SENTENCES, COMMENTARIES ON. – The textbook in the Faculty of Theology during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was the Bible, the “sacred page,” from which the regent master “read” whichever book he chose. The bachelor, on the other hand, to whom the master entrusted a large part of his teaching and responsibility, commented to the younger students on the four books of the S. Pietro Lombardo (v.).
The statutes of the Faculty of Paris made this obligatory, and all the other universities followed its example. No one could attain the mastership or obtain the “licentia docendi” without having carried out this assignment to the satisfaction of the students and the master, who acted as its guarantor. The S. thus became the book, or the “Scriptum,” “in Scripto,” and Pietro Lombardo became “the master.” The importance of the text continued to increase as the masters, taking less interest in their teaching, placed excessive reliance on their bachelor and as initiation into theology consisted above all in studying an entire work, rather than in capricious commentaries on different books. It is therefore necessary to refer to the commentaries on that text if one wishes to follow the various phases of theological thought; all the more because each commentary neglected none of the theological problems and because the number that has survived is very large. In F. Stegmüller’s Repertorium there are 1,407 entries, even if not all of them, perhaps, are genuine commentaries and not all are complete; this figure gives an idea of the importance of the material available, most of it still unpublished.
The work of Pietro Lombardo was only one among the many attempts to bring together, in a complete and organic treatment, all the problems discussed in theology. Other works are known, both earlier and later, with the same character, from Abelardo, Ugo di S. Vittore, Rolando Bandinelli, and Gandolfo di Bologna, through the Sententiae Parisienses, Florianenses, Sententiae Divinitatis, the Summa Sententiarum Roberto di Melun (v.), Pietro di Poitiers (v.), etc. But Pietro Lombardo’s prevailed over the others because of its clear and logical exposition, its well-chosen and abundant patristic documentation, and the balance of its solutions. The interest of the commentaries on the S. derives both from the common element offered by the textbook to which all had to refer and from the relatively broad field granted to individual thought and initiative; consequently, through the individual books, their respective authors are revealed, together with the movement of theological thought, whose various currents become apparent, especially when grouped according to the different schools and compared in their chronological succession.
According to the statutes of the University, each bachelor sententiarius read all the books of Lombardo in two years, but from the middle of the fourteenth century, it seems, this was done in one year. The dates for the inauguration of each book were also fixed; its “principium” was celebrated with a kind of solemn feast, especially that of the first book (between the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and S. Dionigi); the second took place at the beginning of January, the third at the beginning of March, and the fourth at the beginning of May. Generally, Pietro Lombardo’s order was followed; quite often, however, for various reasons, it could be changed. Thus, for example, Pietro Aureolo read Books I and IV in 1316–17 and Books II and III in the following year; Duns Scoto also happened to read Books I and IV in the same academic year. S. Bonaventura had read Book IV before Book III. S. Alberto M. seems to have read Books I and III, then II and IV. The four books were supposed to be read in their entirety, without dwelling on certain particular questions, which would have required too much time, as many were tempted to do toward the fourteenth century and then in the fifteenth. From the outset, however, they lingered over a question from the prologue or from Book I, to explain which so many lectures were devoted that the rest of the book, or even of the books, suffered as a result. Thus Pietro Lombardo’s Commentary ended up serving as a pretext for certain outlying questions that had only a relative connection with it, questions that could have been addressed without any reference to the S. To comply with the statutes, some passages from the text of the S. were finally read or summarized very rapidly.
This practice, contrary to the university statutes, conflicted with the initial spirit and practice. In reality, an evolution took place which, proceeding from the very structure imposed by the S. (also common, moreover, to all the other commentaries)—that is, the divisio textus, the quaectione attached to the text and provoked by it, and then, at the end of the lecture, the expositio litterae or the dubia in litteram (explanations of Lombardo’s text)—slowly resulted in an amplification of the second point, the question, to the detriment of the other points, which were consequently sacrificed. Soon the question remained alone and, following the order of Lombardo’s distinctions and problems, assumed such vast proportions that it lost its original function and reached the excesses mentioned above. In the ordinary reading, as can be observed in the great authors of the thirteenth century, the questions raised in the course of each distinction and each subdivision may be more or less numerous. Here the initiative of the reader, the bachelor sententiarius, becomes apparent; his desiderata and preferences emerge, and his thought and personal position are disclosed. It is sufficient to establish a parallel for the same distinction as treated by four or five nearly contemporary authors in order to discover the extreme variety of the genre, in the number of questions, their character, and the solutions given to them. Within the established outlines, a certain freedom is permitted: one may pass over a problem posed by Lombardo that one does not like, or raise other questions of which he had no suspicion. It is permissible to depart from his manner of seeing things, to criticize his solutions, and to propose others; without disrupting the general plan, particular questions may be shifted and the order of the treatises rearranged very broadly, according to one’s own preference. There is, moreover, an entire series of opinions of the “Master of the S.” that officially “non tenentur.”
