THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
HUGO OF ST. VICTOR.
Life (§ 1).
Survey of Writings (§ 2).
His Mystical System (§ 3).
The Eruditio didascalica (§ 4).
The Summa and De sacramentis (§ 5).
His Influence (§ 6).
Of the life of Hugo, one of the three most influential theologians of the twelfth century, few details
are known. He was born in Saxony i. Life, or Flanders about 1097, and died at
the monastery of St. Victor, in Paris, according to the most reliable authorities, Feb. 11, 1141. The assertion of his epitaph that he was " a Saxon by birth " is supported by the fact that he was educated up to his eighteenth year in the monastery of Hamersleben, near Halberstadt; by an autobiographical note in his Eruditio didascalica (iii. 20) ; and by the later statements of old Saxon chronicles, which make him a scion of the family of the counts of Blankenburg and Regenstein, resident in the Harz Mountains. Impelled probably by his desire for knowledge, about 1115 he undertook a journey to France, accompanied by his uncle, Archdeacon Hugo of Halberstadt. Attracted by the fame of the school attached to the monastery of St. Victor in Paris, he and his uncle both joined the regular canons of St. Augustine there. Under the guidance of Gilduin as abbot, and Thomas, the successor of the famous William of Champeaux, as prior and prefect of studies, he had spent about fifteen years there when his remarkable learning and intellectual power marked him out as the successor of Thomas in the direction of the school; this position he held for about eight years. The importance of his influence is evidenced not only by the production of such brilliant scholars as Adam and Richard of St. Victor (qq.v.), but by the traces of the high consideration he enjoyed among his contemporaries found in the scanty remains of his correspondence. He seems to have left his monastery but seldom, and a delicate constitution rendered it impossible for him to share in all the ascetic exercises prescribed by the statutes of his order.
An accurate chronological arrangement of Hugo's numerous writings, some of which were begun at
Hamersleben, can scarcely be attained.
2. Survey of The more exclusively mystical treatises,
Writings, such as the three connected works,
De area morali, De area mystica, and De vanitate mundi, the commentary on Ecclesiastes, etc., belong to the earlier period; while the great systematic works which show the scholastic and encyclopedic elements of his training in a richer development belong to the latter part of his life. In these, such as the Eruditio didascalica, the De sacramentis fidei, and the learned commentary on the Hierarchia cwlestis of Dionysius the Areopagite, the mystical element is rather confined to a definite sphere than allowed to color and dominate the whole; and it is precisely this proportion that has made Hugo's influence so far-reaching in both mystical and scholastic theology. His exegetical writings, belonging to both the earlier and later periods, constitute another division. Dominated by the method of the threefold sense, they are the least original of his works, and have little interest outside
of their practical and edifying aspect. To this class belong the short introductory treatise Prcenotatiunculm de scripturis et scriptoribus sacris ; the commentary on the Pentateuch, based largely on Bede and specially full on the period before the fall; the similar Annotationes elucidatorice on. Judges and Kings; nineteen homilies on the first four chapters of Ecclesiastes; an allegorical-mystical commentary on the Lamentations; and a more literal one on Joel and Obadiah. Other works of this kind attributed to Hugo are doubtful, such as the Quastiones et decisiones in Epistolas D. Pauli, which Haureau and Denifle think to have been written by one of his pupils. The authenticity of the Summa sententiarum, one of his principal dogmatic works, has recently been attacked by Denifle, but successfully vindicated by Gietl and Kilgenstein, with the exception of the closing section on marriage, which they abandon. Some of the works long current under Hugo's name, but now generally given up, may contain sections of his genuine work. In the Histoire litteraire de la France, as well as by Haureau, painstaking attempts have been made to distinguish these elements, which have resulted in the recovery of valuable bits of Hugo's real work. Among these may be mentioned the Annotationes elucidatorice in quosdam Psalmos which occur in the generally valueless Miscellaneorum libri, and certain parts of the Allegorice in Vetus et Novum Testamentum. These are not only the Opusculum de quinque septenis and the Explanatio in canticum Maria, but also an Expositio orationis dominicm which joins with an explanation of the seven petitions a warning against the seven deadly sins. Still a subject of controversy is the authenticity of the chronicle ascribed to Hugo in numerous manuscripts, under the title of Liber de tribus maximis circumstanciis gestorum, which consists of a summary of the history of the world from Adam to Christ, followed by chronological tables, and then, in two parallel columns of popes and emperors, a synchronism of Christian history down to 1035; a continuation by another hand brings it down to near 1200. It has been defended by Haureau, but pronounced not to be Hugo's by the Histoire litteraire de la France, apparently by Wattenbach, and by Waitz, who gives a critical edition of it (MGH, Script., xxiv. 88-101).
Hugo's mystical system is dominated by the thought of a threefold progression in knowledge of divine things. In the introduction to 3. His the commentary on Ecclesiastes he dis- Mystical tinguishes three stages: cogitatio, or System, conception by means of sensual notions; meditatio, or searching into the hidden sense of that which has been thus conceived; and contemplatio, or the final free insight into the inwardness of things. To the three organs of perception, the bodily eye, the speculative reason, and the contemplative insight, correspond the three fundamental objects, matter, soul, and God. This Areopagite division of the stages of progress reappears in various portions of his works, sometimes with slight differences, as when the stages of cogitation and meditation are preceded by preliminary steps; before cogitatio comes lectio, and before meditatio prayer and good works (oratio, operatio).