, 193, 297–98 in relation to active life (vita activa)  177–78, 191–93, 195 contemplative union  307, 311, 314 contemplative vision  50–54, 74–75, 79, 112, 124–25, 319–20 ecstatic  212, 214, 255, 309, 316, 318, 321–23 eye of  50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 74, 79, 164 intellectual  82, 312, 315–16, 318, kinds of  55, 181–85 modes of  184–85 sublevatio 184 dilatatio 184 mentis alienatio  185, 189, 190, 191 of creation  74 of scripture  85, 88, 116, 118 per visibilia ad invisibilia (from visible things to invisible things)  156, 161, 184, 187, 189, 229 six stages of see Thomas Gallus see also affect; ascent, mystical; Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite; mysticism; similarity / similitude; symbol; union Coolman, Boyd Taylor  38 n. 131 and 136, 48, 63 n. 75, 287, 297–307, 311–15, 319–20, 322–23, 327 n. 124 Corinthians 1 Corinthians  19, 50, 57, 82, 161, 164, 167, 168 n. 66, 221 n. 5, 278, 279, 281, 292, 316 n. 86, 317 2 Corinthians  166, 291 n. 82, 292 Coulter, Dale  34 n. 111, 36 n. 120, 37, 77 n. 141, 176 n. 3, 179, 180, 187 n. 78, 189, 190 n. 99, 207, 302 n. 25 creation  47–48, 51, 74, 103, 110, 201

365

36 6

in d e x

book of  178, 179 six days of  95, 118, 127, 133, 138–39, 142 work of creation and of restoration  39, 49, 53–55, 63, 71–72, 79, 82, 95, 100, 101, 110–12, 117–20, 127, 136–39, 146 creator see God Dante Alighieri  12, 175 darkness see Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite de Lubac, Henri  56, 67, 72 n. 120, 73 n. 212, 79 n. 154, 82, 85–88, 114, 177, 203–05, 206 and Beryl Smalley  66–67, 85–88, 204–05 deification  42, 168, 312, 320–21, 323 desire see affect; love; Song of Songs devotio moderna  13, 169, 171 dilatatio 184 dilectio  167–68, 171, 280 discretio 194 Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite  12–13, 114–15, 147–60, 163, 166–72, 297–327 and architecture  38 n. 136, 171–72 cloud of unknowing  300, 316. See also Cloud of Unknowing (book) Corpus Dionysiacum  298–304, 309, 312–18, 320–21, 323, 327 Dionysian darkness  278, 299–300, 309, 326 Dionysian renaissance  273, 274 Dionysianism  40–42, 297–327 affective  298–302, 305–06, 308–10, 314–16, 320 intellectual 274 speculative 301–02 Western 274 knowledge and love  299–304, 307–08, 311–12, 317–18, 322–23 Dionysius the Carthusian  271 Dominions see angels Dondaine, H.-F.  292–94 Dostoevsky, Fyordor  86

Ecclesiastes  60 n. 64, 94, 95, 96, 258 Eckhart see Meister Eckhart ecstasy  259, 309, 316, 318, 321–23 in Richard  198, 203, 211, 218 in Thomas  274, 278, 284, 286, 288, 309, 316, 318, 321–23 of the mind  198, 203, 211, 218, 259, 284 see also ascent, mystical; contemplation; union education  14, 32, 70, 206, 211–12 Hugh’s educational programme  31, 39, 58, 70, 153 Scholastic  14, 30 Victorine 32–33 see also Abbey of St Victor, school culture; arts, liberal; Paris, university of and schools of Elijah  202, 217 epistemology / epistemological  108, 179, 184, 191, 198, 261 n. 36, 274, 282, 291, 294 Victorine epistemology  179, 184 see also God, knowledge of; knowledge Eriugena see John the Scot Eriugena Ervisius (or Ernis), abbot of St Victor  37, 215 n. 87 Eusebius of Caesarea, saint  77, 144 n. 30 exegesis allegorical  36, 61 n. 68, 62–63, 64, 65, 67, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74 n. 124, 76, 79, 81–82, 83, 85, 87, 88 n. 203, 91, 94, 95 n. 234, 96, 113, 118, 119, 125 n. 7, 163, 176, 180, 181, 204, 205, 234, 288 n. 73 anagogical  62, 82, 87, 125, 130, 163, 200 and the fourth wall  211 eschatological  82, 199 experiential  210, 212, 214–15 fourfold method  48, 62, 63, 67–68, 125 n. 7, 203, 234 lectio divina  57, 84 literal / historical  65–78, 113, 118–19, 204 literal sense of scripture as basis of Christian faith  204