Provided one does not depart from the path of orthodoxy, highly original and even daring opinions are permitted; one knows that one is always under the watchful eye of the master, who must guarantee the value of his bachelor’s teaching, as well as under the attentive scrutiny of students, colleagues, and opponents; from time to time denunciations force one to make a retraction, when they do not even compel one to abandon or prematurely interrupt a teaching career.
The commentary on the S. undoubtedly remains, up to a certain point, a youthful work; only those who were thirty years old were admitted to the reading of the S.; in the religious orders, a more advanced age was quite often required, after a sufficiently long apprenticeship consisting of seven or eight years of previous theological study, during which the candidate had attended the “reading” of the four II. of Pietro Lombardo at least three times. He had thus been able to reflect, make comparisons, and choose one sentence or another. From the commentary on the S. (1254–56), s. Tommaso derived his most important preferences and did not readily return to them; for s. Tommaso, as for his contemporaries, it remained the foundation upon which other works were later composed and, in a master’s career, constituted the most useful point of departure and comparison, since it was very extensive and had compelled its author to take a position on nearly all the great themes of theology.
From this derives the singular importance of the commentaries. Sometimes the definitive redaction takes place, for various reasons, several years after the oral teaching. Such, for example, is the case of Egidio Romano, whose first book appeared about 1276-78, that is, almost immediately after the « lecture », whereas the second and third were not composed until 1309. The Riccardo di Mediavilla (v.), whose books, lectured upon in 1284-86, were published about 1295. It is not uncommon
to encounter several redactions, either because the author gave his teaching on the Sentences on several occasions and in different places, as did Scoto, Vitale del Furno (at Paris and Montpellier), Pietro Aureolo (at Paris, Toulouse, Bologna, and Paris), or because, prompted by criticisms received or by the desire for revision, the author took up again an initial redaction already made (as in the case of Durando di S. Porciano, of whom a threefold redaction survives, and Giovanni di Mirecourt, who offers two). During his stay in Italy, S. Tommaso had intended to revise his Commentary, of which he rewrote the first book, but subsequently abandoned this in order to devote himself instead to the composition of the Summa Theologica.
These redactions are generally very carefully executed, in respect both of exposition and style. Sometimes, however, a text was caught on the wing by a hearer (this is the case of the reportata), or the notes were not completed by the author himself. Thus, for example, the various Reportaciones (Parisienses, Oxonienses and, among the latter, the variants of this or that manuscript) of the Commentary Duns Scoto (v.). Such are the notes taken day by day by Riccardo di Bazoches during the course given by Pietro Plaust in 1392-1393, further enriched with pungent annotations on events at the University and in the kingdom; likewise the probably original text of Gerardo di Abbeville’s Commentary on the III Sententiarum. More vivid and picturesque than the others, such redactions are sometimes less reliable. In order to pronounce an exact judgment on the author’s doctrine, one must take account of the shortcomings of the person reporting II.
Through these very numerous commentaries, extending from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, originating in all the schools and expressing all the great universities, it is possible to write the history of theology, of its uncertainties and its progress. After the commentaries, though on a much lower level, mention should be made of the summaries of Lombardo (some of which were put into verse), the recapitulations of commentaries on the Sentences, school sheets or notes, and finally the more or less extensive compilations drawn from the commentaries, such as, for example, that of Prospero di Reggio Emilia, contained in ms. Vat. lat. 1086 on the prologue and distinction I of the first book, or the anonymous one of Münster, Univ. 257, on the treatise de virtutibus.