We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
The treatise De area Noe morali by Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) contains a short but significant piece of literal exegesis concerning Noah's Ark. This seemingly slight example of Victorine exegesis is of considerable intrinsic merit for in it Hugh ventured to criticize an accepted exegetical “authority” and offered in its place his own interpretation of the passage. It is the purpose of this article to examine Hugh's criticism of the traditional exegesis and his positive contributions through the correlation of reason, auctoritas, and a fresh examination of the literal sense of Genesis VI.
1. Book I, chaps. 12 and 13, MPL 176:626D-629D. Referred to hereafter as A. mor. English trans. in Hugh of St. Victor: Selected Spiritual Writings, trans. by a Religious of C.S.M.V., intro, By Aelred Squire (London, 1962), pp. 60–63Google Scholar. Hereafter references will be by book and chapter as divided in the Eng. trans. (not Migne), then to the Migne column, and the page of the trans. cited as C.S.M.V. The English trans. includes portions missing in the Migne text. The Latin text of these passages may be found in Mierow, C. C., “A Description of Manuscript Garrett Deposit 1450, Princeton University Library, Together with a Collation of the First Work Contained in It, the De Arca Noe of Hugo de Sancto Victore,” Transactions of the American Library Institute for 1917 (Chicago, 1918), pp. 27–55.Google Scholar
2. In Gen., vii, MPL 175:46D-47A: “De compositione arcae … diversae sunt opiniones.” For the chief opinions, cf. Origen, , In Gen. homil., IIGoogle Scholar; and Augustine, , De civ. Dei, XV, 27Google Scholar; Contra Faustum, XII, 22Google Scholar; and Quaest in Hept., I, 4.Google Scholar
3. Ibid.: “De compositione arcae utrum in imo lata fuerit et semper usque ad summum surgens stringeretur magis ac magis, an parietes surrexerint aequaliter in summo, vel etiam plus quam in imo a se distantes, et in tecto tantum fuerit cacuminata diversae sunt opiniones.” In suggesting that the walls may rise vertically or that they may slope outward, is Hugh suggesting a hull by the latter possibility?
4. A. mor., I, 1, MPL 176:617/618, C.S.M.V., p. 45Google Scholar: “Knowing, however, that some points in the discussion particularly pleased the brethren, I felt impelled to commit those to writing, …”
5. Ibid., chap. 12, cols. 626D-629D, pp. 60–63.
6. Cf. Didascalicon, Bk. VI, esp. chaps. 1–3, and 8–10; critical text in Buttimer, C. H., ed., Hugonis de Sancto Victore: Didascalicon: De studio legendi (“The Catholic University of America Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin,” Vol. X; Washington, D.C., 1939), pp. 113 ff. and 125 ff.Google Scholar; trans. Taylor, J., The “Didascalicon” of Hugh of St. Victor, (“Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies,” No. LXIV; New York, 1961), pp. 135 ffGoogle Scholar. and 147 ff. Cited hereafter as Did., with text as Butt., and trans. as Tay.
7. Described in A. mor., I, 12, MPL 176:627A-627C, C.S.M.V., p. 61.Google Scholar
8. Cf., e.g., A. mor., IV, 6, 10, 17–18, MPL 176:667A-669C, 671B-671C, 677A-678D, C.S.M.V., pp. 128 f., 136, 146–49Google Scholar. Also, De area Noe mystica, chaps. III and IV, MPL 176:685A-691B. On this topic, cf. Chenu, M.-D., La théologie an douzième siècle (“Études de phiosophie médiévaie, Vol. XLV; Paris, 1957), chap. 3Google Scholar; cited hereafter as Chenu, TDS; also Schneider, W. A., Geschichte und Geschichtsphilosophie bei Hugo von St. Victor (Münstersche Beiträge zu Geschiehtsforschung, III. Folge II. Heft; Münster, 1933).Google Scholar
9. Cf. de Lubac, H., Exégèse médiévale: Les quatre sens de l'Ecriture (2 vols. in 4; “Théologie,” Vols. XLI, XLII, LIX; Paris, 1959-1962), II, i, p. 321, with refs.Google Scholar
10. A. mor., I, 12, MPL 176:626D, C.S.M.V., p. 60Google Scholar. From Origen, , In gen. homil., II, MPG 12:162Google Scholar (interprete Rufino).
