Hugh of Saint Victor: Noah's Ark: De Arca Noe Morali Farid Rener Introduction Hugh of Saint Victor(1096?-1141), a mystical philosopher and theologian, entered the abbey of Saint Victor, on the Left Bank of the Seine, in 1115 where he became master of the school in 1133. During his direction, the school became one of the best renowned, and Hugh became one of the leading theologians in Western Europe, which is probably why so many of his writings have survived. Hugh s writings as a teacher were based mostly on a historical understanding of scripture, where he felt that: the foundation and basis of holy teaching is history, from which the truth of allegory is extracted like honey from the comb. If then, you are building, lay the foundation of history first; then by the typical sense put up a mental structure as a citadel of faith and finally, like a coat of the loveliest of colours, paint the building with the elegance of morality. In the history you have the deeds of God to wonder at, in allegory his mysteries to believe, in morality his perfection to imitate. (23) The contemplative life, allegory, history and tropology were important for Hugh, but lived experience was also equally as important as this was seen as a way to detect all the movements that arise in the heart, and see whence thy come and whither they are going (24). Hugh wrote three major works about Noah s Ark, which together form a picture of how Hugh saw the scripture as being historical, allegorical and moral (p26): De Arca Noe Morali (On the moral interpretation of Noah s Ark), De Arca Noe Mystica (On the mystical interpretation of Noah s Ark) and De Vanitate Mundi (The vanity of the world). A. Mysitca is a 41 and a quarter page description of an image of the Ark which may have have been an appendix to A. Morali (according to Rudolph, this was longer than any prior description of a painting by 41 pages). This image is alluded to a few times in A. Morali, and may have been used by Hugh as a teaching aid. Whether this image was ever produced or not is the subject of debate, however, what is certain is that the way Hugh presents the Ark - as an image - was a mnemonic memory device upon which he, and his students, could meditate. Mary Carruthers, who writes about memory during the medieval period, recounts how monastic education was built upon apprenticeship - more as a craft than as an academic subject. At this time, monasticism, as a way of life, focused on meditation - a recalling or remembrance of God. Memory, for monks, was a memory of God - a memory of the ontology of what came before, not a rote recounting of history. Memory at this time: recognizes the essential roles of emotion, imagination, and cogitation within the activity of recollection. (Carruthers p. 2) Hugh certainly used a form of memory architecture when teaching his students - monks during this period were known to use visual and verbal media since meditation involved making mental images in order to think and compose new thoughts - they needed to see their thoughts as organized images in order to use them for further thinking. Indeed, Hugh closes A. Morali with the line: Thus you may learn from an external form, which we have visibly depicted, what you ought to do interiorly, and when you have impressed the form of this pattern on your heart, you may rejoice that the house of God has been built in you. (153) Carruthers argues that Hugh: saw this building in his mind as he was composing: he walked through it, and he used it himself as he advised others to, as a universal cognitive machine. (Carruthers 244). A. Morali walks us through the image that Hugh creates, linking the creation of Noah s Ark to the Church, to a way of obtaining wisdom and hence to a way to cure our restless hearts. As a mystic, the image he paints is particularly poetic, with beautiful descriptions of how the Ark could represent his Love for God, and the Church. The story of Noah is taken by Hugh as an allegory, with each detail having several layers of meaning. He takes several different embodiments of the Ark and uses them to describe different parts of the Church or of Wisdom, as he sees fit. He is interested in numerology, as many of the dimensions of
