RTS Papers / Summer 2017
Substance and Signs in the Sentences of Peter Lombard
INTRODUCTION
Peter Lombard (1096 - 1160) was born in Novara in northwestern Italy. His last name really just means “the Lombard,” namely of that formerly barbarian people group who had settled into the region of the Italian peninsula with the dissolution of the Roman Empire. Although he was Italian he would make his mark in France, studying first at Reims, then finally in Paris by 1134. After winning the favor of Bernard of Clairvaux, he would teach at the cathedral school at Notre Dame, rubbing shoulders with the other great theologians of the time, Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor.
Although he would write commentaries on the Psalms and a few of Paul’s letters, it was his Sentences that would become a classic of theology. It is a remarkably bland title for the work that would become the standard for masters of theology in the following centuries. He saw this work as a defense of the faith by means of collecting the authoritative rulings of the Church Fathers and the Medieval Schoolmen. Where he saw insoluble conflict, his “determination” became his own authoritative ruling. The work is divided into four volumes, or books: 1. The Mystery of the Trinity, 2. On Creation, 3. On the Incarnation of the Word, and 4. On the Doctrine of Signs. In the thirteenth century, later editions of the books were divided into “Distinctions” for the purposes of the schools.
Although this work became standard, it was not without controversy. Peter raised the question of whether Christ’s human nature was “a person or anything.” This came under review at Tours in 1163. Pope Alexander spent the 1170s preventing the work from being spread as a result; although the Lateran Council of 1215 reversed the fortunes of the Sentences. It was already widely used in the schools by the time of Peter’s death and was made authoritative after 1215. It was not until the century between 1400 and 1500 that Aquinas’ Summa began to eclipse it; but even many of the Reformers had to study and lecture on the Sentences at the university.
In terms of another unique position, in Book 1, Dist. 17, the Holy Spirit is almost entirely equated to charity. So the Spirit is said to be the love of God. This is not without precedence. Hilary and Augustine had already said so. Edwards would later say the same. But the Lombard makes extensive use of the Scriptures in support of this view. That is another pleasant surprise of this work, as the Medieval authors are often broad-brushed as those who relied on syllogisms and allegories rather than the Bible. The criticism is generally true, yet Peter’s footnotes are filled with biblical references.
THESIS
One of the most obvious features of the Sentences is that no one is cited more than Augustine. What may lie hidden, especially if one is unfamiliar with the early church father’s work On Christian Doctrine, is the way in which Lombard appropriates the Augustinian distinction between a thing (res) and a sign (signa). A significant clue is given in the very first distinction. Peter is making a point about the proper ordering to all theology, from the most real to that which signifies it. Coupled to this way of approaching theology with the mind is a similar pairing between use and enjoyment with the whole soul. We may summarize the relationship in the following way.
All signs are also things; many things are also signs. Some things are to be enjoyed, others to be used, and others to be enjoyed and used. A thing enjoyed is loved for its own sake, while a thing used is toward a greater end (thing) to enjoy.
So both in signs and in use, all things drive upward to that which is the Cause of all things, namely toward the Trinity. Notice the direction of both of these trains of thought. Signs point beyond themselves, toward the Being. Uses serve as means beyond themselves, toward that End.
The upshot is this. When we trace the subject matter of the Sentences from its first to its fourth volumes, we are not surprised to move from the most real thing (res) to that which functions as a sign (signa). Sometimes this order is logical. For instance, creation of the world, angels, and men are treated prior to the Incarnation. That is standard in theology textbooks, not because the world and men are more real than Christ, but because understanding what a man is and what went wrong is foundational to understanding the reason for the God-Man.
Within each volume, some examples become easier to see. Not all of these can be reduced to “substance” and “sign” in the same way that the sacraments are. However for all of these relationships there is a more essential thing and then another thing that exists in a kind of signifying, or analogous, relationship to that more essential thing.
To give a few instances: The essence of God precedes the relationships of God to his creation. The Word precedes flesh. The intention of the heart precedes the virtuous (or vicious) action. Christ and the church precede earthly marriage. In each of these, the more essential thing precedes the thing that points back to it. Far from devaluing the signs on earth below, this ordering is what infuses the temporal appearances with all of their eternal significance. In I.1 he drops the explicit road marker by coming back to signs. He says that “Before we treat of signs, we must discuss all of these, and first the things which are to be enjoyed, namely the holy and undivided Trinity.” So this whole discussion of things and signs on the one hand, and use and enjoyment on the other, was Peter’s way of setting up the structure of the four books.
Why would such a study benefit theologians and the church today? In our day there is a noticeable backlash against “Platonic” forms of theologizing, by which is meant any privileging of the immaterial and eternal realm over the material and temporal. We must admit that there is a Gnostic impulse that typifies so many false spiritualities. However it seems that there has been an anti-intellectual overreaction to this that has pulled much of classical Christian theology down from the heavens along with all those pagans.
Lombard’s Sentences would teach us, among other things, that doctrinal order matters. And that order begins and ends with the things of eternity. Even if various Greek notions of the scale of being were wrong, it does not follow that there is no ultimate hierarchy in things. The logic of the Sentences insists that there is. Of course this is made most explicit in Book IV in his doctrine of signs.
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