i nd e x

moral / tropological  36, 62, 63–64, 67, 70 n. 112, 71, 72, 76, 79, 81–87, 91, 92, 94, 96, 114–15, 125 n. 7, 176, 180, 181, 270 mystical  177, 181 Peshat 67–69 rabbinical  36, 61–62, 65–69, 77, 80, 83, spiritual  45–46, 54–56, 62, 69, 72, 78–85, 87, 91, 96, 204 threefold method  12, 39, 62, 63, 65, 73, 74, 80, 81, 82, 84–85, 92, 94, 106, 114–15, 118, 125 n. 7, 129–30 threefold method, and the Trinity  39, 45–46, 48, 61–65, 86–88 typological  57, 69, 80, 139 visual  181, 125–46 see also scripture, interpretation Exodus  57 n. 55, 65 n. 83, 90, 94, 181, 192 experience  108, 198, 210, 213, 257, 279 experiential exegesis see exegesis; scripture of scripture  210, 212, 214–15 see also affect; contemplation faith  46, 53–54, 60 n. 66, 61 n. 68, 63, 81, 97, 102, 112, 121, 187 n. 78, 190, 259–60, 288 and reason  54, 190, 193 n. 113 as foundation of Christian religion 102 blind faith, experiential theology of 125 catholic  60 n. 66, 76 n. 136, 105 fortress of  63 literal sense of scripture as basis of 204 rule of faith (regula fidei)  76 n. 136, 104, 106–07 sacrament of faith (sacramentum fidei)  104, 110. See also Hugh of St Victor, works seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum)  221–22, 232 sound faith (fides sana) 81

Feiss, Hugh  205–06, 235 n. 54 fire, properties of in relation to seraphic order 166–67 forgiveness 199 Francis of Assisi, saint  324–25 Franciscan(s)  12, 38–39, 42, 170, 172, 244, 245, 289, 299, 305–06, 324–27 Galatians  316–17, 321 Genesis  53, 56–57, 65 n. 83, 69, 77 n. 143, 89–90, 94, 108, 126, 197, 199 n. 10, 200, 202–03, 211 n. 72, 213 n. 78, 218 Gerard de Csanad  169 Gilbert de la Porrée (Gilbert of Poitiers), bishop of Paris  28, 37, 41, 82 n. 187, 169, 221, 226–27, 228 Gilduin, abbot of St Victor  12, 25 n. 73, 27–28, 29, 31, 33, 35–36, 88, 149, 152, 169, 170 God as creator  47–48, 51, 83, 101, 102, 110, 112, 117 n. 64, 131, 138–39, 145, 152, 157, 163, 164, 165, 186, 231, 265, as inexpressible  161 cognition / cognoscibility of  270, 275–76, 278, 279, 288, 291, 293–94, 295, 314, 319, 320 fear of  199, 214–15 God’s forgiveness  199 knowledge of  51, 52, 102, 108, 161–65, 167, 202, 234, 293, 312, 316, 318, 320 love of  51, 53, 199, 214, 223, 224, 239 n. 76, 251 n. 120, 254, 258, 318 plurality of divine persons  230–51, 254, 260–62. See also persons; Trinity resemblance to  157, 243. See also image of God vision of  52, 300, 313–14. See also ascent, mystical; contemplation; revelation wisdom of  47, 189, 235, 239 see also Christ; Holy Spirit; Trinity Godfrey of St Victor  12, 29 n. 94, 33–34

367

36 8

in d e x

grace  53, 54, 79, 80, 118 n. 68, 139, 142, 153, 185, 212, 217, 239, 258, 265, 266, 291, 307–09, 318, 322, 325, 326, 327 n. 124 of contemplation  181, 191, 199, 259 of understanding  106 nature and grace  265, 284, 307 signs of  162 time of grace (tempus gratiae) 107, 110, 111, 118 n. 68, 140 see also Ark of Mother Grace Gratian  28 n. 93, 118 Gregory the Great, saint  12, 15, 46 n. 3, 56, 60, 63 n. 75, 83, 157–59, 169, 193, 224, 260 on scripture  56, 70 n. 112, 73 n. 122, 105, 121 Gregory VII (Hildebrand)  18–20 Grosfillier, Jean  36 n. 120, 179 Grosseteste, Robert  273, 274, 283 n. 52, 289, 324 Guala Bicchieri, cardinal  38–39 Guérin, abbot of St Victor  37 Harkins, Franklin  30, 74 n. 129, 82 n. 167 Hebrew(s)  60–61, 66–68, 77, 89 n. 214, 94, 166, 204 Henry II, King of England  37 heresy  241, 291, 295 hierarchy celestial  147–72, 301, 306–09. See also Hugh of St Victor, works; Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite hierarchia (ἱεραρχία) 157 hierarchized soul  298, 305–12, 314–15, 318, 326–27 Hilduin of St Denis, abbot  151, 157, 169 Hincmar of Reims  169 history and salvation see salvation history historical sense of scripture see exegesis; scripture, interpretation world  69–70, 83, 120, 142 Holy Spirit see God; Trinity Hugh of Balma  295, 304, 324