11. Cf. Delisle, L., in Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes, Tome cinquième, sixième série (1869), pp. 1–79Google Scholar, where the collection of Victorine MSS in the Bibliothéque Nationale is catalogued. Included is MS BN 14286, Origen on the Old Testament, dated by Delisle as a twelfth century MS. Homilies and other commentaries by Origen exist among the other twelfth-century MSS from St. Victor now in the Bibliothèque.
12. For Richard, cf. Prologus in visionem Ezechielis, MPL 196: 527–28, and the comments in Smalley, Beryl, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (2nd ed.; Oxford, 1952), pp. 106 ffGoogle Scholar. For Rupert cf. his comments in De sancta trinitate et operibus ejus, epistola, MPL 167:193 ff., and also Smalley, p. 125, and Spicq, S., Esquisse d'une histoire de l'exégèse latine au moyen age (“Bibliothèque Thomiste,” Vol. XXVI; Paris, 1944), p. 74Google Scholar. For Andrew, cf. Smalley, pp. 120 ff. and the Prologue to the Prophets which she has printed in the Appendix, pp. 375 ff.
On auctoritas in the twelfth century, cf. Chenu, M.-D., TDS, pp. 353–57Google Scholar, and Pare, G., Brunet, A., and Tremblay, P., La renaissance du XIIe siècle: les écoles et l'enseignement (“Publications de l'Institut d'Études Méédiévales d'Ottawa,” Vol. III; Paris-Ottawa, 1933), pp. 147 ff.Google Scholar
13. Cf. De sacramentis christianae fidei, I, i, 2–3, MPL 176: 187C-189CGoogle Scholar; trans. Deferrari, pp. 8 f., for the rejection of Augustine. For faithfulness to Augustine, cf. Hugh's retention of ignorance and concupiscence as equal results of the Fall. In the twelfth century other major writers began to stress concupiscence and neglect ignorance: Cf. Lottin, O., Psychologie et Morale au XIIe et XIIIe sièces (6 vols.; Louvain, 1942-1960), IV, 58 ff. and 73Google Scholar, on the School of Anselm of Laon and William of Champeaux, and on Peter the Lombard.
14. “Many things seem to refute this [Origen's] view; for one thing, this shape does not appear such as would keep afloat.” A. mor., I, 12, MPL 176:626D-627A, C.S.M.V., p. 60.Google Scholar
15. A. mor., I, 12, MPL 176:627A, C.S.M.V., p. 60.Google Scholar
16. “For it is indisputable that so massive a structure, laden with so many and such large animals, and also with provisions, could not possibly keep afloat when the waters came, unless the greater portion of its bulk were at the bottom (ut non ex magna parte sui deorsum premeretur); …” Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Cf. De civ. Dei, XV, 27.Google Scholar
19. Box-like Arks also appear in catacomb art, cf. infra, n. 33.
20. De civ. Dei, XV, 27Google Scholar, trans. Dods, Marcus, The City of God (New York, 1950), p. 518.Google Scholar
21. Cf. Angelome of Luxueil, commenting on Gen. 6:14, MPL 115: 156BC; also the Glossa ordinaria for the same verse, MPL 113:105BC. Both note that quadrata ligna is a variant translation. Angelome cites the Biblical text as “de lignis laevigatis,” interpreting this to mean “strong and impervious wood,” before giving his interpretation of quadrata ligna.
22. A mor., I, 12 and 13, MPL 176:627 ff., C.S.M.V., pp. 60 ffGoogle Scholar. All following references and quotations relating to Hugh's exegesis in the treatise come from these two chapters.
