Conceptualización de cada inteligencia.

Hugh of Amiens’ work began and ended with the Trinity, and of all the topics he covered, this one received by far the most attention. He devoted the entirety of the first book to an elucidation of how exactly God could be three persons in one substance. He did not fear to use some philosophical expressions in an attempt to understand the Trinity, at least those expressions which had been approved of by venerable usage. For

St. Anselm o f Canterbury, Monologion, in Anselm o f Canterbury: The Major Works, eel. with an introduction by Brian Davies and G.R. Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 6.

instance, using Aristotelian categories of substance and accidents, he declared emphatically that God can be spoken of according to substance, but not according to accidents, because of these he has none?® Furthermore, because there are no accidents in God, and because he is wholly one, Hugh affirmed that the persons of the Trinity can only be spoken of as relationships?® But ultimately, Hugh tried not to distance himself from revelation and authority, and recognised that all attempts to understand the Trinity ultimately end in an impenetrable mystery, for God can only be truly understood through faith. We can use the terms ‘person’ or ‘substance’ to speak about God, but they are really only conventions by which we try to understand him in human terms. For above all, the Trinity is a mystery, and any such words are used only for the convenience of preaching doctrine or disputing with heretics.®* Because these matters are more true when they are thought about in the mind than when they are spoken, and truer still as they really exist than can ever be conceived or spoken, the words used to describe them cannot be dissected and scrutinized in an attempt to understand their true meaning.®^ They are ultimately matters of faith, and about them Flugh advised: ‘You should walk through faith, that you might arrive at understanding.’®^

The entirety of the Dialogues was greatly influenced by the thought of Augustine, especially by his De Trinitate. Indeed, Hugh, like St. Anselm in his Monologion, could have advised any readers who had difficulties with his work ‘that they first make a

Hugh, 1.2, 1143C-D.

Ibid., 1143D-44A. Ibid., 1.5,1145C-D. Ibid.

careful and thorough reading of the books On the Trinity of the aforementioned learned Augustine, and then judge my little treatise on the basis of them.’®"* Augustine, spurred by the numerous heresies and conflicts of his day, decided to clarify and build upon what was a rather hazy and inchoate Trinitarian theology. His magisterial De Trinitate laid the foundation (and to a large extent the limitations) for all future speculation on the

Trinity.®® He set about therein to investigate and ultimately to discard the attempts by earlier theologians such as Tertullian to define the members of the Trinity by Old Testament manifestations and missions.®® Instead, he placed the essential distinction of the persons in their relationships between one another, emphasising the unity of the Trinity in its substance and the involvement of all thr ee persons in every action attributed to God.®^ It was Augustine who developed the analogy to the Trinity which could be found in the human mind, which was created in the image of God and therefore held a likeness to him. The mind, whenever it conceives knowledge of something, begets an image of that knowledge or a word. And so when it knows itself, it begets a word that is equal and identical to itself. Furthermore, it loves the image, and this love or will joins the two together.®*

The whole of Hugh’s first book is mostly an echo of De Trinitate, from his emphasis that the persons of the Trinity are properly distinguished only by the

^ St. Anselm o f Canterbury, Monologion, Prologue, 6.

See Augustine, DeTrin., Bk. 5, wherein St. Augustine lays out the methods and limits o f using Aristotelian categories to describe God.

Ibid., Books II-IV.

57 _{Ibid., Books V-VII.}

relationship of one to another?® to his insistence on the use of ‘person’ and ‘substance’ purely for convenience?® to his use of the rational soul’s actions of remembering itself, recognising itself, and loving itself as an image of the Trinity?* He also discussed a variety of speculative problems, some found within Augustine, while others were unique. They included questions such as how God begins to be called Father at different times by men yet does not himself change (the names describe relationships and the change is in the person, not God).®^ Some of his arguments used the technical language of the schools, as when he described Christ’s becoming man as assumptus homo,^^ or when in describing how God is everywhere without being divided he entered into an analysis of the

differences between qualitas and quantitas, mentioning an immortal body as an example of something that is as great in terms of quality in its smaller parts as in its larger.®"* He

Hugh, D ial, 1.2, 1143C-44A. Ibid., 1.5, 1145C-46A.

Hugh differed from St. Augustine in that he described the activities o f the soul rather than the mind and mixed up the order by declaring that the soul cannot remember itself unless it first understands itself, thus making the memorative act symbolise the Son and the cognitive act the Father; Hugh, D ial, 1.9- 10, 1146C-47C.