Hugh of St Victor and affective theology  314, 323 and Christology  325 career and teaching  29–35, 48, 55–58, 70–74, 83–84, 92–97, 102, 123 educational programme  31, 39, 58, 70, 153 exegesis  45–97, 100, 113–16, 45–97 influence of  168–72, 300–04 life 34–35 reception of  45, 58, 84–88 works  89–92, 100 Adnotationes elucidatoriae in Pentateuchon, in Genesim 64– 66, 69, 73 n. 122, 89–90, 100 De archa Noe or Moral Ark 64, 78, 100–01, 108–10, 113–15, 123–46 Cronica / Chronicon  64, 69–72, 77, 89, 100, 101 n. 8, 113, 115 Descriptio mappe mundi 144 Dialogus de sacramentis 120 Didascalicon  40, 48–55, 58, 60 n. 64, 62–64, 71 n. 117, 73–83, 89, 92, 100, 104, 113–16, 120, 149, 153, 171, 176, 204, 277 n. 28 Diligens scrutator (Diligent Examiner)  59, 65 n. 83, 90 Homiliae in Ecclesiasten  91, 113–16, 182, 277 n. 28, 280 n. 39 Libellus de formatione arche (The Mystical Ark)  39–40, 63 n. 75, 78 n. 147, 124 n. 1 De sacramentis Christiane fidei 31, 35, 40, 55 n. 44, 64–65, 80–81, 100, 113–15, 136, 148, 149, 151, 153, 158, 162, 180 n. 29, 277 n. 28 De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris (On Sacred Scripture)  59, 60 n. 64, 64–65, 77 n. 143, 89–90, 100, 130 n. 17 Super Ierarchiam Dionisii 40, 147–72, 276 n. 26, date of composition  150–52

i nd e x

manuscript tradition  169–71 De tribus diebus (Three Days) 47, 88, 150, 151, 162 humility  16, 17, 22, 150, 258 n. 20 see also Christ Illich, Ivan  51, 52 illumination  49–51, 78–79, 283 Augustinian doctrine of  49–50 corporeal 166 divine  185, 189 in Thomas Gallus  306, 310–11, 315–16, 320–21, 326 see also ascent, mystical; contemplation; Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite; revelation; union image of God (imago Dei)  51, 53–54, 64 n. 81, 177, 184, 211, 212, 234, 237, 240 imagination  40, 182–89, 199, 200, 214, 215, 280, 285 and creation  186 and reason  187 personified  186, 187 rational imagination  199 Incarnation see Christ ingenium 188 Innocent III, pope  158 intellect (intellectus)  168, 287, 319 and affect  31 n. 100, 286, 299, 306–14, 320–21, 323 duality of intellect and affect  270, 279 intellectual cognition  275–88, 293, 294, 295, 314, 320 see also mind; reason intelligentia  50, 64, 181, 182, 184, 188, 190, 199, 200, 220, 280, 281 Hugh’s distinction between intelligentia and scientia  51 n. 21 see also intellect; mind; reason interpretation, biblical see exegesis; scripture invisibilia (invisible things). See ascent, mystical; contemplation; similarity / similitude; symbol

Isaiah  36, 38, 57 n. 56, 60 n. 64, 73, 94, 95, 104, 105, 155, 159, 235 n. 53, chapter 6 (vision of Isaiah)  158, 269, 270, 271, 287, 304, 306–07, 310–11, 313 Isidore of Seville, saint  74 n. 127, 77, 94–95, 158 Ivo of Chartres (canonist)  24–26, 102 Ivo of Chartres (Victorine)  28, 33 Jean Gerson  13 Jean Sarrazin ( Johannes Sarracenus)  150, 270, 276, 283 n. 52 Jerome, saint  56, 60, 65 n. 83, 66, 68, 77, 89, 94, 96, 104–05 Jesus see Christ Joachim of Fiore  226 n. 23, 242–43, 246, 247 Job  60 n. 64, 80, 82–83, 94–96, 323 n. 108 John, St, Gospel of  31, 57, 93, 94, 96, 100, 165, 167, 221, 243, 316–17 John Duns Scotus  230 n. 37, 244–46 John of Salisbury  12, 31 n. 100, 153 John of Scythopolis  154, 170 John of Toulouse  35–36 John the Scot Eriugena  103, 147, 150, 154, 169, 170, 270, 271, 276, 283 n. 52, 295, 300 n. 13 Josephus 94 kenosis (self-emptying)  247–48, 264 knowledge and experience  108, 164, 198, 210, 212 and love  32, 51–53, 112, 160, 166–68, 171, 177, 191 n. 103, 193–95, 288, 298 modes of  163–65 perfection of  198, 318 self-knowledge  201, 202, 213, 216, 285 Lactantius 102 Lamentations  60 n. 64, 84 n. 184, 91, 114 Lateran IV, council of  242–46, 265 Lawell, Declan  269, 272–74, 297, 304–05, 324

