Bernard of Clairvaux to Abbot Gilduin of Saint-Victor. While he apparently never taught
at the abbey, Peter did preach there, and he maintained close ties with Saint-Victor
throughout his life.
The Lombard soon made himself a reputation as a formidable theologian. By 1142–
43, he had the dubious distinction of being named by Gerhoch of Reichersberg as a
dangerous innovator; in 1148, he was summoned by Pope Eugenius III to the Consistory
of Reims to help judge the orthodoxy of another innovator, Gilbert of Poitiers, whose
christology Peter found lacking. Teaching at Notre-Dame by 1143, he was a canon by
1145 and steadily rose in rank (subdeacon by 1147, deacon by 1150, archdeacon by
1157). In 1158, his years of service were crowned by his election as bishop of Paris; this
honor was short-lived, as he died in 1160.
The earliest works of the Lombard are his commentaries on the Psalms (before 1138)
and on the epistles of Paul (by 1142). Though Herbert of Bosham reports that Peter meant
them for his personal edification only and that he never finished them, they were swiftly
and widely circulated, often even replacing the marginal-interlinear glosses for the
Psalms and epistles in the Glossa ordinaria. Known as the Magna glossatura, they
became the most frequently cited works of Scripture exegesis in the Middle Ages. Peter
based his two commentaries on a close reading of Anselm of Laon’s glosses and Gilbert
of Poitiers’s biblical commentaries. He kept the Glossa’s patristic and Carolingian base,
took over Gilbert’s organization scheme and hermeneutic principles, and consistently
worked out doctrinal positions and current theological issues in connection with the
scriptural text.
Even more central to the history of medieval theology and philosophy is the
Lombard’s Quattuor libri sententiarum, or the Sententiae. Sentence collections
proliferated in the 12th century, as theologians strove to systematize and professionalize
their field. Peter Lombard’s Sententiae (1155–57) became an instant and enduring
success throughout Europe (legislated into the theological curriculum of the University of
Paris in 1215) and remained without serious competition until replaced by the Summa of
Thomas Aquinas in the 16th century. It was second only to the Bible in importance in
theological training; hundreds of theologians wrote commentaries on the Sententiae. The
reasons for its success have recently been set forth in a effort to restore the luster to the
Lombard’s tired reputation. Its comprehensive coverage of topics, logical order, lack of
dependence on or promotion of any elaborate philosophical system, sensitivity to the
need for clarity and consistency in theological language, and readiness to address
controversial issues while acknowledging contemporary consensus, all ensured the utility
of the Sententiae to generations of theologians and philosophers. In addition, Peter’s
christology avoided many of the semantic pitfalls that plagued contemporary theologians;
his Trinitarian views were solemnly ratified at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
Theresa Gross-Diaz
[See also: BIBLE, CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION OF; GLOSSA ORDINARIA;
PETER OF POITIERS (d. 1205); PHILOSOPHY; SCHOLASTICISM; SENTENCE
COLLECTIONS; THEOLOGY]
Peter Lombard. Commentarius in psalmos davidicos. PL 191.55–169.
——. Collectanea in omnes b. Pauli epistolas. PL 191.1297–696 and PL 192.9–520.
——. Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, ed. Ignatius Brady. 3rd ed. rev. In Spicilegium
Bonaventurianum. Grottaferrata: Editiones Collegii S.Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971–81,
Vols. 4–5.
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