peter lombard

Why Lombard?

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In my last post, I talked about how I think I’m becoming a theologian because I’m not just reading theology for personal use or to teach church history but because, in January, I’ll be teaching theology at Ryle Seminary! “Theology 1”, in fact, covering “theology proper” — the doctrine of God and the Trinity plus creation and revelation. It’s a lot of stuff.

And so, naturally enough I’m reading Peter Lombard, The Sentences, Book 1.

Right? That’s normal, isn’t it?

Maybe — if you’re Stephen Langton (amirite?). But since I’m not assigning the Lombard to my students (it no longer being the year 1200), why him? Why not, oh, say, Herman Bavinck? I’m friends with some leading Bavinck scholars, after all. Or simply get back together with the Fathers? Or, given his current flash of light amongst online Protestants, Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae?

Well, the simple reason is: Peter Lombard interests me, so I’m using this an excuse. He is upstream of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure — and Stephen Langton. All of them used Lombard’s material, Aquinas and Bonaventure even writing commentaries on The Sentences like, well, almost every scholastic theologian beginning with Alexander de Hales. Lombard is also after one of my favourite Latin theologians, St Anselm of Canterbury (Langton, however, may be my favourite Archbp of C). And he’s contemporary with some of my favourite mystics, those early Cistercians Bernard, Aelred, William of St-Thierry.

As a historian of Christianity, this makes him interesting to me. He’s a piece of the puzzle whose shape and contours I want to know.

But that’s not the only reason I picked Lombard up off my shelf — after all, I’m turning into a theologian (in the modern sense — in the Evagrian sense it’s still a long term work in progress).

Why Peter Lombard is ultimately rooted in what The Sentences — all four volumes of it — is. Peter Lombard’s Sentences is not a modern systematic theology textbook. The majority of the text is quotations from theological authorities, most of them being Church Fathers. Actually, more precisely, most of them being St Augustine of Hippo, who accounts for 90% of the quotations — or sententiae chosen.

Besides St Augustine and the Bible, in Book 1 Lombard cites St Ambrose of Milan, Ambrosiaster, the Athanasian Creed, Boethius, Cassiodorus, the “Nicene”/Constantinopolitan Creed, a creed from a Council of Toledo, St Cyril of Alexandria, Didymus the Blind, Fulgentius of Ruspe, the Gelasian Sacramentary (I wonder if actually just the Roman Mass), St Gregory the Great, St Hilary of Poitiers, St Isidore of Seville, St Jerome, St John Chrysostom, somebody called Mediocre John, St John of Damascus, the Liber Pontificalis, Origen, Pelagius (!), and Syagrius.

The passages are usually about as long as a modern paragraph. They are excerpted from their source and then arranged topically. In Book 1, later users of The Sentences divided them into 48 groups called Distinctions. Alongside the sententiae Lombard has inserted his own analysis of particular problems that may arise or clarifications or summaries along the way.

These passages have been culled not directly from their authors’ works but from other, slightly earlier, similar enterprises, chiefly the wonderful canon law textbook we call the Decretum of Gratian, which is very similar but for canon law, and the Sic et Non of Peter Abelard. That is to say — Lombard is not choosing those passages from the Fathers that most support his argument, which is a valid thing to do and is what Peter Martyr Vermigli will do in On the Two Natures in Christ. Instead, he is choosing authorities who are already established in the tradition.

What he then does is produce a work that enables the reader, whether teacher or student, to work through these authorities and the difficulties they raise of one sort or another, and then come to a sound, orthodox conclusion with a deeper appreciation for the logic behind orthodoxy and a deeper knowledge of the authorities of the faith.

So I’m becoming a theologian. And I think to myself, what better way to strengthen my foundations than to work through this casebook of theological authorities for myself?

(I’m also going to read Bavinck because I’m assigning him.)

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What do I mean, I’m becoming a theologian?

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The other day, I took in hand a copy of Peter Lombard’s Sentences, photographed it, and tweeted:

But what, really, makes this different from any of the other times I’ve tweeted theology books?

What makes this different is why I’ve decided to get down with Lombard (and Bavinck, too, as it turns out). When I post a picture of (or even read) Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Vermigli’s Dialogue on the Two Natures in Christ, St Gregory of Nyssa’s Catechetical Discourse, St John of Damascus On the Orthodox Faith, or any other theological book, I am reading or consulting that book for a few possible reasons:

  • I’m teaching it or its author
  • I’m researching something to do with it
  • Personal edification

And, technically, none of the courses I have yet taught have been theology courses. Thus far, besides Classics (Latin, Greek, ancient history, Latin & Greek literature) I have taught church history/Christian history. My students at Davenant Hall do end up reading quite a bit of theology, usually (if you study with me in January, you’ll get to read theology by Sts Athanasius, Ephrem the Syrian, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, and John Chrysostom! Sign up today!). But the purpose of my teaching is for them to understand those authors on their own terms and in their historical context.