the Ark are contain some significance. This shows how the ark can be seen as an ordering of creation in order to survive the flood. A. Morali is presented as a teaching by Hugh to his students after their conversation was so directed that we began with one accord to marvel at the instability and restlessness of the human heart, and to sigh over it. (45) Sighing at the restlessness of our hearts Hugh starts by telling us that our restless hearts can only be cured through a love of God, which comes from knowing Him. Knowing God comes from loving Him. To know Him, as we would any other person, we should go to his house and get to know his friends - God s house is threefold - it is the world, the Church and the faithful - and is built by knowledge and adorned with love. If you enter God s house out of love, not only out of faith, then God will also reside within you. The image of God is important: God is often represented to be on a throne high and lifted up above a temple, with two Seraphs standing beside him. All of these things have meaning for Hugh - the throne represents equally the spiritual creatures and God s eternity. The temple, the power of understanding, shows the cycle of the ages, where all time is full of the works of God. The seraphim, with their three sets of burning wings, standing beside God, symbolize the burning with love that we feel when we are enlightened by the Holy Scriptures. Their wings come to symbolize Hugh s three senses of the scripture: history, allegory and tropology. Two wings covering God s body denote history - the seraphs cover the mystical meanings beneath the veil of the letter. (56) The wings covering God s head and feet denote allegory: when we learn the mysteries of Holy Scripture, we come by the illumination of our minds to the knowledge of His Godhead who is before all things and after all things. (56) However, Hugh makes sure we understand that God s head and feet are covered since we are unable to understand that there is no beginning or end to God. The head and the feet denote the time before creation and the time after consummation, and God s body represents the present age, the Church. The two wings which the seraphim use to fly denote tropology: when doing good works after reading the Scripture, we are lifted up to higher things, as if on wings. The Church, which resides in God s body is subject to tribulations, akin to a storm: She dwells in the midst of a perverted race; and when she is attacked by unbelievers, the ark is buffeted as if it were by stormy waves. (58) Hugh implores that we must enter the ark if we wish to be saved. For Hugh, the ark is fourfold: the one noah made with wood and pitch, realized in visual reality; the one Christ made through his preachers, realized in faith; the one wisdom builds through the contemplation of God, realized in knowledge; and the one that mother grace effects in us by joining together many virtues in a single charity (59), which is realized in power. However, this fourfold ark is actually only one ark - as the form is one although the incarnations are many. The ark that Hugh is interested in is the ark of wisdom, as this is what is most closely related to settling the human heart. However, he also explores the ark of the Church in depth. The shape and size of the ark The shape and size of the Ark are particularly important to Hugh. The ark rests on a quadrangular base, of which the corners, as they went up, were drawn together gradually, so that it narrowed at the top to the space of a single cubit. Hugh recognizes that this ark would never float, and so the physical ark is not what interests him. From the Bible, the ark is 300 cubits in length, 30 cubits high, and 50 cubits wide. There is a door on the side, situated between the second and third storey, and a window at the top (where Noah releases the Raven and the Dove to see whether the flood is over). Hugh thinks that the ark has either three or five storeys, and each incarnation has its own significance. In the five storey ark, the storeys housed animal dung, food supplies, wild animals, tame animals and humans and birds respectively, with the first two being underwater. In this ark, the roof only narrows for
the last two storeys. Scriptures do not mention how tall each of the stories is, so Hugh comes up with a scheme which has deep significance: the first storey is four cubits, which relates to the human body s four elements (earth, air, fire, water) and four humours (blood, phlegm, choler, melancholy); the second is five cubits, relating to the five senses; the third is six cubits, referencing the six days of creation; the fourth is seven cubits, related to rest; and the fifth and top floor is eight cubits, which signifies beatitude - bliss. This makes 30 cubits. The significance of these heights is revealed later. In the three storey ark, the storeys are divided into rooms or compartments: on the first storey there is one room; on the second storey, two rooms; and on the third storey, three rooms. The three storeys relate to the three human wills: carnal, natural and spiritual.
