Hugh of Saint Victor

Hugh of Saint Victor (c. 1096 – 11 February 1141), was a Saxon canon regular and a leading theologian and writer on mystical theology.

Hugh of Saint Victor

Life

As with many medieval figures, little is known about Hugh's early life. He was probably born in the 1090s. His homeland may have been Lorraine, Ypres in Flanders, or the Duchy of Saxony.[1] Some sources say that his birth occurred in the Harz district, being the eldest son of Baron Conrad of Blankenburg. Over the protests of his family, he entered the Priory of St. Pancras, a community of canons regular, where he had studied, located at Hamerleve or Hamersleben, near Halberstadt.[2]

Due to civil unrest shortly after his entry to the priory, Hugh's uncle, Reinhard of Blankenburg, who was the local bishop, advised him to transfer to the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris, where he himself had studied theology. He accepted his uncle's advice and made the move at a date which is unclear, possibly 1115–18 or around 1120.[3] He spent the rest of his life there, advancing to head the school.[2]

Works

Hugh wrote many works from the 1120s until his death (Migne, Patrologia Latina contains 46 works by Hugh, and this is not a full collection), including works of theology (both treatises and sententiae), commentaries (mostly on the Bible but also including one of pseudo-Dionysius' Celestial Hierarchies), mysticism, philosophy and the arts, and a number of letters and sermons.[4]

Hugh was influenced by many people, but chiefly by Saint Augustine, especially in holding that the arts and philosophy can serve theology.

Hugh's most significant works include:

  • De sacramentis christianae fidei (On the Mysteries of the Christian Faith/On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith)[5] It is Hugh's most celebrated masterpiece and presents the bulk of Hugh's thoughts on theological and mystical ideas, ranging from God and angels to natural laws.
  • Didascalicon de studio legendi (Didascalion, or, On the Study of Reading).[6] The subtitle to the Didascalicon," De Studio Legendi, makes the purpose of Hugh's tract clear. Written for the students at the school of Saint Victor, the work is an preliminary introduction to the theological and exegetical studies taught at the Parisian schools, the most advanced centers of learning in Europe in the 12th century. Citing a wide range classical and medieval sources, and with Augustine as his principal authority, Hugh sets forth a comprehensive synthesis of rhetoric, philosophy, and exegesis, designed to serve as a foundation for advanced theological study. The Didascalicon is primarily pedagogical, and not speculative, in nature. It provides the modern reader with a clear sense of the intellectual equipment expected of, if not always fully possessed by, high medieval theologians.
  • In 1125–30, Hugh wrote three treatises structured around Noah's ark: De arca Noe morali (Noah's Moral Ark/On the Moral Interpretation of the Ark of Noah), De arca Noe mystica (Noah's Mystical Ark/On the Mystic Interpretation of the Ark of Noah), and De vanitate mundi (The World's Vanity).[7] De arca Noe morali and De arca Noe mystica reflect Hugh's fascination with both mysticism and the book of Genesis.
  • In Hierarchiam celestem commentaria (Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy), a commentary on the work by pseudo-Dionysius, perhaps begun around 1125.[8] After Eriugena's translation of Dionysius in the ninth century, there is almost no interest shown in Dionysius until Hugh's commentary.[9] It is possible that Hugh may have decided to produce the commentary (which perhaps originated in lectures to students) because of the continuing (incorrect) belief that the patron saint of the Abbey of Saint Denis, Saint Denis, was to be identified with pseudo-Dionysius. Dionysian thought did not form an important influence on the rest of Hugh's work. Hugh's commentary, however, became a major part of the twelfth and thirteenth-century surge in interest in Dionysius; his and Eriugena's commentaries were often attached to the Dionysian corpus in manuscripts, such that his thought had great influence on later interpretation of Dionysius by Richard of St Victor, Thomas Gallus, Hugh of Balma, Bonaventure and others.[10]

Other works by Hugh of St Victor include:

  • In Salomonis Ecclesiasten (Commentary on Ecclesiastes).[11]
  • De tribus diebus (On the Three Days).[12]
  • De sapientia animae Christi.[13]
  • De unione corporis et spiritus (The Union of the Body and the Spirit).[14]
  • Epitome Dindimi in philosophiam (Epitome of Dindimus on Philosophy).[15]
  • Practica Geometriae (The Practice of Geometry).[15]
  • De Grammatica (On Grammar).[15]
  • Soliloquium de Arrha Animae (The Soliloquy on the Earnest Money of the Soul).[16]
  • De contemplatione et ejus speciebus (On Contemplation and its Forms). This is one of the earliest systematic works devoted to contemplation. It appears not to have been written by Hugh himself, but composed by one of his students, possibly from classnotes from his lectures.[17]
  • On Sacred Scripture and its Authors.[18]
  • Various other treatises exist whose authorship by Hugh is uncertain. Six of these are reprinted, in Latin in Roger Baron, ed, Hugues de Saint-Victor: Six Opuscules Spirituels, Sources chrétiennes 155, (Paris, 1969). They are: De meditatione,[19] De verbo Dei, De substantia dilectionis, Quid vere diligendus est, De quinque septenis ,[20] and De septem donis Spiritus sancti[21]
  • De anima is a treatise of the soul: the text will be found in the edition of Hugh's works in the Patrologia Latina of J. P. Migne. Part of it was paraphrased in the West Mercian dialect of Middle English by the author of the Katherine Group.[22]

Various other works were wrongly attributed to Hugh in later thought. One such particularly influential work was the Exposition of the Rule of St Augustine, now accepted to be from the Victorine school but not by Hugh of St Victor.[23]

A new edition of Hugh's works has been started. The first publication is: Hugonis de Sancto Victore De sacramentis Christiane fidei, ed. Rainer Berndt, Münster: Aschendorff, 2008.

Philosophy and theology

The early Didascalicon was an elementary, encyclopedic approach to God and Christ, in which Hugh avoided controversial subjects and focused on what he took to be commonplaces of Catholic Christianity. In it he outlined three types of philosophy or "science" [scientia] that can help mortals improve themselves and advance toward God: theoretical philosophy (theology, mathematics, physics) provides them with truth, practical philosophy (ethics, economics, politics) aids them in becoming virtuous and prudent, and "mechanical" or "illiberal" philosophy (e.g., carpentry, agriculture, medicine) yields physical benefits. A fourth philosophy, logic, is preparatory to the others and exists to ensure clear and proper conclusions in them. Hugh's deeply mystical bent did not prevent him from seeing philosophy as a useful tool for understanding the divine, or from using it to argue on behalf of faith.

Hugh was heavily influenced by Augustine's exegesis of Genesis. Divine Wisdom was the archetypal form of creation. The creation of the world in six days was a mystery for man to contemplate, perhaps even a sacrament. God's forming order from chaos to make the world was a message to humans to rise up from their own chaos of ignorance and become creatures of Wisdom and therefore beauty. This kind of mystical-ethical interpretation was typical for Hugh, who tended to find Genesis interesting for its moral lessons rather than as a literal account of events.

Along with Jesus, the sacraments were divine gifts that God gave man to redeem himself, though God could have used other means. Hugh separated everything along the lines of opus creationis and opus restaurationis. Opus Creationis was the works of the creation, referring to God's creative activity, the true good natures of things, and the original state and destiny of humanity. The opus restaurationis was that which dealt with the reasons for God sending Jesus and the consequences of that. Hugh believed that God did not have to send Jesus and that He had other options open to Him. Why he chose to send Jesus is a mystery we are to meditate on and is to be learned through revelation, with the aid of philosophy to facilitate understanding.

Legacy

Within the Abbey of St Victor, many scholars who followed him are often known as the 'School of St Victor'. Both Achard and Andrew of St Victor appear to have been direct disciples of Hugh. Others, who probably entered the community too late to be directly educated by Hugh, include Richard of Saint Victor and Godfrey.[24] One of Hugh's ideals that did not take root in St Victor, however, was his embracing of science and philosophy as tools for approaching God.

His works are in hundreds of libraries all across Europe. He is quoted in many other publications after his death, and Bonaventure praises him in De reductione artium ad theologiam.

He was also an influence on the critic Erich Auerbach, who cited this passage from Hugh of St Victor in his essay "Philology and World Literature":[25]

It is therefore, a source of great virtue for the practiced mind to learn, bit by bit, first to change about in visible and transitory things, so that afterwards it may be able to leave them behind altogether. The person who finds his homeland sweet is a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign place. The tender soul has fixed his love on one spot in the world; the strong person has extended his love to all places; the perfect man has extinguished his.