So what’s different with Lombard and Bavinck?

This time, I’m reading theology to teach theology.

That’s right, in January, besides my teaching at Davenant Hall, I have the opportunity to teach the course “Theology 1: God and Creation” at Ryle Seminary in Ottawa, covering, as the course website says, “A systematic and biblical study of Christian theology proper, with special attention to the Trinity, God and Creation, and the nature and scope of revelation.” Now, the doctrine of the Trinity is, to a large degree, what my other course, “The Theological World of the Nicene Controversy” is about. So the content overlaps.

But it’s different to put together a course where you say, “Whom am I teaching? What period am I covering? What are the most important primary sources for my students?” versus one where you say, “What am I teaching? What doctrines do I need to cover? What theological principles related to this topic will my students need the most?”

And so: enter Peter Lombard.

(Why him specifically? I’ll get to that later, maybe.)

The Interconnected Middle Ages

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St Thomas Aquinas by Fra Angelico, San Marco Priory, Florence

Let us return to the topic of pre-Reformation Christianity in England. One of the most important other facts about it was that it wasn’t just in England. However wide the English may think the English Channel and the North Sea are, the island of Britain has always had strong social, intellectual, political, economic, and whatever other kind of ties to continental Europe.

Consider two of the men I mentioned in my last post — Alexander de Hales and Anselm of Canterbury. The former, although an Englishman, spent his entire scholarly career in France, from what I can tell. The latter was not English and wrote most of his major works while a monk/prior/abbot in Normandy before becoming Archbishop of Canterbury. A third of the ‘A’s — Alcuin of York — spent most of his career on the continent as well.

One of our oldest complete Latin Bibles is the Codex Amiatinus in Amiata, Italy. It has been demonstrated that this codex was actually made in St Bede’s monastery in Northumberland. And, interestingly enough, it is a copy of an Italian Bible brought North by Bede’s spiritual father, Benedict Biscop. Elsewhere in Italy we find one of the most famous books of Old English literature, the Vercelli Book. Both of these will have been left behind by pilgrims.

Canterbury and Durham may have been important sites of pilgrimage in mediaeval England, but the English went on pilgrimage to Rome so much that not only were they complained of in terms of bad behaviour along the route, but there was a whole section of the city abutting the Vatican where they lived. They also went to Spain, to Santiago, one of the biggest pilgrim sites in Europe. And even when Jerusalem was not in Crusader hands, some went so far as that!

Coming to know the continental contemporaries of British theologians and devotional writers will help us enter more fully into their thought-world. It will also benefit us. Consider some of the bright lights whom I found listed as being in Durham Priory’s library:

  • St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) – One of the great theologians of the Middle Ages, he not only tamed Aristotle for Christianity in his Summa, he brought many of the riches of Greek Christianity into dialogue with his own Latin tradition. Saint of the week here.
  • St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) – Called ‘the Last of the Fathers’ by his Cistercian brothers, this is one of the greatest mystical theologians in the Latin Middle Ages. He was even Dante’s guide to the Uncreated Light. Saint of the week here.
  • Peter Lombard (1096-1160) – His Sentences became the standard theological textbook of the Latin Middle Ages, and a major exercise of many Masters and Doctors was to write a commentary on him. Thomas Aquinas did.
  • St Ivo of Chartres (1040-1115) – Ivo was Bishop of Chartres. He’s most famous for canon law compendia, but his preface to said compendia as well as his letters are worth reading. They show a man with a strong moral sense but a pastor’s heart. (I mean, expressed in mediaeval terms, so…)
  • Richard of St Victor (1110-1173) – A Scottish mystical theologian who was prior of the Augustinian Abbey of St Victor in Paris. Both scholastic and mystical, in a way. The Victorines were heavily influenced by their friends over at Clairvaux, from what I understand.
  • Hugh of St Victor (1096-1141) – A Saxon mystical theologian and exegete also at the Augustinian Abbey of St Victor in Paris.
  • Bonaventure (1221-1274) – Head-honcho Franciscan who wrote a life of St Francis as well as some pretty intense mystical theology. Saint of the week here.

There were many others, like Hrabanus Maurus, in Durham’s library. But you get the point. Christianity is never insular, not even in Britain, especially not in the Middle Ages.

Of course, now we all have more than enough reading to last a lifetime…