369

3 70

in d e x

learning see liberal arts liberal arts see arts, liberal literature, pagan see wisdom, pagan liturgy  15, 30, 57, 105, 180, 221 Victorine  105, 221 Logos see Christ Lombard see Peter Lombard Louis VI, King of France  14, 23–29, 35, 150 Louis VII, King of France  28, 150 love above / beyond knowledge  161, 166–68, 171, 298, 301 and determinism  223 and knowledge  47, 161, 166–68, 295, 298–302, 311–12. See also Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite as a structuring principle  193 as an essential feature of God  223– 24, 260 as understanding  193 caritas  167, 221, 226, 229, 240 n. 80, 241, 245 n. 97, 254, 255 n. 11 Dionysian definition of  321 disordered  230, 255 divine  230, 241, 242 n. 84, 253–55, 265, 278, 301, 318 four degrees of  253–66. See also Richard of St Victor hermeneutic of  298 human 253–66 of God  51, 53, 199, 214, 223–24, 239 n. 76, 251 n. 120, 258, 318 owed love (amor debitus) 261–63, 265–66 self-love (human and divine)  224, 229, 251 n. 120, 260 third party necessary for supreme love 260 well-ordered  230, 239 with consideration (ex deliberatione) 258 with feeling (ex affectione) 258 Luke, St, Gospel of  15, 31, 57 n. 56, 91, 94, 96, 191 n. 104, 202, 217 n. 91, 221 n. 5, 275 n. 23

macrocosm / microcosm  127–28, 131, 140, 142, 144–45 Mark, St, Gospel of  27, 94, 96, 202, 217 n. 91, 266 Mary  115, 191, 275 n. 23 Matthew, St, Gospel of  36, 50 n. 16, 57 n. 56, 73, 82 n. 172, 91, 93, 94, 96, 202, 217 n. 91, 253 n. 1 Maximus the Confessor  154, 170, 283 n. 52 Mayeski, Mary  56–57, 83 McEvoy, James  274, 283 n. 52, 297, 305 n. 39 McGinn, Bernard  197, 203, 253, 297–98, 306 n. 43, 309 n. 58 meditation  51, 54, 57, 77–78, 84, 93, 114, 177, 182, 185, 187, 197, 254 n. 5, 259, 286 Meerson, Michael  247 Meister Eckhart  324 memory  46–47, 63–64, 69–72, 77–78, 83, 95, 97, 126–27 mental powers  219, 220 n. 3, 224–26, 230–51. See also persons mentis alienatio / mentis excessus 185, 187, 189, 190, 191, 194, 284, 307–08 Mews, Constant  11, 25 n. 73, 27 mind (mens)  46, 47, 49, 51, 71 n. 117, 83, 96, 124, 127, 182–86, 202, 256, 259, 278 and hierarchy  279, 282–88, 295, 307 divine / supreme  226, 319 ecstasy of  198, 203, 211, 218, 284 exercise of  288 eye of  50, 72 n. 118 inflamed  83, 194 senses of  182 see also intellect; reason; soul monasticism / monastic  12–22, 99, 125, 180 n. 30 monastic humanism  214 monastic reform  13, 15, 16, 21 monastic life / culture  12, 57, 84, 93, 178, 179, 180, 201, 216, 291 monastic spirituality  18 n. 33, 57, 84, 125, 179, 254 n. 5, 291 see also reform movements; spirituality

i nd e x

Moore, Rebecca  66–67, 68 n. 97, 91 n. 222 morality. See virtue(s). Moses  77 n. 143, 111, 181, 185, 189, 192, 202, 217, 315–16 Mühling, Markus  248 mysticism  58, 84–85, 203, 208, 279, 284, 294, 325 anti-intellectual 168 mainstream medieval  302 medieval love-mysticism  247 medieval views of  299 mystical union  298–301, 305–11, 313–23 systematization of  180 Nakamura, Hideki  179, 193, 229 n. 35 nature as book written by God  178, 179 signs of  162 works of  74, 145 see also creation; macrocosm / microcosm necessary reasons see reason, necessary Németh, Csaba  179, 183 n. 51 and 54, 193 n. 116, 277 n. 26 Neoplatonism / Neoplatonic  125, 127–28, 144–45, 148, 171–72, 179, 277–78, 299, 300 n. 11, 311, 324 n. 110 see also Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite; Plato Nicholas of Cusa  172 Nietzsche, Friedrich  86 Noah see Ark of Noah Norbert of Xanten, saint  21–22, 30 n. 98 Notre Dame, church, canonry, and school  11, 26, 28, 29 Order, Book of see Book of Order Order of St Victor  14, 22, 27–28, 32–33, 34 n. 110 Origen  60, 70 n. 112, 96, 247, 289 Othlo of St Emmeran  169 pagan literature see wisdom, pagan paradise  12, 49, 139, 140, 142