23. In a passage which also does not cite authority, Hugh “solves” the problem of what to do with the animals which can live neither continually in the water nor continually out of it. The problem had been raised, but not solved, in the Pseudo-Augustinian, treatise, De Mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae, I, 5, MPL 34:2156Google Scholar; cf. Smalley, , Study of the Bible, p. 96, n. 4.Google Scholar
24. Cf. Raban Maur, Comm. in Gen., MPL 107: 541D; Angelome of Luxeuil, Comm in Gen., MPL 115:157B.
25. A. mor., I, 12, MPL 176:627B, C.S.M.V., p. 61.Google Scholar
26. Cf. the excellent essay by Chenu, M.-D., “La nature et l'homme. La Renaissance du XIIe siècle,” in TDS, pp. 19–51.Google Scholar
27. Philosophia mundi, ii, praef. and 3, MPL, 172, 57–8. Cited by Chenu, , TDS, p. 26, n. 3.Google Scholar
28. On Hugh's attitude toward William of Conches and the platonizing idealism of the School of Chartres, cf. Chenu, , TDS, pp. 21 ffGoogle Scholar., and Taylor, J., Didascalicon, intro., pp.. 19–28, and pp. 227, n. 3.Google Scholar
29. On Andrew's exegesis, cf. Smalley, Study of the Bible, chap. IV.
30. MS BN Lat. 14432, fol. 38a. Text in Smalley, , Study of the Bible, pp. 388, 1. 39–389, 1. 2; trans. p. 144.Google Scholar
31. A useful but incomplete survey of the artistic tradition is found in Allen, Don Cameron, The Legend of Noah: Renaissance Rationalism in Art, Science and Letters (“Illinois Studies in Language and Literature,” Vol. XXXIII, nos. 3–4; Urbana, Ill., 1949), pp. 155 ff.Google Scholar
32. Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétiene et de liturgie, I, ii, 2711Google Scholar. Cited hereafter as DACL. My preliminary investigations in the MSS collections of the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, and the Index of Christian Art indicate the absence of “realism” before about the twelfth century. The Ark floating on the waters of the Flood as depicted in the pseudo-Caedmon Bible paraphrase (11th century) is an interesting case. It has a hull, but the superstructure is very fanciful and ornate. The tri-level structure is so tall as to render the Ark very top heavy and untrue to the biblical proportions. Cf. Bodleian Library, MS Junius ll, fols. 65, 66, 68. Cf. Henderson, George, “Late Antique Influences in Some English Medieval Illustrations of Genesis,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXV (1962), 172–198CrossRefGoogle Scholar, es. pecially his comment that “the kind of source from which this material [the Ark floating on the Flood] was borrowed still remains obscure.’
33. Cf. the survey in DACL, I, ii, 2709 ff.Google Scholar, and Lowrie, W., Art in the Early Church (New York, 1947), PP. 84 ffGoogle Scholar. Classical art furnished some precedent for the box-like structure. “Precisely such a box as we see in the catacombs was used … to tell the story of Danaë and Perseus set adrift in the sea, or of Deucalion and Pyrrha in the Greek myth of the flood.” Lowrie, p. 84. For illus. of Danaë and Perseus, cf. DACL, I, ii, fig. 925. The Septuagint used “box” to describe the Ark, also.
34. Cf. the summary of critical studies of the MS in Wellesz, E., The Vienna Genesis (New York, 1960), with pl. of the Ark in the floodwaters, p. 23Google Scholar. Cf. DACL, VI, i, 927–35Google Scholar, with pl. of Ark at rest and Noah offering a sacrifice.