The Ark as the Church / Five Storeys The Church is from the world s beginning to its end, the Church is embodied by Christ, the Lamb of God. Hugh helps us understand how far reaching the Church is by linking it to the physical properties of the five storeyed ark which contains the five states of the Church - the five states which the human soul can inhabit - two of the present life and two of that which is to come. (67) On the first storey are the carnals, they are related to the storey assigned for animal dung. The carnals have unhesitating obedience to the desires of the flesh. While it isn t stated explicitly, the fact that these people are underwater when the ark sails is probably significant - they are essentially drowned by the flood. The carnals are slaves to their body, and inhabit the storey with four cubits. The second storey, reserved for grain, is given to the sensuals - those who do not completely succumb to the desires of the flesh, but do not completely inhabit the spiritual realm. The sensuals still love the things of their senses, hence this storey is five cubits. The third storey, reserved for wild animals, is given to the spirituals. The six cubits of this storey shows how these people love the perfection of their works. While these people are spiritual, they are still linked to the wild animals since they are detained in the corruptible flesh, they are equally subject to the laws of God. Animals therefore they are, since they live by the life of their mind, but wild ones by reason of the forbidden desires of the flesh. (69) The fourth storey, that of the tame animals, is for souls that have laid off the body (i.e the dead: He that is dead is freed from sin (69)). This storey has seven cubits, signifying rest. When people die, according to the Prophet, In that very day his thoughts perish. (69) The fifth storey, that of the men and the birds is for those that rise in body and soul. If we are at this point in the hierarchy of the Church, our minds will fly by contemplation, our bodies will fly on account of incorruption. (69) The ark of the Church only slopes inwards for the last two storeys which related to the life to come. Even through all the progress we make during our living life, we are still turned away from our Creator s face, for although we rise in merit, we are still not bent towards Him by immediate vision. (68) In the narrowing part, the afterlife, we begin to see God as he is, so that we shall desire nothing else save to behold His face unceasingly, to fill ourselves unwearyingly with His sweetness, and fully and unfailingly enjoy His love. (68) The ark culminates to a single cubit, in the shape of a truncated pyramid. This form is less than perfect, which shows us that whatever is less than God is less than perfect. Even though the single cubit on top represents Christ, Christ is less than God since he assumed the form of manhood and submits to God. /T hree Storeys As mentioned earlier, the three storeys of this ark represent the three wills of man (and the ranks of believers, as shown later). These could also be seen as the three lower storeys of the five storey ark. The carnal will, on the first storey gives unhesitating obedience to the desires of the flesh; it wishes to be subject to no law, to fear no one, and to do exactly what it likes. (71) The spiritual will, inhabiting the third storey, on the other hand, wishes the opposite - it wants to cleave with its whole self to spiritual interests. (71) The natural will, on the second storey takes the middle ground. This neutral will is, as Hugh puts it, a lukewarm condition, for instance, it is this will that wants to acquire purity without the toil of vigils. (71)
/Numerology of the Three Storey Ark as Church The size and shape of the Ark as stated in Scripture are extremely important for Hugh, and allow him to make many points upon which to meditate about the Church. Hugh scatters these references throughout his text. The length of the Ark, 300 cubits, represents the present age of creation. This period extends over three periods: the period of natural law, the period of written law and the period of grace through which Holy Church is from the world s beginning to its end. 300 also signifies faith in the Trinity, or - because of the letter Tau, of which the numerical value is 300, and which still retains the shape of the cross among the Syrians - it signifies the cross. (67) The breadth of the Ark, 50 cubits, denotes all believers everywhere, since fifty equals seven times seven plus one. Seven times seven, forty nine, represents the total of all believers, which I think has to do with the descendents of Jacob through Leah and her handmaiden Bilhah. The added one is Christ, under whom all the believers are gathered. Fifty also represents the remission of our sins. (67) Hugh believed there to be thirty books in the Bible - 22 in the Old Testament, and 8 in the New. This is where the Ark gets its height - 30 cubits. The three stories of the ark also represent the three ranks of believers: Those who take lawful commerce with the world, those who are currently fleeing from the world and are trying to forget it and those who have already forgotten the world and are close to God. According to Hugh, the ark took 100 years to build, which relates to 100 cubits. This is the period of grace from when the Church received redemption through the immolation of the spotless lamb. When Jesus was sacrificed, the Church was born. The proportions of the Ark were also significant - the length of the ark is six times its width and ten times its height - this is the same as the proportion of the human body, and is therefore an allegorical figure for body