Chapter XXXVI

., I.

[70] His death is touchingly described in a letter of Osbert, the canon in charge of the infirmary. See Migne 175, col. xlvii and clxi.

[71] Hugo, _De arrha animae_, Migne 176, col. 954. Yet Hugo sometimes was stung with an irrelevant pang for the German fatherland, which he had left: “I have been an exile since my boyhood, and I know how the mind grieves to forsake some poor hut’s narrow hearth, and how easily it may then despise the marble hall and fretted roof” (_Didascalicon_, iii. 20; Migne 176, col. 778). Compare the single letter of Hugo that has a personal note, _Ep._ i. (Migne 176, col. 1011).

[72] The _De sacramentis Christianae fidei_ is printed in Migne 176, col. 174-618. It is thus a lengthy work.

[73] Hugo evidently refers to his _De Scripturis et scriptoribus sacris praenotatiunculae_, and his various _Adnotationes elucidatoriae_, which will be found printed in vol. 175 of Migne’s _Patrologia Latina_. In chap. v. of the work first mentioned (Migne 175, col. 13) he speaks sensibly of the folly of those who profess not to care for the literal historical meaning of the sacred text, but, in ignorance, spring at once to very inept allegorical interpretations.

[74] _De sacramentis_, Prologus (Migne 176, col. 183-185). A more elementary statement may be found in _De Scripturis, etc._, cap. xiii. (Migne 175, col. 20).

[75] God is perfect and utterly good. His beatitude cannot be increased or diminished, but it can be imparted. Therefore the primal cause for creating rational creatures was God’s wish that there should be partakers of His beatitude. This reasoning may be Christian; but it is also close to the doctrine of Plato’s _Timaeus_, which Hugo had read.

[76] Hugo also takes a wider view of the “place” of mankind’s restoration, and finds that it includes (1) heaven, where the good are confirmed and made perfect; (2) hell, where the bad receive their deserts; (3) the fire of purgatory, where there is correction and perfecting; (4) paradise the place of good beginnings; and (5) the world, the place of pilgrimage for those who need restoring.

[77] “Sacramentum est corporale vel materiale elementum foris sensibiliter propositum ex similitudine repraesentans, et ex institutione significans, et ex sanctificatione continens aliquam invisibilem et spiritalem gratiam” (pars ix. 2; Migne 176, col. 317). In spite of Hugo the old definition held its ground, being adopted by Peter Lombard and others after him.

[78] Here we see clearly that the works of the Creation have the sacramental quality of similitude and, in a way, the quality of institution, since their similitude to spiritual things was intended by the Creator for the instruction of man. They lack, however, the third quality of sanctification, which enables the material _signum_ to convey its spiritual _res_.

[79] _e.g._ the material of the sacrament, which may consist in things, as in bread and wine, or in actions (as in making the sign of the cross), or in words, as in the invocation of the Trinity. He also shows how faith itself may be regarded as a sacrament, inasmuch as it is that whereby we now see in a glass darkly and behold but an image. But we shall hereafter see clearly through contemplation. Faith then is the image, _i.e._ the sacrament, of the future contemplation which is the sacrament’s real verity, the _res_.

[80] _De sacr._ lib. i. pars xi. cap. 1. The sacraments of the natural law included tithes, oblations, and sacrifices. Hugo also considers the good works which the natural law prescribed. This period ceases with the written law given implicitly through Abraham and explicitly through Moses. See _De sacr._ lib. i. pars xii. cap. i. Hugo appears to me to vary his point of view regarding the natural law and its time, for sometimes he regards it as the law prevailing till the time of Abraham or Moses, and again as the law under which pagan peoples lived, who did not know the Mosaic law.

[81] _De sacr._ lib. i. pars xi. cap. 6 (Migne 176, col. 346).

[82] Whoever should wish for further illustration of Hugo’s allegorical methods may examine his treatises entitled _De arca Noë morali_ and _De arca Noë mystica_ (Migne 176, col. 618-702), where every detail of the Ark, which signifies the Church, is allegorically applied to the Christian scheme of life and salvation. With these treatises, Hugo’s _De vanitate mundi_ (Migne 176, col. 703-740) is connected. They will be referred to when considering Hugo’s position in mediaeval philosophy, _post_,