Works

Modern editions
Latin text
  • Latin texts of Hugh of St. Victor are available in the Migne edition at Documenta Catholica Omnia, http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/30_10_1096-1141-_Hugo_De_S_Victore.html
  • Henry Buttimer, Hugonis de Sancto Victore. Didascalicon. De Studio Legendi (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1939).
  • Hugh of St Victor, L'oeuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor. 1. De institutione novitiorum. De virtute orandi. De laude caritatis. De arrha animae, Latin text edited by H.B. Feiss & P. Sicard; French translation by D. Poirel, H. Rochais & P. Sicard. Introduction, notes and appendices by D. Poirel (Turnhout, Brepols, 1997)
  • Hugues de Saint-Victor, L'oeuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor. 2. Super Canticum Mariae. Pro Assumptione Virginis. De beatae Mariae virginitate. Egredietur virga, Maria porta, edited by B. Jollès (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000)
  • Hugo de Sancto Victore, De archa Noe. Libellus de formatione arche, ed Patricius Sicard, CCCM vol 176, Hugonis de Sancto Victore Opera, I (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001)
  • Hugo de Sancto Victore, De tribus diebus, ed Dominique Poirel, CCCM vol 177, Hugonis de Sancto Victore Opera, II (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002)
  • Hugo de Sancto Victore, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, ed. Rainer Berndt (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008)
  • Hugo de Sancto Victore, Super Ierarchiam Dionysii, CCCM vol 178, Hugonis de Sancto Victore Opera, III (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming)
English translations
  • Hugh of St Victor, Explanation of the Rule of St. Augustine, translated by Aloysius Smith (London, 1911)
  • Hugh of St Victor, The Soul's Betrothal-Gift, translated by FS Taylor (London, 1945) [translation of De Arrha Animae]
  • Hugh of St Victor, On the sacraments of the Christian faith: (De sacramentis), translated by Roy J Deferrari (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1951)
  • Hugh of Saint-Victor: Selected spiritual writings, translated by a religious of C.S.M.V.; with an introduction by Aelred Squire. (London: Faber, 1962) [reprinted in Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2009] [contains a translation of the first four books of De arca Noe morali and the first two (of four) books of De vanitate mundi].
  • The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor, translated by Jerome Taylor (New York and London: Columbia U. P., 1961) [reprinted 1991] [translation of the Didascalion]
  • Soliloquy on the Earnest Money of the Soul, trans Kevin Herbert (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1984) [translation of Soliloquium de Arrha Animae]
  • Hugh of St Victor, Practica Geometriae, trans. Frederick A Homann (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1991)
  • Hugh of St Victor, extracts from Introductory Notes on the Scriptures and on the Scriptural Writers, trans Denys Turner, in Denys Turner, Eros and Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1995), 265-274
  • Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans Roy Deferrari (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2007) [translation of De Sacramentis Christianae Fidei]
  • Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M Coulter, eds, Trinity and creation: a selection of works of Hugh, Richard and Adam of St Victor (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010) [includes translation of Hugh of St Victor, On the Three Days and Sentences on Divinity]
  • Hugh Feiss, ed, On love: a selection of works of Hugh, Adam, Achard, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011) [includes translations of The Praise of the Bridegroom, On the Substance of Love, On the Praise of Charity, What Truly Should be Loved?, On the Four Degrees of Violent Love, trans. A.B. Kraebel, and Soliloquy on the Betrothal-Gift of the Soul]
  • Franklin T. Harkins and Frans van Liere, eds, Interpretation of scripture: theory. A selection of works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012) [contains translations of: Didascalion on the study of reading, introduced and translated by Franklin T Harkins; On Sacred Scripture and its authors and The diligent examiner, introduced and translated by Frans van Liere; On the sacraments of the Christian faith, prologues, introduced and translated by Christopher P Evans]
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See also