of Christ. Since the Ark represents His body, and His body represents the Church, the Ark is the Church. These numbers also provide Hugh with a way of giving a tropological interpretation of the dimensions of the Ark. As we are building the Ark within ourselves, we must make enough space for it in our hearts. Thus, our hearts must be stretched to 300 cubits long for the Holy Trinity, fifty cubits wide in charity, thirty cubits high in the hope that is in Christ - long in good works, wide in love and desire. Interpretation of the Ark as the Ark of Wisdom The ark of wisdom, which resides in the mind is different to the ark of the church, which is solid. Things in the mind have a coexistence of past and future, so they have their own kind of being. The ark of wisdom is built with thoughts: right thoughts pure and profitable thoughts. (73) These thoughts are akin to floating timber that will burn - the tide of fleshly pleasures does not weigh down such thoughts, but the flame of charity enkindles them. The ark is covered inside and out by pitch - outside so that you may show gentleness, and inside, that you lose not charity. (74) / Building the ark of wisdom The length and breadth of the ark also have meaning in the ark of wisdom. Making your thoughts range over the whole length of the ark, 300 cubits, which is the present age, is the same as reflecting over all the marvels of the world that God has made. By thinking of the church and adopting the believer s way of life, you can stretch your heart to fifty cubits wide. However, if your thoughts stray from this, if they move towards a love of the world and empty conversation, you transgress the measure of the fifty cubits
width. (75) An in depth study and understanding of the Holy Scriptures expands your heart to thirty cubits high. /The Door and the Window in the ark of wisdom We can t stay in contemplation of the ark all the time, since we are feeble. Hence, there are two ways out of the Ark - through the door, set in the side, and through the window, above. The door represents a way out through action, set between the second and third storey, it pertains to the body. The window represents a way out of the ark through thought, set on the top, it pertains to the soul. Man can go out of the door in four ways. As carnal men, we can exit as unclean animals, fulfilling our lusts. We can exit out of necessity, still as animals but this is considered to be more clean. Those who are given occupations in the Church, who don t leave out of ambition but out of obedience, are like Noah - who, leaving the ark, offered a sacrifice. Those who leave for the Church out of ambition, however, have curses brought down on them, like Ham. Through thought, we can also leave the ark in four different ways. If we consider everything that is created contains itself within itself. This makes us believe that things come from nothing and go on to nothing, and hence we see only vanity in the world. This frame of mind breeds contempt. We can leave the ark when we see the likeness of God s mind in other creatures, this generates praise to God. When listening to the world, we hear God s messages coming through his creations. From all creatures we hear three voices: receive (which comes from a servant), give (which comes from an adviser), flee (which comes from one who threatens). This creates fear and love within us, as it shows us that every created thing is there for the service of man. The last way of leaving the ark through thought is when we look at things as being able to satisfy our lusts, and bodily pleasures. This is like the Raven who left and did not return to the Ark. Leaving the ark in this way means you will probably never come back: For when they find outside what gives them evil pleasure, they never want to come back again to the ark of conscience. (79) The first three kinds of contemplation are symbolized by the dove carrying the olive branch. This olive branch symbolizes a good state of the soul - Once holy men see the works of the Creator, they want to see the Creator all the more strongly. Bringing the olive branch back to the Ark is a symbol of acknowledging Him whom we love unchangeably within ourselves. /T he three storeys of the Ark of Wisdom The three storeys of the ark of wisdom represent three kinds of thoughts - right thought, profitable thought and necessary thought. Right thought is knowledge. It comes from meditating on the scriptures, and pondering the virtues of the saints and the works of God - and seeking knowledge that will improve my conduct. Profitable thought comes from implementing right thought. If I have taken pains not only to know, but also to perform good and profitable actions, and if my heart s preoccupation is to see how by self-control and a right way of living I can make my own the virtues which I love and admire in others, then I can say that my thought is profitable, then I have gone up to the second storey. (81) Necessary thought is virtuous thought. To partake in necessary thought, I must not only know the virtues but embody them, especially the most necessary one: charity, as this unites us to God: that is why the ark is gathered into one at the top, that even now we should be thinking of the One, looking for the One, desiring the One, even our Lord Jesus Christ. (82) /The pillar of the ark There is a pillar in the centre of the ark on which the entire structure leans. This is Christ, who is seen by Hugh as the Tree of Life and the Book of Life. The pillar is in the middle as Christ is in the midst of His Church for all believers alike. (82) The pillar spans all the storeys of the ark since Christ above in His majesty, below in His compassion. (82).