Ibid., 1.3,1144A-B. He used St. Augustine’s example o f how the very same light can be hateful to the weak eye and delightful to the healthy eye: St. Augustine, Confessionum LibriXIII, eds. Martin Skutella and Lucas Verheijen, CCSL 27 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981), VII. 16.22.

Ibid., 1.10-11,1146C-47C. Flugh uses this terms again in/fnen 1.3, 1259B; 1 .8 ,1263B. It was most likely an uncritical use o f the patristic language refering to the assumption o f human nature, not an already existing human. The assumptus homo was perhaps the most widespread description o f Christ’s humanity, but by Hugh’s day other attempts to describe this union had arisen. These included the habitus

theory favoured by Abelard and some members o f the school of Laon, with humanity as a garment that Christ wore, and the subsistence theory favoured by Gilbert de la Porrée, with the Word as a composite individual with three substances. Each theory had its problems, and the debate developed into a widespread controversy in the second half of the century. Peter Lombard, among other issues, took the stand that Christ assumed humanity but not a human person. Sent., Ill.ii.l. See Marcia Colish, Peter Lombard, (Leiden, New York, and Koln: E.J. Brill, 1994), 399-438, for a good summary o f all the issues involved. Hugh probably at some point became aware o f these disputes, for towards the end o f his career he was instead referring to either humanitas (Hugh, DeMem, 1.1 0 ,1304D, 1,11, 1305C), or natura humanitas (Ibid., III. 12,1324A) rather than homo.

entered into the debate about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son?® and at Matthew’s prompting even explained how Christ is not the son of the Holy Spirit although he was bom from him?® He also explained that the appearance of the Holy Spirit as a dove was merely a symbolic manifestation, as the rock in the desert was of Christ - the Holy Spirit did not actually become a dove or unite himself to one?^ He even found the opportunity to delve into a little ecclesiology under the heading of the Trinity, interpreting the unforgivable sin against the Floly Spirit as the refusal to believe in the Church’s power to absolve sins?*

Despite the highly philosophical content, Hugh was still loosely following the order of the Scriptures. Before he launched into various philosophical matters, he first noted a mention of the Trinity in the first few verses of Genesis. There he noted the presence of the Trinity with the Spirit of God hovering over the waters and the Son who attested in the Gospel of John that he was the beginning.®® The Father is he who makes, the Son is he tlirough whom the Father makes, and the Holy Spirit is the reason for which it was pleasing for all things to be made.’^® He further explained this division by

Ibid., 1.14, 1149C-50C.

^ He prepared the material to be born from Maiy’s flesh, but did not actually beget the substance himself: Ibid., 1.15,1150C-51A.

67 _{Ibid., 1.16,1151A-52D. See Augustine, De Trintate, II.2.11.}

^ Ibid., 1.17,1152D-54B. This is a more detailed treatment than St. Augustine gave in DeTrin.,

V.3.13.

69 _{Ibid., 1.1.1141C-42C; Gen. 1:1-2; Jn. 8:25.}

‘Pater enim est qui facit, Filius vero per quem facit, Spiritus sanctus causa est qua fieri omnia placuit.’ Ibid.

declaring that the Son is the Word through which the Father creates and orders creation?* The Holy Spirit’s role was in hovering over all creation, seeing that it was good, and being pleased with it?^ In a way, everything that followed in Book I could be seen as an unfolding of the implications of these statements, as well as various other topics loosely related to them. Years later, Hugh returned to the subject of the Trinity in Creation when writing In Hexaemeron, but there he simply treated the implications of plurality in the language of Genesis 1:1.^^ Only in the Dialogues did he treat the respective roles of the persons in the creative act.

In Book VII of the Dialogues, Hugh returned to the Trinity, embarking upon a more unusual investigation based on Augustine’s attempt to discover images of the Trinity in the mind. Augustine experimented with a few different Trinities, including the actions of loving,^"* seeing,^® and recollecting.^® Ultimately, he concluded that the only trinity that could actually be considered an image of God is that of the mind, created in the image and likeness of God. Hugh was bolder, asking why, if there is an image of the

Ibid., 1142C-43A. Most o f the Laon sentences ignored die respective roles o f the persons in Creation and only discussed the terminology. See Lottin, Laon, s. 236 (William o f Champeaux) and no. 282. SentDivPag., p. 7, briefly mentioned how all things were made fl'om the Father, through the Son, and fi-om the Holy Spirit.

