Identifier: Fragmenta Manuscripta 026

Date: 1185-1199

Contents: Hugh of St. Victor, Dionysius the Areopagite

Language: Latin

Location: England, Rochester (?)

Identifier: Fragmenta Manuscripta 047

Date: 1240-1260

Contents: De sacramentis christianae fidei

Language: Latin

Location: England

Identifier: Fragmenta Manuscripta 071

Date: 1185-1199

Contents: Hugh of St. Victor, Dionysius the Areopagite

Language: Latin

Location: England, Rochester (?)

Hugh of St. Victor (c. 1096-1142) was a theologian and an Augustinian canon in Paris. Little else is known about his life. The collection contains a fragment of his most influential work De sacramentis christianae fidei (On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith), often regarded as the first theological summa (a summary of a subject) in the Middle Ages. Hugh compiled the works regarding the sacraments from all authorities, including Augustine (354-430) and the Pseudo-Dionysius (5^th century).[1] He also wrote a commentary on the Pseudo-Dionysius’s De Coelesti Hierarchia (On The Celestial Hierarchy) (FM 026, 071), which organizes the angels into three hierarchies with each hierarchy further divided into three. The first hierarchy (the one closest to god) contains the seraphim, the cherubim, and the thrones. The second hierarchy contains the dominations, the virtues, and the powers. The final hierarchy includes the principalities, the archangels, and the angels who are most concerned with humans.[2] Hugh of St. Victor’s commentary On the Celestial Hierarchy shows its continued relevance in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Other intellectuals also referenced the Celestial Hierarchy, for instance, Thomas Aquinas used it in his Summa Theologica.[3]

NOTES
[1] Hugh of St. Victor, Hugh of St. Victor: On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. Roy J. Deferrari (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1951); Michael T. Girolimon, “Hugh of St. Victor’s De sacramentis Christianae fidei: The Sacraments of Salvation,” The Journal of Religious History 18, no. 2 (1994): 127-138.

[2] “Hugh of St. Victor,” in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, ed. by John Bowker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); “Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite,” in The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature, 4^th ed., ed. by Dinah Birch and Katy Hooper (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Dionysius the Areopagite, The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, vol. 2, The Heavenly Hierarchy and the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, trans. by Rev. John Parker (London: James Parker and Co., 1899), Caput VI, full text available at http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/areopagite_13_heavenly_hierarchy.htm#c3.

[3] For more, see Philosophy and Theology.