Paris  11, 14, 22, 23, 27, 29–30, 33, 35, 37, 38, 84 University of  11, 30, 123, 292, 303, 305 Schools  14, 17, 29–30, 35, 37, 83–84, 93, 123, 324–25 Paschasius Radbertus  169 pastoral care  15–17, 21, 22, 31–33 Paul, saint  15, 57, 60, 94, 96, 103–05, 139, 151, 152, 153, 161, 164, 166, 167, 168, 321–22 Pentateuch  60, 61, 62, 64, 65 n. 83, 66, 89, 90. See also exegesis; scripture; Hugh of St Victor, works perichoresis 247 person (persons)  254 and mental powers  219, 220 n. 3, 224–26, 230–51 and origin  244 and persona  227, 230 n. 37, 231, 249 n. 113, 251 definitions of  224–25, 231 Boethian 225 modern  220, 248, 250 modern-Boethian 249 Richardian 231 plurality of divine persons  230–51, 254, 260–62. See also God; persons; Trinity substantialist understanding of  220 Peter Abelard  25 n. 73, 26–27, 30, 34 n. 110, 37, 41, 80 n. 159, 81–82, 100, 118, 140, 151, 169, 221, 223–26, 228 n. 31, 229, 247 Trinitarian theology  47 n. 7, 223 dialectical method  85 n. 190, 118 Peter Aureoli  62 Peter Comestor  116 n. 61 Peter Damian  18, 19, 20 Peter Lombard  12–13, 26, 35 n. 114, 37, 41, 221, 226–28, 242–43, 275 Peter of Poitiers  37 Petrus Hispanus  271 Philip I, King of France  23, 24 Plato  277 n. 30, 316 n. 84 see also Neoplatonism

37 1

3 72

in d e x

Poirel, Dominique  57, 88, 91 n. 222 and 223, 177 Porphyry, tree of  227 Powers see angels Premonstratensians  21–22, 30 Principalities see angels Proclus 148 Psalms  57, 69 n. 103, 71 n 113, 73, 92–95, 114 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite see Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite psychology modern psychological faculty  185 psychological analogy  46, 47, 63, 64, 72, 88 n. 203 psychological Trinity  220, 245, 250 see also anthropology; affect; choice, free; persons; will, free Quintillian 71 Rabanus Maurus  72 n. 119, 169 rabbi(s)  36, 39, 61–62, 65–69, 77, 80, 83 Rachel (biblical figure)  197–200, 202–03, 213, 217, 239 n. 75 Rahner, Karl  246, 247 n. 103 Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac), rabbi  39, 61 n. 67, 66 n. 90, 67, 68 n. 97, 69 rationes necessariae see reasons, necessary reader(s)  49–55, 179–80, 187, 189, 191, 194, 198–218, 287 reason  49–54, 78–79, 187–90, 203, 217, 231–32, 276–77 above but not beyond reason  184 above and beyond reason  184, 190, 203, 218 above and contrary to reason  189, 217 above reason  203, 217, 232 and affect  306–14 and faith  190, 193 n. 113 and imagination  187 and ingenium 188 beyond reason  189, 232, 313

contrary to reason  232 eye of  188 natural  153, 164 necessary reasons (rationes necessariae)  189–90, 231–32, 231 n. 41, 237, 259 primordial 276–77 reform movements  12–33, 35, 99, 102, 103 monastic 14–17 clerical  14–22, 38 papal  14, 15, 18, 24, 26, 29 reforming networks  23–28 and royalists  14, 25–26, 25 n. 73 regula fidei see Rule(s) restoration, works of  63, 79, 100, 101, 117 n. 64, 118–20, 138, 139. See also creation resurrection  56, 73, 80, 205, 322–23 revelation (revelatio)  78, 100, 102, 139, 163, 181, 184, 185, 187, 189, 194, 261 n. 37, 289, 311 apostolic revelation, privileged  301 biblical  61, 74, 78–79, 87, 139, 153 divine showing (divina revelatio)  202, 212, 217 supra-intellectual 289 Richard of St Victor and contemporary theology  253, 261 n. 36–37. See also theology, contemporary and Hugh of St Victor  78, 85, 176–78, 297 exegesis  63, 78, 85, 88, 176, 197–218 in prior scholarship  178–80, 203–10 influence and reception of  46 n. 3, 220–22, 240–51 life  30, 35–37, 175–76 mysticism of  46 n. 3, 180, 175–95, 197–218, 302–03 works  40–42, 175–76 Ad me clamat ex Seir  231 n. 41, 233–37 Benjamin major (The Mystical Ark)  40, 175–95, 202 n. 25, 223

