644 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Hugues de St. F., 2 vols. Paris, 1896. — KILGENSTEIN : D. Gotteslehre d. Hugo von St. V., Wiirzb., 1897. — DENIFLE : D. Sentenzen H. von St. Victor, in Archiv, etc., for 1887, pp. 644 sqq. — STOCKL, pp. 352-381. FOR RICHARD. — Works, first publ. Venice, 1506. Migne, vol. 196. — J. G. V. ENGELHARDT : Rich, von St. V, Erlangen, 1838. — LIEBNER: Eich. a S. Victore de contemp. doctrina, Gott., 1837-1839, 2 parts. — KAULICH: D. Lehren des H. und Eich. von St. Victor, Prag., 1864. — Art. in Diet, of Natl. Biogr., PREGER, VAUGHAN, STOCKL, SCHWANE, etc.
In Hugo of St. Victor, d. 1141, and more fully in his pupil, Richard of St. Victor, d. 1173, the mystical element is modified by a strong scholastic current. With Bernard mysticism is a highly developed personal experience. With the Victorines it is brought within the limits of careful definition and becomes a scientific system. Hugo and Richard confined their activity to the convent, taking no part in the public controversies of the age.1
Hugo, the first of the great German theologians, was born about 1097 in Saxony.2 About 1115 he went to Paris in the company of an uncle and became an inmate of St. Victor. He was a friend of St. Bernard. Hugo left behind him volumi nous writings. He was an independent and judicious thinker, and influenced contemporary writers by whom he is quoted. His most important works are on Learning, the Sacraments, a Summa? and a Commentary on the Coelestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite. He wrote commentaries on Ro mans, Ecclesiastes, and other books of the Bible, and also a treatise on what would now be called Biblical Introduction.4
1 St. Victor, the convent which William of Champeaux, Hugo, and Richard made famous, had its filial houses not only in France but also in Ireland. With the French Revolution the convent and its grounds disappeared. Two streets of Paris, the Rue Guy de la Brosse and the Rue de Jussieu, were driven through them. See Wetzer-Welte, St. Victor, XII. 914 sqq.
* The argument in favor of Saxony is well stated by Preger, Deutsche Mystik, I. 227 sqq. So Zockler in Herzog, and the art. on Hugo, in Wetzer-Welte.
3 Summa Sententiarum, Migne, 176. 42-172. This work has been denied to Hugo by Denifle on insufficient grounds. Hugo opens the work with a treatment of the three cardinal virtues, faith, hope, and love, and proceeds to the discussion of the Trinity, creation, the five sacraments, and marriage.
4 He discusses the senses of Scripture, the number of the books, the apoc rypha, the translation, the historical difficulties of Scripture, etc. See Migne,
1 75. 9-28. The same topics are treated in his treatise on Learning. Migne,
176. 778-811.
§ 105. HUGO AND RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR. 645
He recognized a triple sense of Scripture, historical, alle gorical, and anagogical, and was inclined to lay more stress than was usual in that period upon the historical sense. An illustration of these three senses is given in the case of Job. Job belonged to the land of Uz, was rich, was overtaken by misfortune, and sat upon the dunghill scraping his body. This is the historical sense. Job, whose name means the suffering one, dolens, signifies Christ who left his divine glory, entered into our misery, and sat upon the dunghill of this world, sharing our weaknesses and sorrows. This is the allegorical sense. Job signifies the penitent soul who makes in his memory a dunghill of all his sins and does not cease to sit upon it, meditate, and weep. This is the anagogical sense.
From Hugo dates the careful treatment of the doctrine of the sacraments upon the basis of Augustine's definition of a sacrament as a visible sign of an invisible grace. His views are given in the chapter on the Sacramental System.
The mystical element is prominent in all of Hugo's writings.1 The soul has a threefold power of apprehension and vision, the eye of the flesh, the eye of reason, and the eye of con templation. The faculty of contemplation is concerned with divine things, but was lost in the fall when also the eye of reason suffered injury, but the eye of the flesh remained un impaired. Redemptive grace restores the eye of contempla tion. This faculty is capable of three stages of activity : cogitatio, or the apprehension of objects in their external forms ; meditatio, the study of their inner meaning and essence; and contemplatio, or the clear, unimpeded insight into the truth and the vision of God. These three stages are likened unto a fire of green fagots. When it is started and the flame and smoke are intermingled so that the flame only now and then bursts out, we have cogitatio. The fire burning into a
1 Among his mystical writings are de area Noe morali, Migne, 176. 619- 680 ; de area mystica, Migne, 176. 681-703; de vanitate mundL Noah's ark is symbolical of the spiritual house and Christ is the "Captain, the supreme Noah." The wood, windows, and other parts of the ark are all spiritualized. In the second treatise the ark represents the cross.