ALCHER OF CLAIRVAUX (Alcherus; less accurate Alcherio or Alchiero). - Cistercian monk of Clairvaux, where he was a disciple of St. Bernard. Little is known of his life: he seems to have died around 1180. To satisfy a doubt of his concerning the intimate and mysterious union of the soul with the body, Isaac of Stella (v.) addressed to him the epistle or treatise De anima (PL 194, 1875-90). Peter of Celle (v.) sent him the book De conscientia (PL 202, 1083-98) in answer to his question "quid sit bona conscientia" (PL 202, 1089). Only from these writings can elements be gleaned that define the spiritual physiognomy of A.: a scholar and lover of "physics," that is, of medicine and the natural sciences (cf. PL 194, 1882), and a pious and diligent compiler (cf. PL 202, 1089). On account of these characteristics of his, certain opuscules, previously circulating under the names of St. Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor and others, are attributed to him.
I. Foremost among all of them is the De Spiritu et Anima (PL 40, 779-832: in the appendix to the works of St. Augustine), a treatise on psychology that summarizes the whole preceding tradition, following Augustine, Gennadius, Cassiodorus, Bede, Alcuin, Boethius, Hugh of St. Victor, Isaac of Stella and others. Composed around 1160 and circulated anonymously, it soon passed under the name of St. Augustine, thus becoming a century later — especially with regard to the simplicity of the soul — a veritable battleground in the theological struggles between the representatives of the Platonic-Augustinian current and those of the Aristotelian current. The former attributed it to St. Augustine and defended its authenticity, adducing it as an "auctoritas"; the latter attributed it instead to a Cistercian monk, who for some was a certain William, "qui multa falsa dixit": thus Albert the Great (In I Sent., d. 8, a. 25, ad 1), who in his Sum. Theol. cites the opuscule about thirty times. Thomas Aquinas too cites it often, in his many works, for polemical reasons; but, whereas in the commentary on the Sentences he places it under the name of Augustine, in the Sum. Theol. he uses the anonymous formula: "Sicut dicitur in libro de Spiritu et Anima"; noteworthy is what he states in IV Sent.: "Ad primum dicendum, quod liber ille negatur a quibusdam esse Augustini: dicitur enim fuisse cuiusdam cistercensis qui eum ex dictis Augustini compilavit et quaedam de suo addidit" (d. 44, q. 3, a. 3, sol. II, ad 1). Therefore, if in some edition of the works of St. Thomas, such as that of Fretté (published by L. Vivès of Paris), the name of A. has entered the text, this does not conform to the manuscripts, which instead of Alcherus have Augustinus (cf. In IV Sent., d. 44, q. 1, a. 2, quaestiuncula 3, Sed contra, in the cited ed. of Fretté, XI, Paris 1874, p. 300).
As for the use of this writing in controversial questions, the Angelic Doctor concludes: "Nec multum curandum de his quae in eo dicuntur" (De Anima, a. 12, ad 1), since "liber ille auctoritatem non habet: unde quod ibi scriptum est, eadem facilitate contemnitur, qua dicitur" (Sum. Theol., I, q. 77, a. 8, ad 1).
In any case, this opuscule was dear to St. Bonaventure, who under the name of St. Augustine cites it about fifty times (cf. Opera omnia, X, Quaracchi 1902, p. 269, col. 3). From this same opuscule (chaps. 17, 49 and 50) were extracted, toward the end of the 12th century, the first two paragraphs of Meditation VII in the series of Meditationes attributed to St. Anselm (PL 158, 709-820).
A. Wilmart, examining the many manuscripts of the De Spiritu et Anima (in the English libraries alone he counted about sixty), is of the opinion that the work was originally conceived in three books: this would explain the principal differences among the manuscripts. The first to attribute the opuscule to A. was, in the modern age, the Benedictine P. Coustant (Admonitio in libr. de Spir. et Anima: PL 40, 779).
II. De diligendo Deo, also published by Coustant in the appendix to the works of St. Augustine (PL 40, 847-64): a book, in Erasmus's judgment, "pious and not devoid of erudition." The thoughts of which it is composed are drawn in large part from Hugh of St. Victor, St. Bernard and St. Anselm. Vincent of Beauvais (Speculum nat., XXIII, 1) cites it under the name of Peter Comestor (v.); but the Benedictines prefer to consider it A.'s.
III. The same Benedictines (Coustant and the Maurists, authors of the Histoire Litt. de la France) also attribute other opuscules to A.:
1. The Manuale, which appears in the appendix to the works of Augustine (PL 40, 951-68), compiled from extracts of Augustine, Cyprian, Gregory the Great, Hugh of St. Victor, etc.: an opuscule famous in the Middle Ages, which Wilmart — noting how from it derives the XIV of the Meditations attributed to St. Anselm — believes was composed by a pious compiler at the beginning of the 13th century.
2. The Soliloquiorum animae ad Deum liber unus, also in the appendix to the works of St. Augustine (PL 40, 863-98): dependent on the Augustinian writings and on Hugh of St. Victor; not to be confused with the authentic Soliloquies of Augustine.
3. The Liber Meditationum, likewise in the appendix to Augustine (PL 40, 901-42).
These three works still enjoy wide diffusion, both in Latin and in the modern languages, under the name of St. Augustine.
4. Book I and Book III of the De Anima, published in the appendix to the works of Hugh of St. Victor (PL 177, 165): books which correspond, the first to the Meditationes piissimae de cognitione humanae conditionis (PL 184, 485-508), and the third to the treatise De interiori domo, seu de conscientia aedificanda (PL 184, 507-52): writings, these, published in the appendix to the works of St. Bernard.
However, it must be borne in mind that to guarantee all these attributions in favor of A., there still lacks — in the present state of our knowledge concerning the manuscript tradition of these opuscules — any positive argument.
Finally, we do not know whether A. satisfied the desire of Isaac of Stella, who in his epistle De anima begged him to write to him about the "structure of the human body"; it is thought that at least the opuscule De Spiritu et Anima was a consequence of it.
Bibliography7 works
Igino Cecchetti