On the high-medieval reception of Hilary of Poitiers's anti-"Arian" opinion: A case study of discontinuity in christian thought

Journal of Religion

Volumn 78, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 213-230

  Madigan, Kevin ^a  

^a Catholic Theological Union ^*

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EID: 61249117141     PISSN: 00224189     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/490178     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. "Intende, lector, his verbis pia diligentia, ne sint tibi vasa mortis" (Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, ed. Ignatius C. Brady, 3d rev. ed., 2 vols. [Grottaferrata: Collegium S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971-81], 2:111, bk. 3, distinction 17, chap. 3).
2. "Non mediocris auctoritatis in tractatione scripturarum et assertione fidei vir exstitit" (Augustine, De Trinilaie 6.10.11., in De Trinitate Libri XV, ed.
3. W. J. Mountain, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), 50, pt. 1:241.
4. Those quotation marks are meant to signal the ignominy into which that term has fallen in the past two decades. In 1988 R. P. C. Hanson stigmatized the term as a "serious misnomer" (The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988], p. xvii)
5. thus Hanson's main title, notable for the conspicuous absence of the words "Arian" and "controversy," though concentrating on the same figures and issues formerly indicated by them. Finding themselves in agreement with Hanson's observation that Arius neither was nor was regarded in his day or after his death a significant writer, Michael H. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams have nicely summarized the findings of recent scholarship: "Perhaps the most central finding in the last fifteen years ... has been to show how peripheral the person of Arius was to the actual debates which occupied the Church for most of the [fourth] century" (Arianism after Arius: Essays on the Development of the Fourth Century Trinitarian Conflicts [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1993], p. xiv).
6. Indeed, it might be said that the term "Arian" in the fourth century was an epithet used for gross degradation of enemies, no more. In any case, it ought not be taken as an accurate literary or historical marker. Likewise, the term "controversy" has been forsaken by many, in part because it clouds the complexity of the theological and political issues and groups involved and in part because the period to which it usually refers as a modifier is sometimes largely absent of controversy. Rowan Williams has suggestively argued that the Lucianists were, in large measure, the theological precursors of the sundry fourth-century groups categorized as "Arian" (Arius: A Heresy and Tradition [London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1987]).
7. For more useful critique of the inherited terminology, see the introductory essay in Daniel H. Williams, Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Nicene-Arian Conflict (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), esp. pp. 1-2.
8. See esp. pp. 30-33, 38-50, and 77-80.
9. See J. H. Reinkens, Hilarius von Poitiers (Schaffhausen: F. Hurler, 1864), p. viii.
10. In asserting such a parallel, Reinkens spoke more truly than he knew. The view of Athanasius as saint and pillar of the Eastern church is a somewhat romantic, at best partial one that modern scholarship has done much to discredit. Out to undercut the idea (and with a vengeance) that so violent a political operator could be considered a simple saint, or even a saint at all, T. D. Barnes meticulously reviewed the incriminating evidence and then brought in a harsh verdict, severely proclaiming Saint Athanasius "a gangster" (Constantine and Eusebius [Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1981], p. 230).
11. For more useful, somewhat less cruel, though at times slightly exaggerated debunking, see the essays of W. G. Rusch, A. Martin and L. W. Barnard in Politique et théologie chez Athanase d'Alexandrie, ed. C. Kannengiesser, Actes du Colloque de Chantilly (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974). In the same volume, J. M. Leroux ("Athanase et la seconde phase de la crise arienne (345-373)," pp. 145-56) suggests that Athanasius was too geographically and intellectually (as well as politically) isolated to be designated something so grandiose as a pillar of the Eastern church in his own day. In his own day, Leroux concludes, Athanasius was an important leader in Egypt, no more. A combination of factors elevated him posthumously to the status of ecclesiastical theological "pillar": his own rather immodest apologetics; an uncritical, selective memory of the facts; subsequent ecclesiastical publicity and promotion; and, more positively, a theological understanding of the structure of Christian deity that no one can deny was enormously influential.