i nd e x

n. 13, 232, 271, 275, 277 n. 28, 285, 286 n. 65, 289, 302 n. 25 Benjamin minor (The Twelve Patriarchs)  40, 176, 177–78, 181, 193, 197–218, 238 De contemplatione (On Contemplation) see Benjamin major De Emmanuele (On Emmanuel)  36, 104, 176 De eruditione hominis interioris (On the Instruction of the Inner Human)  191, 210 De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis (Four Degrees of Violent Charity)  33, 41, 176, 178, 191, 253–66 date of composition  254 De Trinitate (On the Trinity) 219– 51 historical context  220–22 influence and reception of 240–51 Liber exceptionum  104, 176–77, 238 n. 72, 239 n. 74 Rorem, Paul  57 n. 55, 65 n. 86, 91 n. 223, 273, 289, 299–303, 316 Rudolph of Biberach  289, 295 Rudolph, Conrad  39, 40, 78 n. 147, 300 n. 16 Ruello, Francis  273 Rule(s) Augustinian  20–22, 38, 103, 105, 243 Benedictine  15–16, 21–22, 258 n. 20 canons  16–17, 19–22 Carolingian  15–17, 19 of faith (regula fidei)  104, 106–07 of Francis  324 Rupert of Deutz, abbot  73 n. 121, 103 Sabellianism  225, 226, 227–28 sacraments  39, 100, 108, 110–11, 74 n. 129, 80, 96, 101, 102, 104, 107–21, 138, 162. See also Ur-sacrament administration of  14, 21

historicity of  39, 107–21 sacrament of faith (sacramentum fidei)  104, 110 see also Hugh of St Victor, works salvation history  56, 68 n. 97, 69, 70 n. 110, 75, 83, 101, 116, 177, 202, 212, 217, 224, 233 Trinitarian involvement in  235–37, 243 in Hugh  101, 104, 107, 111, 116–21 Scholasticism  57, 83, 85, 291 school culture  102, 118 see also education; Paris, university of scripture four senses of  48, 62, 63, 67–68, 125 n. 7, 203, 234 interpretation of  39, 60–65. See also exegesis allegorical  36, 61 n. 68, 62–63, 64, 65, 67, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74 n. 124, 76, 79–82, 83, 85, 87, 88 n. 203, 91, 94, 95 n. 234, 96, 113, 116, 118, 119, 125 n. 7, 163, 176, 180, 181, 204, 205, 234, 288 n. 73 anagogical  62, 82, 87, 125, 130, 163, 200 eschatological  82, 199 literal / historical  65–78, 113, 118–19, 204 literal sense of scripture as basis of Christian faith  204 moral, tropological  63–64, 70 n. 112, 72, 76, 79, 81–87, 91, 92, 94, 96, 114–15 lectio divina  57, 84 Peshat 67–69 three senses of  12, 39, 62, 63, 65, 73, 74, 80, 81, 82, 84–85, 92, 94, 106, 114–15, 118, 125 n. 7, 129–30 threefold senses of, and the Trinity  39, 45–46, 48, 61–65, 86–88 see also exegesis self  50, 212, 257–58 and the cosmos  74 n. 129

37 3

3 74

in d e x

contemplation of God in  74 n. 129 distorted sense of  257 effacement of  264 language of  257–58 modern notion of  257–58 self-discipline  202, 216 self-emptying see kenosis self-forgetfulness 264 self-love see love, self see also person self-knowledge see knowledge Sens, council of  225 senses / sense perception  163, 188, 189, 281 bodily senses  163, 188, 189, 281 mental  182, 188 metaphors of  281 senses of scripture see exegesis; scripture Seraphim see angels sexual difference  263 n. 44 showing, divine (divina revelatio) 202, 212, 217 see also contemplation; exegesis, experiential; revelation Sicard, Patrice  88–89, 90 n. 221, 92 Sigebert of Gembloux  150, 153 Signer, Michael  68–69 similarity / similitude dissimilar similarities  164, 171 similar similarities  164, 171 similitude(s)  183–84, 186 see also Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite sin  49, 52, 71, 72, 80, 128, 144, 201, 202, 216, 235 n. 55, 236, 237, 240, 258, 291 n. 82 Smalley, Beryl  36 n. 121, 45–46, 65 n. 84, 66–67, 70 n. 112, 74 n. 124, 75–76, 84–87, 88 n. 203, 91 n. 222, 92, 204–05, 207, 209 and Henri de Lubac  84–88, 204–05 Solomon (biblical figure) temple of  270 threefold cord  258 Song of Songs (Cantica Canticorum) 60 n. 64, 91, 94, 95, 97, 115, 167, 297 n. 2, 306 n. 43, 309, 315, 326

commentaries on  91, 94–97, 297 n. 2, 304, 306–09, 311, 313, 315–16 soul hierarchized soul  298, 305–12, 314–15, 318, 326–27 rational  198, 201, 212, 216 see also affect; choice, free; intellect; reason Southern, Richard  214, 300 Stephen of Garland  24–26, 28 sublevatio 184. See also contemplation subordinationism  262, 263 substance (substantia) and subject  248–49 divine  225, 227–30, 241–45, 247–49, 253, 262, 281, 292 from substance  228–29, 232, 242 substantialism 220 substantialitas (substantiality)  227 Suger, abbot of St Denis, 24, 25, 26, 28, 171 Swinburne, Richard  247–48, 250 n. 118 symbol symbolic theology see theology, symbolic theory of  161–63 see also similarity / similitude synderesis  273, 294, 313–14 Talmud 61 Taylor, Jerome  54 n. 38, 74 n. 127 and 129 Tertullian 224 thearchy (θεαρχία)  171 theology affective 297–327 apophatic  172, 190 n. 99, 300, 302 n. 25, 306 n. 43. See also Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite; theology, negative contemporary  41, 253, 261 n. 36 and 37, 263, 263 n. 44 and 45 monastic  57, 84 mystical  148, 297–327. See also negative and symbolic theology negative  148, 161, 163–66, 171 of love  166–68, 253–66 old v. new theology  125

