Wednesday, August 21, 2024

It is the 21st of August 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Think of big names in education. Horace Mann? Maria Montessori? Lisa Frank? But what about Peter Lombard? Maybe you know the name… one of those medieval folk? Yes. Lombard is a name you might read alongside others, like Aquinas, Bonaventure, or Abelard.  

For good or ill, we might credit this man with a revolutionary step forward in the history of education as he can be credited with writing the first textbook. His Four Books of Sentences is the standard textbook for theology, and NO theologian in the West was left untouched in his wake.

First, what do we know about Lombard's life? His name suggests he is from the Lombardy region of Northern Italy- he was born, according to tradition, in the year 1100. We know he was poor. We know he lived in an age, especially in the Western church, of nepotism and simony (that is, the buying and selling of church offices). He was poor, and thus, his rapid ascent to the top is likely on account of some personality and intellect. He would get the attention of Bernard of Clairvaux, who would write him a letter of introduction to study in France at Reims and the University of Paris.

He would then stay on as a canon at the school at Notre Dame- a canon was an administrative church worker, not relegated to a rule but free to pursue scholarly opportunities. He was at the school at Notre Dame from 1136 to 1150 and was then deacon, archdeacon, and then consecrated a bishop in June of 1159, only to die the following August on this, the 21st, at roughly 60 years old.

His fame rests almost entirely on his magnum opus- the Four Books of Sentences a work it would be impossible to not comment on from the 12th to the 16th century and was a major influence and interlocutor with both Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther.

The Sentences are a very early version of a systematic theology- Lombard was concerned to hold logic at arms length and discuss Christian theology on its own terms.

In order to do this, he began to compile the Glosses from the Bible and Church Fathers. A “Gloss” was like a commentary edition of a text with notes in the margins from other commentators to interpret the text at hand. Lombard collected theological glosses and arranged them in these books. The first volume was concerned with the question of “who is God” and “what is the Trinity.” The second book then addresses creation, fall, and humanity. The third book comes with the answer as to how God will reconcile humanity through Christ and his incarnation, and then we get the fourth book on “application,” as it were. How God uses “signs” to point towards himself- and Lombard is the first to explicitly count these “signs”; he lists seven- Baptism, the Eucharist, Penance, the Unction of the Sick, Orders, and Matrimony. These are the famed “seven sacraments” of the church of the Latin West and today the “Roman Catholic” church.

But Lombard goes a step further than most theologians when he suggests these sacraments as “signs” of God’s grace, but more than that- he argues that they serve as forms of literal grace- they enact the grace in and of themselves.

Lombard would also controversially teach that the infused grace of charity that exists between people is not just charity but the actual Holy Spirit. The former doctrine is still held by the Catholic Church, while the latter is not.

What was important about his thought was that it presented an encyclopedic array of ideas on ordered topics that you would be expected to know, to argue for, and against. The Summa Theologica of Aquinas was itself a commentary on the Sentences, and Luther believed that had Lombard only distinguished between the authority of the Church Fathers and the Bible, it would be an almost perfect textbook.

Systematic theology, however it is done, is almost certainly influenced by Peter Lombard, whose relatively quiet life as a scholar would be dwarfed by a textbook that would help determine the shape of Medieval and Reformation theology.

Big figures can slip through the cracks on this show because his exact dates are not known- but a fair shot would be to give his dates as 1110 to this month, possibly today, in 1160, making Peter Lombard roughly 60 years old at his death.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and Psalm 36:

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the skies.

Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,

    your justice like the great deep.

    You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.

How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!

    People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

They feast on the abundance of your house;

    you give them drink from your river of delights.

For with you is the fountain of life;

    in your light we see light.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 21st of August 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man looking for Lisa Frank's church bulletin covers- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who was always partial to the trapper keepers from T&C Surf Designs, Thrilla Gorilla, and all that…. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.