Hugh describes how he has inscribed on his pillar The Tree of Life on the south side and The Book of Life on the north where he has stacked the thirty volumes of the Holy Scripture. Christ as the Tree of Life is related to Christ s divinity. It faces South such that it may feed and sustain the sturdy with the flavour of its sweetness, and hide those who are still feeble beneath the cover of its wings, as in a noonday shadow, lest they should faint in the heat of temptation. (87) The Tree of Life gives us shade and feeds us. Christ as the Book of Life is related to His humanity. It faces north because through the Saviour s manhood, light has arisen for them that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death. (87) / Four corners of the spiritual ark As mentioned earlier, the ark is rectangular. For Hugh, the four corners represent the four quarters of the earth, which also relate to the story of man falling from Heaven. The four corners of the earth are: the heat of the east, which represents spiritual fervour and the foundation of good nature; the heat of the west, which represents a fleshly longing and the punishment of body; the cold of the east which represents a swelling of pride and the beginning of guilt; and the cold of the west, which represents a blindness of ignorance and the punishment of the soul. These four corners are linked to the four steps of the ascents to heaven. The first ascent is linked to the cold of the east: the sinner (who has a swelling of pride) must first be humbled and then rise up again through obedience. The second ascent is linked to the heat of the west: where our fleshly vices are removed. The third ascent is linked to the cold of the west: once we have extinguised the passions of the flesh, we can give ourselves to the bliss of meditation. Finally, the fourth ascent is linked to the heat of the east: in this ascent we go from good to better - we can never reach perfection unless we strive to grow in the good things that we do. The house of God Hugh wants people to recognize that it is not beyond the means of anyone to build a house for God. Despite what people think, there is no need to buy expensive or expansive land, there is no need to find exotic materials, since the house of God is built in the heart of Man. The material used is thoughts. He wants to dwell in your own heart - extend and enlarge that! Enlarge your heart, so that you may be worthy to have God as your guest Enlarge your heart therefore. (122) There is no need to hire a craftsman, as God will work with you to build his house - he will give you the strength to build it: God will be the craftsman,your heart the site, your thoughts the materials. (123) When building the house of God there are three things which must be kept in mind: the order, the arrangement, and the precise measurement - I.e. exactly where it starts and finishes. This is difficult, since God is infinite and measureless. Order, however, comes from restraining our hearts from worldly distractions. Conclusion Hugh closes A. Morali recapitulating the importance of the Ark. Into it is woven the story of events, in it are found the mysteries of the sacraments, and there are set out the stages of affections, thoughts, meditations, contemplations, good works, virtues, and rewards. There we are shown what we ought to believe, and do, and hope There another world is found, over against this passing, transitory one. (152) Hugh reminds us why we should hold the ark in our hearts - since it represents another world where beauty never fails, whose fashion does not pass. (152) This is a world that is beheld by the heart, not the eyes. There, men are occupied with inner silence, and the pure in heart rejoice in the sight of the truth. (152) This is how we settle the restlessness of the human heart.