35. Cf. DACL, I, ii, 2971–2974Google Scholar, with refs, there, and the p1. opp. cols. 2971 f.
36. De bapt., VIII, MPL 1:1317Google Scholar. Cf. Danielou, J., From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers (London, 1960), pp. 98 ffGoogle Scholar. For the development of the typological/allegorical interpretation of the Ark from the period of the Old Testament, through the Rabbis, and into the Christian tradition, cf. Danielou, pp. 169–212; also DACL, I, ii, 2709 ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Lewis, J. P., A Study of the Interpretation of Noah and the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature (Leiden, 1968).Google Scholar
37. Cf. Boeckler, A., Die Regensburg-Prüfeiniger Buchmalerei des XII. und XIII. Jahrhunderts (“Miniaturen aus Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München,” Vol. VIII; München, 1924), Taf. XXVII, Abb. 31, and text p. 35.Google Scholar
38. Legend of Noah, p. 159, n. 81.
39. Ibid., pp. 157 ff. For the St. Savin frescoes, cf. Ehrenstein, T., Dos Alte Testament im Bilde (Wien, 1932), chap. IV, fig. 28Google Scholar; for Monréale, Ibid., figs. 20–24, and Kitzinger, E., The Mosaics of Monréale (Palermo, 1960), figs. 23–25Google Scholar. Kitzinger dates the beginning of the work on the cathedral shortly after 1171.
40. Allen, , Legend of Noah, pp. 159 ffGoogle Scholar., with refs. there. The Gerona Beatus MS is the late tenth century.
41. Cf. Ehrenstein, Das Alte Test., chap. IV, fig. 50.
42. Allen, , Legend of Noah, espouses both positions; cf. pp. 72 and 157.Google Scholar
43. To mention only several of the most striking: the six days of creation depicted on six discs placed vertically; the figure of Christ in majesty embracing the machina universitatis; the use of ladders accompanied by personified virtues and vices. The author is presently engaged in a study of the iconography of the treatise.
44. On these and other exegetical problems, cf. Skinner, J., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (2nd ed.; Edinburgh, 1930), 160 and note.Google Scholar
45. H. de Lubac so dismisses Hugh's exegesis; cf. Exégése médiévale, II, i, 321.Google Scholar
46. This is one of the major points made by Smalley, Study of the Bible. The most recent study of Hugh's commentaries is Pollitt, H. P., “Hugh of St. Victor as Biblical Exegete” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Sheffield, England, 1960).Google Scholar
47. Cf. de Lubac, , EM, I, ii, 425–439Google Scholar, for a comprehensive survey of this thematic statement.
48. Did., I, 5 and 8, Butt. pp. 12 and 15 f.; Tay., pp. 52 and 54 f. Ship-building would appear to be part of “armament”; cf. Ibid., II, 22; Butt., pp. 40f. and Tay., p. 76. The necessity of a peaked roof to “safely discharge the weight of pouring rains” is, according to Hugh, a conclusion drawn by the builder who has observed in nature that “ridges of mountains retain no water.” Ibid., I, 9; Butt., pp. 16 f.; Tay, p. 56.
49. TDS, p. 48, n. 2.
50. Cf. De sacramentis christianae fidei, prologue, v and vi, MPL 176:185, Deferrari, p. 5Google Scholar. Also, Baron, R., Science et sagesse chez Hugues de Saint-Victor, pp. 83–91.Google Scholar
51. Cf. De scripturis et seriptoribus sacris, XVIII, MPL 175:25–28. This chapter is missing in some MSS of De script. It is found sometimes as an independent fragment or associated with Hugh's Chronicon. Cf. Baron, R., “Hugues de Saint-Victor: Contribution a un nouvel examen de son oeuvre,” Traditio, XV (1959), pp. 253 ffGoogle Scholar., and “La Chronique de Hugues de Saint-Victor,” Studia Gratiana, XII (1967), pp. 169 f.Google Scholar
52. Cf. text of introduction to the Chronicon and summary of tables in Green, W. M., “(Hugo of St. Victor: De tribus circumstantiis maximis gestorum,” Speculum, XVIII (1943), 484–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Baron, “La chronique.”