References
  1. B McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism, (1994), p365
  2. Catholic Encyclopedia:Hugh of St. Victor
  3. McGinn (1994), p365, gives 'around 1120' as the date.
  4. A helpful, though not necessarily complete, list of Hugh's work – along with modern editions and translations – is printed in Hugh Feiss, ed, On Love, (2010), pp15-20.
  5. Reprinted in PL 176:173-618 and in Hugonis de Sancto Victore De sacramentis Christiane fidei, ed. Rainer Berndt, Münster: Aschendorff, 2008. There is an English translation in Hugh of St Victor, On the sacraments of the Christian faith: (De sacramentis), translated by Roy J Deferrari, (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1951). An English translation of the Prologues is made in Franklin T. Harkins and Frans van Liere, eds, Interpretation of scripture: theory. A selection of works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012), pp253-268.
  6. The Latin text is in Henry Buttimer, Hugonis de Sancto Victore. Didascalicon. De Studio Legendi, (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1939). An older English translation is in Jerome Taylor, The Didascalicon of Hugh of St Victor, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961). A more recent translation is Franklin T. Harkins and Frans van Liere, eds, Interpretation of scripture: theory. A selection of works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012), pp61-202.
  7. These three treatises are printed in PL 176:617-740.
  8. An older edition of the Latin text is in PL 175:928A. The modern edition is Hugonis de Sancto Victore Opera III: Super Ierarchiam Dionysii, (Turnhout: Brepols), CCCM, vol. 178.
  9. David Luscombe, "The Commentary of Hugh of Saint-Victor on the Celestial Hierarchy", in T. Boiadjiev, G. Kapriev and A. Speer, eds, Die Dionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter, (Turnholt:Brepols, 2000), pp160-164; D. Poirel, "Le 'chant dionysien' du IXe au XIIe siècle", in M. Goullet and M. Parisse (eds), Les historiens et le latin medieval, (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2001), pp151–176.
  10. For further commentary on this work, see Rorem, Paul (2008). "The Early Latin Dionysius: Eriugena and Hugh of St. Victor". Modern Theology. 24 (4): 601–614. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0025.2008.00488.x.
  11. Reprinted in PL 175:115A.
  12. Reprinted in PL 176. A detailed study of this work exists in Dominique Porel, Livre de la nature et débat trinitaire au XXe siècle, Le De tribus diebus de Hugues de Saint-Victor, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), 169-198. Much of this introduction is summarised in the introduction to the English translation in Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M Coulter, eds, Trinity and creation: a selection of works of Hugh, Richard and Adam of St Victor, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010).
  13. Reprinted in PL 176:845-856.
  14. Reprinted in PL 177:285-294.
  15. Reprinted in Roger Baron, ed., Hugonis de Sancto Victore Opera Propaedeutica (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966).
  16. Reprinted in Muller, Karl, ed., Hugo von St. Victor: Soliloquium de Arrha Animae Und De Vanitate Mundi (Bonn: A. Marcus Une E. Weber's Verlag,1913). There is an English translation in Soliloquy on the Earnest Money of the Soul, trans Kevin Herbert, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1965).
  17. See Bernard McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism, (1994), pp384-390. Latin text: Barthélemy Hauréau, Hugues de Saint-Victor. Paris, 1859 (pp. 177−210). A French translation is in Roger Baron, Hugues de Saint-Victor: La contemplation et ses espèces, (Tournai-Paris: Desclée, 1958).
  18. An English translation is in Franklin T. Harkins and Frans van Liere, eds, Interpretation of scripture: theory. A selection of works of Hugh, Andrew, Richard and Godfrey of St Victor, and of Robert of Melun, (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2012)
  19. Printed in PL176:993-998
  20. Printed in PL175:405-414.
  21. Printed in PL176:405-414.
  22. Eggebroten, Anne. ""Sawles Warde": a retelling of "De Anima" for a female audience" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 23 December 2009.
  23. Thomas F Martin OSA, Our Restless Heart: The Augustinian Tradition, (2003), p82
  24. B McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism, (1994), p366
  25. Erich Auerbach (2009). Damrosch, David; Melas, Natalie; Buthelezi, Mbongiseni (eds.). The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 124.

Further reading
  • Sicard, P. (2015) Iter Victorinum. La tradition manuscrite des œuvres de Hugues et de Richard de Saint-Victor. Répertoire complémentaire et études (Bibliotheca Victorina 24), Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2015 (ISBN 978-2-503-55492-1)
  • Acton Institute (1992) "In the Liberal Tradition: Hugh of St Victor (1096–1141)". Religion and Liberty, 2:1 (Jan.–Feb., 1992)
  • Coolman, Boyd Taylor. (2010) The Theology of Hugh of St. Victor: An Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  • Evans, G. R. (2002) Fifty Key Medieval Thinkers. London: Routledge.
  • Harkins, Franklin T, Reading and the Work of Restoration: History and Scripture in the Theology of Hugh of St Victor, (Brepols, 2009)
  • Illich, Ivan (1993) In the Vineyard of the Text: a Commentary to Hugh's Didascalicon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
  • Luscombe, David, "The Commentary of Hugh of Saint-Victor on the Celestial Hierarchy", in T. Boiadjiev, G. Kapriev and A. Speer (eds), Die Dionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter (Turnholt: Brepols, 2000).
  • McGinn, Bernard, The Growth of Mysticism, (1994), pp 370–395
  • Moore, R. (1998) Jews and Christians in the Life and Thought of Hugh of St. Victor. USF
  • Rorem, Paul (2009). Hugh of Saint Victor. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Rudolph, Conrad, "First, I Find the Center Point": Reading the Text of Hugh of Saint Victor's The Mystic Ark (2004)
  • Wilson, R. M., ed. (1938) Sawles Warde: an early Middle English homily; edited from the Bodley, Royal and Cotton MSS. Leeds: University of Leeds, School of English Language
  • Conrad Rudolph, The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century ( 2014)
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