i nd e x

symbolic  148, 161–63 systematic  41, 116, 118, 120, 125, 127, 130, 136, 146, 323 theophany  165–66, 276 theories (theoriae)  277, 319–20, 323 See also contemplation; Thomas Gallus Théry, Gabriel  38 n. 131, 39, 271, 297 Thomas Aquinas  12–13, 171, 175, 245, 246, 273, 274 Thomas Beckett  37 Thomas Gallus and beatific vision  293 and illumination  306, 310–11, 315–16, 320–21, 326 and the six stages of contemplation 285–86 hierarchical pattern of cognition / mind 288 hierarchy of theories  276, 277, 294 life 37–39 reception  288–92, 297–99, 323–27 theological system  303, 323 works 304–05 Explanatio super Cantica Canticorum  271, 284, 289, 304 n. 35, 306–09, 313 Explanatio in libros Dionysii 42, 298–327 Justus meus 287 see also Dionysius, pseudo–, the Areopagite Thomas, prior of St Victor  28, 33 Tonstad, Linn  263, 264 Torah 60–62 Transfiguration see Christ translatio  200, 215 Trinity  45–84, 219–51 Abelardian 223 Anselmian 224 Augustinian  45, 50, 72, 219–51 Hugonian 45–84 persons of  219–51. See also persons Richardian 219–51 Trinitarianism, social  242–46, 263 n. 45

see also Augustine of Hippo, saint, works; God; persons; Richard of St Victor, works tritheism 241–42 tropology / tropological see exegesis; scripture understanding see intelligentia; mind; reason union see affect, affective union; mysticism nuptial 322–23 unitio  275 n. 23, 278, 280, 281, 289, 290, 292, 294 University of Paris see Paris Ur-sacrament  39, 102–05, 121 see also sacraments Vahlkampf, Johannes  272 van den Eynde, Damien  51 n. 22, 58, 88, 89 n. 207 and 208, 92, 116 n. 57, 150–51 van ’t Spijker, Ineke  40–42, 255, 257 Vatican II (Second Vatican Council)  87 Victor of Marseilles, saint  35 virtue(s)  31, 51, 53, 54, 58, 63, 64, 79, 96, 109, 129, 199, 216, 280, 283 acquisition of  53, 83, 280 and knowledge  51, 53, 82, 176 cultivation of  198, 201–02 ordering of  208, 217 theological 289 see also angels visibilia (visible things). See ascent, mystical; contemplation; see also similarity / similitude; symbol vision see contemplation; illumination; revelation Von Balthasar, Hans Ur  99, 248, 253 n. 1, 263 Walsh, James  271, 308 n. 56, 309 n. 58, 315 n. 80 Walter of St Victor  37–38, 108 n. 34, 276, 280 will, free  233 n. 47, 239 n. 73, 246, 248, 249, 284 see also affect; choice, free

37 5

3 76

in d e x

William of Champeaux  11, 26–27, 29, 35 n. 114, 99–100, 223 William of St Thierry  193, 222, 295 wisdom  47, 93, 152–53, 110, 234 association with cherubim  168 biblical  93, 152–53, 161, 273 of God see God of the world  152–53 pagan  58, 102, 152–53, 161, 162, 205, 280

triad of power, wisdom, and lovingkindness / goodness  47, 63, 220–21, 223–24, 229, 230, 235, 240 see also Ark of Wisdom Word of God see Christ Zinn, Grover  13 n. 8, 70, 77 n. 143, 178, 199, 201, 203, 207, 208–09, 325 Zöckler, Otto  58

Cursor Mundi

All volumes in this series are evaluated by an Editorial Board, strictly on academic grounds, based on reports prepared by referees who have been commissioned by virtue of their specialism in the appropriate field. The Board ensures that the screening is done independently and without conflicts of interest. The definitive texts supplied by authors are also subject to review by the Board before being approved for publication. Further, the volumes are copyedited to conform to the publisher’s stylebook and to the best international academic standards in the field.

