AIMO (Latin Haymo, Haimo, Aimo, Hemmo), Bishop of Halberstadt. - B. around 778, d. 26 or 27 March 853.
According to some, his birthplace was in Eng-
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land or in France; but in all probability A. was born in Germany. He was a pupil at Fulda; around 802, together with Rabanus Maurus, he went to Tours, to the school of Alcuin. Having returned to Fulda, he was master of theology and chancellor of the monastery, so that many Fulda documents, especially from the years 815-20, were drafted and written in his own hand.
In 839 he was appointed (3rd) abbot of Hersfeld and in 841 (3rd) bishop of Halberstadt in Saxony. For that occasion, or shortly thereafter, Rabanus Maurus dedicated to him his encyclopedia De universo, advising him not to involve himself in secular affairs, but to devote himself entirely to the instruction and sanctification of the people (PL 111, 11-14).
A. was faithful to this rule. Devoted to study and to pastoral duties, he left his diocese only rarely: he went to Mainz (847) to attend the first provincial council, then (852 or 851) to take part in the national council of Germany.
He is celebrated by Rabanus Maurus as "iustitiae cultor et pietatis amator... decus Ecclesiae, plebis laus, gloria cleri": indeed the four poems of Rabanus ad praeclarum episcopum (PL 112, 1591-96) seem addressed to him. In some early printed editions he bears the title of saint.
Works. - "Vir undecunque doctissimus," writes Trithemius, A. was above all "divinarum Scripturarum interpres" (PL 116, 189). He commented on almost the whole Bible, but few of his works survive, and not all are authentic.
1. Explanatio in Psalmos, an edition of which was edited by Erasmus (Freiburg 1533; Cologne 1561), who calls A. "veluti spiritualis apicula," who "ex omnium veterum hortis ac pratis florentissimis decerpsit" his work, "quo simplicibus et occupatis esset parata saluberrimi mellis copia." The work, however, at least in its present text, is disputed as his; by some it is attributed to Haimo of Hirschau (d. 1107).
2. The commentary on the Psalms is followed by that on six Canticles of the Old Testament used in the office (the two of Moses, those of Hannah, Isaiah, Hezekiah and Habakkuk).
3. Commentariolum in Cantica Canticorum, which he interprets as an "epithalamium Christi et Ecclesiae": a disputed work.
4. Comm. in Isaiam libri tres: A. begins by explaining the intellectual nature of the prophetic "vision."
5. Enarratio in XII Prophetas Minores, in which he illustrates by preference the mysteries concerning Jesus Christ and the Church; probably the commentaries on Joel and Amos are not his.
6. In divi Pauli Epistolas expositio, attributed by some to St. Remigius of Lyon and by others, more probably, to Remigius of Auxerre: a fragment of ch. XIII of the commentary on Rom. passed, under the name of A., into the Corpus Iuris Canonici (Gratian's Decretum, Causa XXIII, q. V, cap. 39).
7. Expositionis in Apocalypsim libri septem, which many attribute to Remigius of Auxerre; everything in it is referred to the two spiritual cities: the society of the elect and that of the reprobate. It is almost an epitome of the commentaries of Ambrose Autpert (v.).
8. The Homilies on the Gospels de tempore et sanctis, and some on the Epistles of the Mass, are not yet critically established; the second part (from Easter to Advent) is attributed to Haimo of Hirschau.
In his commentaries, pious and moralizing, especially on the Psalms and the Song of Songs, A. follows the allegorical-mystical method. Although he makes use, especially in the writings on the prophets, of St. Jerome and others, he rises, as an exegete, above his contemporaries, since he does not limit himself to collecting texts of the Fathers, but expounds their thought with a certain originality.
There are also those who consider him the author of the Heliand (v.), a vast Saxon poem, probably of Fulda origin. A. has also left us an Epitome of ecclesiastical history down to the 4th century, in ten very brief books, extracted from Eusebius, Rufinus and others; and an ascetic opuscule in three books (the third eschatological): De amore caelestis patriae (called also by Trithemius, but less correctly, De varietate librorum), a work of patristic compilation, attributed by some to Haimo of Hirschau. Among his works there is furthermore an important little treatise, perhaps a fragment, De Corpore et Sanguine Domini, which Geiselmann, however, considers to be of the 11th century, perhaps by Haimo of Hirschau or even by Haimo of Telleis.
The writings of A. are collected in PL, vols. 116-18.