Last week on five minutes in church history we looked at the Abbe at St. Victor and I mentioned one of the famous medieval figures who study their Peter Lombard.

Well, on this week we'll just focus on Peter Lombard.

He's not to be confused with the Italian sculptor Pietro Lombardo.

Pietro, he designed, among many other things, the tomb of Dante.

This Peter Lombard was Italian just like Pietro, but he was not a sculptor and

said he was a theologian. And when he started his life out in Italy, he ended up in Paris. After his early studies, Peter Lombard taught at the

Cathedral School at Notre Dame, and also as we learned, he spent some time at the Abbey and the

school at St. Victor. He was born in 1095 and he died in 1160.

From 1155 to 1158 just shortly before his death, he wrote his Magnum Opus, The Four Books of Sentences.

These are indeed four books.

The first one he entitled The Trinity, the second he titled The Creation and sin. The third is the incarnation and the

virtues and the fourth is the sacraments and the four last things. These were

instantly well received,

and throughout the Middle Ages,

there were many commentaries written on them

by leading lights, including the leading light

Thomas Aquinas.

By 1222, the fourth latter in council declared them mandatory for the curriculum, and it was just

a few years after that that one of the professors at the University of Paris,

Alexander of Hales, used Lombard instead of the Bible.

He replaced the Bible with Lombard as the textbook and many followed suit.

That was true right on down to Luther's day.

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