12. Thomas F. Torrance, Divine Meaning: Studies in Patristic Henneneutics (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1995), p. 392.
13. G. M. Newlands, Hilary of Poitiers: A Study in Theological Method, European University Studies no. 108 (Bern: Peter Lang, 1978), p. vi.
14. In Hilaire de Poitiers, In Constantium 12, in Contre Constance, ed. A. Rocher, Sources Chrétiennes, no. 334 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1987), p. 192.
15. The ecclesiastical distinction is seldom absent in titles of studies of Hilary by admirers in this century. See, e.g., J. Daniélou, "Saint Hilaire, évêque et docteur," and B. de Gaiffier, "Hilaire docteur de l'Église," both in Hilaire de Poitiers: Évêque et docteur (368-1968) (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1968), pp. 17, 27-37;
16. and P. Galtier, Saint Hilaire de Poitiers: Le premier docteur de l'Église (Paris: Beauchesnes, 1960).
17. Peter Lombard, Sent. 3.15.3, 2:100-102.
18. Bonaventure, Commentaria in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum, in 5. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, studio et cura PP. Collegii a S. Bonaventura, 11 vols. (Grottaferrata: Collegium S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1882-1902), 3.16 dubium 1, 3:359. The other Sentence commentators I will refer to are Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. These two commentators, along with Bonaventure, represent a near-unanimous thirteenth-century tradition on this issue and are representative of the treatment of Hilary in the high Middle Ages. One could greatly multiply the number of (generally less distinguished and influential) commentators on the Lombard's Sententiae, yet still detect no essential difference in the treatment of Hilary's apparently erroneous Anti-"Arian" opinion.
19. For Albert's commentary, see Commentarii in IV Sententiarum, in B. Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, ed. É. Borgnet, 38 vols. (Paris: Vivès, 1890-95), vol. 28.
20. For Thomas Aquinas's Scriptum super Sententiis, I have used P. Mandonnet and R. P. Moos, eds., Scriptum super Sententiis Magistři Petri Lombard, 4 vols. (Paris, 1929-33), vol. 3.
21. Given how extensive Hilary's influence apparently was, there has been surprisingly little work on the high-scholastic reception of Hilary and no detailed study of the reception of his problematic christological opinions. On Thomas Aquinas's use of Hilary's thought in general, see Clemente Vansteenkiste, O.P., "S. Tommaso d'Aquino e S. Ilario di Poitiers," in Studi Tomistici, ed. A. Piolanti, 4 vols. (Rome: Pontificia Accademia Romana di S. Tommaso d'Aquino, 1974), 1:65-71. This article is indispensable for identifying the sources of Thomas's use of Hilary and what might be called the actuarial features of that use. Valuable as this task undoubtedly is, the author did not comment at all on how Hilary influenced Thomas or on how Thomas shaped Hilary's thought to his own theological and exegetical ends. Vansteenkiste usefully points out, however, that Thomas explicitly cited Hilary more than 700 times. (More than half of the citations are found in the Catena Aurea, a mosaic of patristic opinion on the four gospels.) Vansteenkiste also notes that Thomas offers an expositio in his Scriptum of the problematic opinions from Hilary considered here but furnishes no analysis of the nature of the "explanation" Thomas offers and perpetuates thus by silence the received, unchallenged, and, in my opinion, erroneous view that Thomas was engaged in a simple explicative or expository operation. More recently, it has been argued that Thomas was consciously using Hilary's De Trinitate as a model for his own project in the Summa contra Gentiles.
22. See Joseph Wawrykow, "The Summa contra Gentiles Reconsidered: On the Contribution of the De Trinitate of Hilary of Poitiers," in Thomist 58, no. 4 (1994): 617-34.
23. It seems especially appropriate to address these questions now, in a time of renewed interest in the reception of the fathers in Latin theology, signaled so spectacularly by the recently published Irena Backus, ed., The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1997). None of the twenty-six essays collected in these two fine volumes takes up these questions in any sustained way. Some acknowledge that high-medieval commentators had to "explain" or "interpret" dubious or problematic patristic opinion.
24. See, e.g., Leo Elders, "Thomas Aquinas and the Fathers of the Church," pp. 337-66, esp. p. 341. But none makes the argument that I advance here, namely that such "explanation" or " interpretation" could involve quite radical distortions of patristic opinion. Lest I be misconstrued as wishing to make a general argument about high-scholastic reception of patristic authority as such, I emphatically note that the argument set out in my conclusion pertains to a small but significant category of cases in medieval thought, namely those cases in which highmedieval commentators on the Lombard explicitly recognized a patristic opinion as apparently erroneous and proceeded to offer an expositio of it. In this essay, I concentrate on only one case, one, still, which I take to be entirely representative of how high-medieval scholasticism dealt with embarrassing patristic opinion.
25. Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate, in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vols. 62-62A ed. P. Smulders (Turnhout: Brepols, 1979). I use only vol. 62A in this essay
26. See J. Doignon, Hilaire de Poitiers avant l'exil(Paris: Études Augustiniennes 1971) pp. 82-83;
27. and C. F. A. Borchardt, Hilary of Poitiers' Role in the Arian Struggle (The Hague-Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), pp. 40-43.
28. See Athanasius, Orationes contra Arianos, ed. William Bright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1884) esp. bks. 2 and 3. In these books, Athanasius answered many of the same arguments that Hilary addresses in De Trinitate. Nonetheless, Hilary argued very differently from Athanasius, and, in fact, there seems to be little evidence that Hilary directly knew any of Athanasius's works. Hanson (n. 3 above) sums up the view of recent scholars when he concludes that it is "difficult to see any clear influence of Athanasius' thought on Hilary and Hilarys doctrine of the Incarnation owed nothing to Athanasius" (pp 473
29. "Passus quidem Dominus Iesus Christus, dum caeditur, dum suspenditur, dum crucifigitur, dum moritur" (De Trinitate 10.23, p. 477).
30. "Habens ad patiendum quidem corpus, et passus est, sed naturam non habens ad dolendum" (Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate 10.23, p. 478).
31. See John of Damascus, De Haeresibus Liber 101, in J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologia graeca, vol. 94, cols. 763-67.
32. "Non solum evacuat fidem Christi et Christi Evangelium, sed etiam evacuat redemptionem nostram et dicit, Christum non esse Christum" (Bonaventure, Sent. 3.16.1.1 responsio, p. 346).
33. "Dum vero dicit, ipsum simulasse se pati; dicit, ipsum esse mendacem, et ita nec vere fuisse Dei Filium nee Dei nuntium, et ita nec mediatorem, sed potius decceptorem. Et propterea qui dicunt, Christum non veraciter doluisse vel passum fuisse; etsi videantur ipsum exterius honorare, secundum veritatem blasphemant ipsum impiissime" (Bonaventure, Sent. 3.16.1.1 responsio, p. 346).
34. Thomas: "Alii dicunt quod loquitur de Christo quantum ad Divinitatem" (Sent. 3.15 expositio textus, p. 505).
35. Albert: "Ex hoc enim accipitur, quod loquitur contra haereticos, qui dicebant Christum tantum fuisse infirmae naturae, et non potuisse de se de virtute personae repulisse hujusmodi infirmitatem" (Sent. 3.15.G.10 solutio, p. 287);
36. Thomas: "Quia disputat contra illos in his verbis qui Filium Dei creaturam dicebant" (Sent. 3.15 expositio textus, p. 505); Bonaventure: "Hilarius enim in verbis praemissis excludere voluit errorem Arii, qui dicebat, Christum secundum se totum passum fuisse" (Sent. 3.16.1.1 ad primům, p. 347).
37. See, e.g., Bonaventure: "Contra enim illos loquitur Hilarius, qui dicebant, Christum omnino succubuisse passioni et a passione esse superatum" (Sent. 3.16 dubium 1, p. 359).
38. Bonaventure: "Non enim vult negare sensum et experimentum passionis, sed vim et dominium passionis" (Sent. 3.16 dubium 1, p. 359).
39. For a fuller analysis of the high-medieval response to this question, see K. Madigan, "Ancient and High-Medieval Interpretations of Jesus in Gethsemane: Some Reflections on Tradition and Continuity in Christian Thought," Harvard Theological Review 88, no. 1 (1995): 157-73.
40. See, e.g., Bonaventure: "In Christo fuit vera tristitia, non tarnen omni modo, quo in nobis est" (Sent. 3.15.2.2 responsio, p. 338).
41. Jerome, Commentariorum in Matheum Libri IV, in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), 77:253-54, on Matt. 26:37: "Illud quod supra diximus de passione et propassione etiam in praesenti capitulo ostenditur, quod Dominus, ut veritatem adsumpti probaret hominis, vere quidem contristatus sit sed, ne passio in animo illius dominaretur, per propassionem coeperit contristan. Aliud est enim contristari et aliud incipere contristan."
42. See also Thomas's scattered comments at Sent. 3.15 expositio textus, pp. 502-6).
43. See also his response at Sent. 3.15.2 solutio 1-, p. 490: "Sed in Christo nunquam surgebat motus tristitiae nisi secundum dictamen superioris rationis quando scilicet dictabat ratio quod sensualitas tristaretur secundum convenientiam naturae suae."
44. These modern attempts at defending Hilary are discussed (approvingly) by E. Boularand, L'hérésie d'Arius et la foi de Nicée (Paris: Letouzey & Ané, 1972), pp. 90-92.
45. P. Smulders, La doctrine trinitaire de S. Hilaire de Poitiers, Analecta Gregoriana no. 32 (Rome, 1944), pp. 203-6;
46. and M. M. Thomas, The Christology of St. Hilary of Poitiers (Ph.D. diss, Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1964), pp. 190, 193-94.
47. Edward Shils, Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 206.