53. On Hugh's use of the Hebrew text and also Jewish exegesis derived from the school of Rashi, cf. Smalley, , Study of the Bible, pp. 97–106Google Scholar, and Hailperin, H., Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh, 1963), PP. 105–111.Google Scholar
54. Cf. Did., VI, 9 and 10Google Scholar; Butt., p. 128; Tay., p. 147–49. “You find many things of this sort in the Scriptures, and especially in the Old Testament–things said according to the idiom of that language and which, although they are clear in that tongue, seem to mean nothing in our own” (p. 149).
55. On the Notulae, cf. Smalley, , Study of the Bible, pp. 97 ff.Google Scholar; also Pollitt, cited supra, n. 46.
56. Cf. De doct. chr., II, 18.28Google Scholar; 28.48; and 40.60, in particular. In II, 28.48 Augustine specifically takes up the usefulness for the Christian of history as taught in classical schools.
57. On Augustine's attitude toward classical culture, cf. Cochrane, C. N., Christianity and Classical Culture (New York, 1957), pp. 392 ff.Google Scholar, and Marrou, H.-I., Saint-Augustin et la fin de la culture antique (Paris, 1949).Google Scholar
58. Cf. Smalley, , Study of the Bible, p. 102Google Scholar: “His great service to exegesis was to lay more stress on the literal interpretation relatively to the spiritual, and to develop the sources for it.”
59. Cf. Chenu, , TDS, p. 205Google Scholar; cf. also Wasselynek, R., “L'influence des Moralia in Job de S. Grégoire le Grand sur la théologie morale entre le VIIe et le XIIe siècle” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Lille, Faculté de théologic, 1956), esp. conclusions, pp. 201–06Google Scholar. The development of an excessive “allegorical mentality” is wrongly ascribed to Gregorian influence by Smalley, , study of the Bible, p. 95Google Scholar, and Spicq, C., Esquisse, p. 42.Google Scholar
60. Cf. such an assertion by Lubac, de, Exégèse médiévale, I, ii, 425 ff.Google Scholar; II, i, 199 ff.
61. Cf. Smalley, Spieq, and Chenu, cited supra; in the case of praetice their views hold against de Lubac, EM, passim.
62. Cf. Wasselynck, R., “L'influence,” esp. pp. 129 ffGoogle Scholar. Also, idem, “Les compilations des ‘Moralia in Job” du VIIe au XIIe siècle,’ RTAM, XXIX (1962), 5–32. For text of William of Champeaux's abbreviation of the commentary on Job 1:1, cf. Wasselynek, , “L'influence,” pp. 369 ffGoogle Scholar. The work, Liber florum moralium, has never been edited. It is MS Troyes 935.
63. Book VI, chap. 10, Butt., pp. 126 ff., Tay., pp. 148 f.
64. Translated by Jerome in Translatio homilarum Origenis in visiones Isaiae, Homil. III, MPL 24:910 ff. Cited Tay., Did., p. 225, n. 49.
65. Cf. Comm. in Isaiam proph., II, iv, MPL 24:260.
66. Cf. De eccl. officibus, MPL 105:1036B.
67. Cf. MPL 113:1240D.
68. Smalley, , Study of the Bible, p. 187.Google Scholar
69. Ibid., p. 97. Miss Smalley, however, identifies the drawing in De area Noe mystica with the literal exegesis of De area Noc morali. This is not possible, for the drawing is of a three-storied, pyramidal Ark. Cf. A. mor., I, 13, MPL 176:629CD, C.S.M.V., p. 63Google Scholar, where Hugh explains why he has not drawn the five-storied, house-on-a-hull Ark. De Lubae's criticism of Smalley's position in EM, II, i, pp. 317–28Google Scholar, is also vitiated by a misunderstanding of the relationship of the literal exegesis to the drawing. The point requires more comment, which I hope to offer elsewhere.
