Hugo de São Vítor

Hugh of St Victor (d. 1141)

Hugh of St Victor initiated the teaching programme that distinguished the Parisian abbey of St Victor during the twelfth century. His teaching combined an ambitious programme of biblical exegesis with the construction of theological syntheses and the detailed subordination of a comprehensive philosophy to both. Hugh’s principal works in theology are biblical commentaries of different kinds and a theological overview based on the notion of sacrament. His philosophical works include Epitome Dindimi in philosophiam (Dindimus’ Epitome of Philosophy) and, most importantly, the Didascalicon de studio legendi (Didascalion, or On the Study of Reading). This last book attempts to show how all human knowledge can be used as preparation for the study of the Christian Bible, which in turns leads to the contemplation of God.

Hugh of St Victor initiated the project of teaching and writing that came to distinguish the abbey of St Victor in Paris during the twelfth century. He is, in that sense, the first ‘Victorine’ theologian. His teaching combined an ambitious program of biblical exegesis with the construction of theological syntheses and the detailed subordination of philosophy to both.

The abbey of St Victor grew out of the community founded by William of Champeaux on his retreat from the Parisian schools of theology in 1108. William brought to the community customs of learning, but no distinctive theological or philosophical project. On his consecration as bishop in 1113, William secured for the small group a significant endowment and a royal charter permitting the free election of an abbot.

When Hugh entered the abbey sometime between 1115 and 1118, it had already begun a thorough reform of monastic life under its first real leader, Gilduin. It was thus ready to receive the kind of intellectual definition Hugh’s work and his legacy would bring. Indeed, Hugh was a pioneer in each of the several fields that would become distinctive of the abbey, even as he brought it considerable renown as a school. Hugh himself served as the abbey’s prior from 1133, and he died in 1141 within the community.

Hugh’s study and teaching ranged widely. Indeed, he could be admired by someone such as Bonaventure just for the breadth of his education. One important group of his writings consists of scriptural interpretations. Hugh wrote three works in which he unfolded the image of Noah’s ark into a paradigm of the stages of contemplation. Since the image of the ark is treated in enormous detail as a visual image, Hugh’s tropological reading may also have had some influence on the aesthetics of Gothic art. However, Hugh also practised a kind of literal interpretation that put a premium on historical accuracy and made ample use of contemporary Jewish exegesis. One instance of his literal interpretation is a Chronica (Chronicle) in which he outlines the rational order of Hebrew history. This style of reading would be carried forward by Hugh’s student, Andrew of St Victor. Hugh further undertook the construction of a unified or ‘systematic’ theology in his De sacramentis christianae fidei (On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith). This impulse to theological construction was continued by another of Hugh’s followers, Richard of St Victor, who knew of Hugh only through his writings. Hugh also produced a number of spiritual writings in more traditional genres, as well as sermons and letters.

Hugh produced several works that can be counted philosophical. There are, for example, introductory treatises on the liberal arts. One of these, Epitome Dindimi in philosophiam (Dindimus’ Epitome of Philosophy), is a short dialogue that lays out definitions and divisions of philosophy for the beginner. It can serve to show how broadly Hugh understands philosophy. He divides philosophy into four parts: logic, ethics, theory and mechanics. Logic comprises grammar and the rule of inference (ratio disserendi), which is in turn divided into probable, necessary and sophistical reasoning. Ethics comprises the solitary or individual, the domestic or economic and the public or political. Theory covers mathematics, physics and theology, which here means not Christian doctrine but the study of immaterial beings. In last place, Hugh incorporates what he calls ‘mechanics’. Here he means not only technologies such as weaving or techniques such as navigation, but medicine and even theatre. Hugh seems the first Latin author to make ‘mechanics’ a part of philosophy (see Natural philosophy, medieval).

The disposition of the parts of philosophy and their subordination to Christian ends is accomplished more fully in Hugh’s Didascalicon de studio legendi (Didascalion, or On the Study of Reading), which must be regarded as his masterpiece in philosophy. In accord with current taste, Hugh borrows for his title the Greek term didascalicon, which he probably takes to mean the art of teaching. His Didascalicon is, indeed, a work that teaches what, when, and how to read for the sake of a well-formed wisdom. The Didascalicon is divided into two parts, each of which has three Books. The first part concerns philosophy and all its parts, which are distinguished much as they were in the Epitome. The second part, which finds no correspondence in the Epitome, concerns the reading of ‘holy writings’, which are principally but not exclusively found in the Christian Bible.

The treatment of philosophy in the Didascalicon is considerably more detailed than in the Epitome. Here Hugh provides not just descriptions of each part of philosophy, but remarks on their founders or principal authors and on the sequence of study. Throughout, he follows traditional sources. He seems mostly uninfluenced by the pieces of Arabic science that were beginning to find their way into Latin learning (see Translators). More importantly, Hugh here reiterates an Augustinian account of how the various moments in the study of philosophy adumbrate a unified wisdom in which ‘the form of the complete good’ is grasped (see Augustinianism). This wisdom is, of course, Christian. The study of ‘holy writings’ both completes and corrects the study of philosophy. Hugh introduces the second part of the Didascalicon by comparing the writings of philosophers to a whitewashed wall that covers over the clay of error with seeming truth. The Christian Bible, by contrast, is like a honeycomb: dry on the outside, filled with sweetness within.

The second part of the Didascalicon is in this way something more than an introduction to biblical study. It does contain a number of chapters on the levels of scriptural meaning, as on the canon and the rules for resolving ambiguous interpretations. However, it directs these materials to a practice of meditation in which scriptural reading is enacted as communion with God. This communion is the Christian’s philosophy. Indeed, the person whom Hugh calls the ‘Christian philosopher’ turns out to be a monk reading Scripture prayerfully. ‘The monk’s simplicity is his philosophy’, and the monk’s ‘philosophizing’ is not academic disputation, but delight in learning from Scripture the life of virtue.