Titles in Series Chris Jones, Eclipse of Empire? Perceptions of the Western Empire and its Rulers in LateMedieval France (2007) Simha Goldin, The Ways of Jewish Martyrdom (2008) Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identities and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe, ed. by Ildar H. Garipzanov, Patrick J. Geary, and Przemysław Urbańczyk (2008) William G. Walker, ‘Paradise Lost’ and Republican Tradition from Aristotle to Machiavelli (2009) Carmela Vircillo Franklin, Material Restoration: A Fragment from Eleventh-Century Echternach in a Nineteenth-Century Parisian Codex (2010) Saints and their Lives on the Periphery: Veneration of Saints in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (c.1000-1200), ed. by Haki Antonsson and Ildar H. Garipzanov (2010) Approaching the Holy Mountain: Art and Liturgy at St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai, ed. by Sharon E. J. Gerstel and Robert S. Nelson (2011) ‘This Earthly Stage’: World and Stage in Late Medieval and Early Modern England, ed. by Brett D. Hirsch and Christopher Wortham (2011) Alan J. Fletcher, The Presence of Medieval English Literature: Studies at the Interface of History, Author, and Text in a Selection of Middle English Literary Landmarks (2012) Vehicles of Transmission, Translation, and Transformation in Medieval Textual Culture, ed. by Robert Wisnovsky, Faith Wallis, Jamie C. Fumo, and Carlos Fraenkel (2012) Claudio Moreschini, Hermes Christianus: The Intermingling of Hermetic Piety and Christian Thought (2011) The Faces of the Other: Religious Rivalry and Ethnic Encounters in the Later Roman World, ed. by Maijastina Kahlos (2011) Barbara Furlotti, A Renaissance Baron and his Possessions: Paolo Giordano I Orsini, Duke of Bracciano (1541–1585) (2012)

Rethinking Virtue, Reforming Society: New Directions in Renaissance Ethics, c. 1350–c. 1650, ed. by David A. Lines and Sabrina Ebbersmeyer (2013) Wendy Turner, Care and Custody of the Mentally Ill, Incompetent, and Disabled in Medieval England (2013) Luigi Andrea Berto, The Political and Social Vocabulary of John the Deacon’s ‘Istoria Veneticorum’ (2013) Writing Down the Myths, ed. by Joseph Falaky Nagy (2013) Tanya S. Lenz, Dreams, Medicine, and Literary Practice: Exploring the Western Literary Tradition Through Chaucer (2013) Charles Russell Stone, From Tyrant to Philosopher-King: A Literary History of Alexander the Great in Medieval and Early Modern England (2013) Viking Archaeology in Iceland: Mosfell Archaeological Project, ed. by Davide Zori and Jesse Byock (2014) Natalia I. Petrovskaia, Medieval Welsh Perceptions of the Orient (2015) Fabrizio Ricciardelli, The Myth of Republicanism in Renaissance Italy (2015) Ilan Shoval, King John’s Delegation to the Almohad Court (1212): Medieval Interreligious Interactions and Modern Historiography (2015) Ersie C. Burke, The Greeks of Venice, 1498–1600: Immigration, Settlement, and Integration (2015) The Mirror in Medieval and Early Modern Culture: Specular Reflections, ed. by Nancy M. Frelick (2016) Ksenia Bonch Reeves, Visions of Unity After the Visigoths: Early Iberian Latin Chronicles and the Mediterranean World (2016) Graphic Signs of Identity, Faith, and Power in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. by Ildar Garipzanov, Caroline Goodson, and Henry Maguire (2017) Writing History in Medieval Poland: Bishop Vincentius of Cracow and the Chronica Polonorum, ed by Darius von Güttner-Sporzyński (2017) Luigi Pulci in Renaissance Florence and Beyond: New Perspectives on his Poetry and Influence, ed. by James K. Coleman and Andrea Moudarres (2018) James L. Smith, Water in Medieval Intellectual Culture: Case Studies from Twelfth-Century Monasticism (2018) Visions of North in Premodern Europe, ed. by Dolly Jorgensen and Virginia Langum (2018) Temporality and Mediality in Late Medieval and Early Modern Culture, ed. by Christian Kiening and Martina Stercken (2018) Andreas Vesalius and the ‘Fabrica’ in the Age of Printing: Art, Anatomy, and Printing in the Italian Renaissance, ed. by Rinaldo Fernando Canalis and Massimo Ciavolella (2018) Text, Transmission, and Transformation in the European Middle Ages, 1000–1500, ed. by Carrie Griffin and Emer Purcell (2018) Mythical Ancestry in World Cultures, 1400–1800, ed. by Sara Trevisan (2018) Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Premodern World: European and Middle Eastern Cultures, from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance, ed. by Costanza Gislon Dopfel, Alessandra Foscati, and Charles Burnett (2019) Geoffrey Symcox, Jerusalem in the Alps: The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy (2019) Disease and Disability in Medieval and Early Modern Art and Literature, ed. by Rinaldo F. Canalis and Massimo Ciavolella (2021)

In Preparation Order into Action: How Large-Scale Concepts of World Order Determine Practices in the Premodern World, ed. by Klaus Oschema and Christoph Mauntel Visions of Medieval History in North America and Europe: Studies on Cultural Identity and Power, ed. by Courtney M. Booker, Hans Hummer, and Dana M. Polanichka Constructing Iberian Identities, 1000–1700, ed. by Thomas W. Barton, Marie A. Kelleher, and Antonio M. Zaldivar