PETER LOMBARD. - Theologian and bishop, called the Master of the Sentences, b. at Novara at the end of the 11th century, d. at Paris on 21 (or 22) July 1160.
I. LIFE
His life is little known. Of humble origins, he was recommended by St. Bernard (Ep., 410: PL 182,619; vir venerabilis) to the canons of St. Victor of Paris, where he arrived around 1135-36, after a brief stay at Reims. A few years later (ca. 1142-43) he is mentioned by Gerhoh of Reichersberg among the best-known commentators of St. Paul (Libellus de ordine donorum Spiritus Sancti, in MGH, Libelli de lite, III, Hannover 1897, p. 275); it is therefore to be held that P. L. already occupied a Parisian chair, probably at Nôtre Dame. His prestige must have grown very soon if in 1148 he was numbered among the magistri scolares who, with Pope Eugene III, judged the theological doctrine of Gilbert de la Porrée at the Council of Reims (John of Salisbury, Historia pontificalis, ch. 8; ed. Poole, Oxford 1927, p. 17). In a manuscript of Bamberg a gloss, attributed to Peter of Poitiers (v.), alludes to a journey of P. L. to Rome, which certainly took place in 1151-52, since on 19 Jan. 1152 Eugene III, in a letter to Henry bishop of Beauvais, recommends the lator praesentium, that is, «magister Petrus» (PL 180, 1488-89). Elected bishop of Paris toward the end of June 1159, he died the following year. An unknown annotator of the chronicle of Robert of Torigni gave the new bishop this eulogy: «Magister Petrus Lombardus, vir magnae scientiae et super Parisiensium doctores admirabilis» (MGH, Scriptores, VI, p. 509).
II. MINOR WORKS
In Psalmos davidicos commentarii (PL 191, 55-1296), also called Glossae continuae or Glossae Psalterii, probably written before 1140: an explanation of individual verses, gathered from the Latin Fathers, with a strong tendency toward allegorism; Collectanea in omnes Divi Pauli epistolas (a work printed under this title by J. Bade [Paris 1535] and reproduced by Migne [PL 191, 1297-1696; 192, 9-520]), but commonly called Maiores glossae epistolarum or Magna Glossatura; drafted before 1142-43 (according to van den Eynde between 1138 and '40), it enjoyed wide diffusion, although it is no more original than the preceding one; the author, however, introduced into it a new method: the insertion of quaestiones theologicae at the verses that provided the occasion for them: this work therefore is to be regarded as the immediate preparation for the book of Sentences (cf. C. Spicq, Esquisse d'une histoire de l'exégèse latine, Paris 1944, pp. 125-27); Sermones: according to the research of B. Hauréau (Notice sur les sermons attribués à Hildebert de Lavardin, in Notice et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale, 32 b [1888], pp. 107-166) there were about thirty festal discourses, scattered among those of Hildebert of Lavardin and of Peter Comestor (PL 171, 339-964); they belong to the genre of scholastic oratory, with artificial divisions (always tripartite) and with exaggerated allegorism; for the rest they reveal the piety and doctrine of the author. For other doubtful or spurious works cf. De Ghellinck, in DThC, XII, coll. 1974-78.
III. THE « BOOK OF SENTENCES »
The true title is Libri IV Sententiarum. The work, probably begun around 1148, was brought to completion in 1151-52 (cf. F. Pelster, Wan hat Petrus Lombardus die « Libri IV Sententiarum » vollendet?, in Gregorianum, 2 [1921], pp. 387-92) and considerably reworked in the following years: it has been held, perhaps wrongly, that the author prepared a second edition of it.
The Sentences were the work that had the most manuscripts and editions after the Bible: 20 incunabula are counted; printed for the first time at Strasbourg (ca. 1471), after 1500 it had numerous other editions (e.g., PL 191, 521-962), down to the critical edition, edited by the Friars Minor (2 vols., Quaracchi 1916) with valuable historical prolegomena.
The division into books and capitula is original, the distinciones instead were introduced later and with criteria that were not always consistent, so that significant differences are noted in individual commentators (cf., e.g., P. Philippe, Plan des Sentences de Pierre Lombard d'après st Thomas, Juvisy s. d.). The four-part division of the work is founded on a passage of St. Augustine (De doctrina christiana, I, chaps. 2 and 4: PL 34, 19-20) that treats of res and signa. Liber I: res quibus fruendum: Trinity and unity of God, distinciones 48; Liber II: res quibus utendum: Creation and Grace, distinciones 44; Liber III: res quae fruuntur et utuntur: Incarnation, Redemption, theological virtues, commandments (only to this last part can the division be applied, since men and Angels fruuntur et utuntur), novissimi, distinciones 40; Liber IV: signa, quae adhibentur in significando: Sacraments of the Old and the New Law, distinciones 50. The Augustinian starting point that surfaces here and there, not exploited in such a way as to constitute the deep unity of the entire theological system, imposes a purely external framework on the immense material; thus in the fictitious schema there is no place either for the De vera religione (whose elements were extensively elaborated in the anti-Jewish polemic) or for the De Ecclesia (which the canonists especially had treated) and the questions, many times not linking up with real articulation, follow one another artificially. Nevertheless P. L. is superior to the 4 schools that preceded him (Anselmian, Abelardian, Victorine, Porretan) for the logical order of the questions and for the completeness of the program (especially as regards the Sacraments and the Novissimi).
P. L. is a great compiler and egregius sententiarum collector (Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Liber de gloria et honore Filii hominis, chap. 19: PL 194, 1143), who draws extensively from the Fathers, indirectly (through the catenae) and directly (for St. Augustine, St. John Damascene [he makes use of the translation made by Burgundio of Pisa in 1150, by order of Eugene III] and perhaps for St. Hilary) and from his immediate predecessors (Anselm of Laon, Abelard, Summa Sententiarum, Hugh of St. Victor, Gratian's Decretum and also the Glossa of Walafrid Strabo); his choice, however, is wise, obeys a clearly conceived design; he chooses, even in apparent indecision, and advances between the unbridled dialecticians (Abelard) and the tenacious conservatives (Anselm of Laon and Hugh of St. Victor); rejecting the garruli ratiocinatores (also called scrutatores, dialectici, elatores) he avoids the reef of rationalism, but also guards against that kind of fideism, widespread in various quarters, which was the necessary counterpart of the bold innovations of the dialecticians; eclectic in philosophy (which he uses to the extent that the status quaestionis requires), thoroughly informed of the theological movement of the time, he keeps in mind all opinions (set forth with that bare quidam dicunt, quaeri solet).
Thus P. L., perhaps inferior in talent to his contemporaries, knew how to surpass them in patient systematic work, in the completeness of the treatment, in the balance of his stance, in the orthodoxy of his doctrine. Indeed the book of Sentences, after violent and prolonged attacks (in three moments: 1163-77: John of Cornwall and Gerhoh of Reichersberg; 1179: Walter of St. Victor; 1215: the disciples of Gilbert of Poitiers and of Joachim of Fiore) and after partial condemnations (1179), obtained a verdict of orthodoxy from Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council and with that penetrated into all theological schools, was commented on by the greatest masters (St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas: cf. J. Stegmüller, Repertorium commentariorum in Sententias Petri Lombardi, Würzburg 1949) and presided over the scientific elaboration of Catholic theology.
Bibliography5 works
Antonio Piolanti