Ibid., 1143A-B. This almost approaches Abelard’s division o f the Trinity into power, knowledge, and goodness. But Abelard also described the Holy Spirit as the divine charity in which creation was made rather than an end for whom it was made: Abelard, Theologia Christiana, m Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica, ed. Eligius M. Buytaert, vol. 2, CCCM 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969) 1.9-11; Theologia Scholarium, \n Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica, ed. Eligius M. BuytaeU and Constant J. Mews, vol. 3, CCCM 13 (Turnhout: Brepols 1987), I. 59-68. Peter Lombard also discussed how the Father worked in or through the Son and in the Holy Spirit in the creative act: Lombard, Sent, II.xiii.7-10.

Hugh, InHex., 1.6 (p. 240). See infra, chapter 7. Augustine, DeTrin., Book VIII.

” Ibid., XI, 2-4. Ibid., XI, 6-12.

Trinity in the mind, we cannot find signs of the Trinity throughout all of creation as well? In order to discover these resemblances, he first sought another example besides that of understanding, memory, and love, and he found it in the words of the Apostle Paul that referred to the knowledge of God that can be obtained through creation: ‘His invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood through the things that were made, as are his eternal power and divinity.Here he had a trinity, and he interpreted invisible things {invisibilid) as designating the procession of the Father from nothing, eternal power as an expression of Son as the wisdom of God disposing all things, and divinity as a description of the Holy Spirit as the charity by which God rules all things.^*

Hugh then turned again to the Scriptures for more inspiration and found it in the words: ‘You disposed all things in weight, and measure, and number.’^® These actions also showed a Trinity in God, with God’s knowledge counting all things while not being numbered, his power measuring all things without having any end, and the benevolent divinity of both weighing the universe while never being pulled himself.*® Hugh had some prompting from Augustine, who himself briefly mentioned the application of these verses to the action of sight, with number in the imiumerable objects to be understood, measure in the limits imposed upon these objects by the memory, and weight in the will for seeing and thinking, which seeks to achieve rest.** Augustine admitted, ‘I must

Hugh, Dial., VII.2, 1232A; Rom. 1:20. Ibid., 1232A-34A.

Ibid., V n .2 ,1234A; Sap. 11:21. Ibid., 1234A-B; VII.4-5, 1238A-40A. Augustine, De Dm., XI, 18.

confess I like to taste the pleasure of obseiving these things, measure, number, and weight, in all other matters as well.’*^

Hugh surely thought the same, and unlike Augustine, he let these categories lead his imagination through a host of different subjects. Adam exhibited justice when he numbered the trees of paradise by recognising them and measured the animals by naming them, but he sinned when he was drawn by the weight of cupidity rather than charity as he ate the forbidden fruit.*® All irrational spirits number by memory, measure by

affection, and weigh by cupidity.*"* Physical bodies have number in the multitude of their parts, measure in their quantity of parts, and weight in the attraction of their individual particles to their own proper elements.*® A progression of similar trinities continued, not always following this pattern of number, weight, and measure. They could be found in the senses, motion, the progression of time, the dispensations of salvation history, the senses of Scripture, the sacraments (number in variety, measure in consecration by priests, and weight in their eternal efficacy), and the ascent to God by means of the virtues put to use in the irrational world of animals and the rational world of the human soul.*®

Of the above trinities, one of the most interesting is that of the three senses of Scripture. Hugh divided them into the historical, the allegorical, and the moral senses, with the moral being the most perfect of the three. Even the unlearned can read and

Ibid.

Hugh, D ial, VII.3, 1236A-B. Ibid., VII.6,1240A-C. Ibid., VII.7,1240C-41 A. Ibid.,Vn.8-15,1241B-48B.

understand history, and only the truly learned can comprehend allegories. But all the faithful can discern morals, and it is through these morals that they develop an upright life. Although we can remember histories and understand allegories, if we do not have the maimers {mores) that come from morality, they are useless to us.*^ This unusual foray into the divisions of exegetical interpretation is valuable because it shows that Hugh, like many of his contemporaries, gave more importance to the practical, moral side of exegesis.

Throughout his myriad enquiries into the Trinity, Hugh repeatedly returned to an insistence that God remained one in Trinity and triune in unity, that he was wholly one and not separate beings. This conception of his helps to explain Hugh’s outrage at the Council of Paris in 1147 in response to the stance of Gilbert de la Porrée.** His hesitancy to push beyond the accepted boundaries of philosophical terminology placed Hugh in an opposing camp to that of more speculative individuals like Gilbert or Abelard. However, at the time of his Dialogues, he appears not yet to have known of the brewing storm over the ideas of either of these figures. He would soon have ample opportunity to learn more, as he entered upon a more active involvement in secular and ecclesiastical affairs with his appointment as archbishop.