Institutiones in Decalogum
by Hugh of Saint Victor
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://migne.app/pl/176/institutiones-in-decalogum/
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## Of which these are the headings:



## CHAP. I.

*On the three precepts of the former tablet.* --CHAP. II. *On the seven precepts of the latter tablet.* --CHAP. III. *On the order of the precepts of God.* --CHAP. IV. *On the substance of love, and on ordered charity.*

## CHAP. I.-- *On the three precepts of the former tablet.*

[0009A]

*Hear, O Israel: thy God, God is one; him shalt thou adore, and him alone shalt thou serve [n: (Deut. VI)]*. Not the whole of what is said belongs to the precept, because before the precept the mind of the hearer is prepared for obedience by admonition. *Hear, O Israel.* Here mark obedience. *Thy God,* here mark grace. *God is one,* here doctrine; as though it were said: Show obedience, understand grace, acknowledge truth. That you hear — this is the obedience which is required of you. That he is your God is the grace of the one who goes before. That God is one is the truth by which you are illumined and perfected. Hear your God, who has already shown mercy to you, and yet has not yet received service from you, so that you may know that from him is both — namely, both that he requires of you the work of virtue, and that he [0009B] promises you the reward of recompense. *Hear, O Israel,* that is, hearken, acquiesce. For every virtue begins from obedience, just as every vice proceeds from disobedience. For in vain would grace be given to the disobedient, or doctrine to the stubborn, or a precept to one who does not understand. Therefore first *hear, O Israel,* that you may be obedient; *thy God,* that you may be devout; *God is one,* that you may acknowledge the truth. Then follows the precept: *Him shalt thou adore,* this pertains to faith. *And him alone shalt thou serve,* this pertains to work. For faith working through love makes the perfect man, because neither work without faith, nor faith — for which there is time enough — is acceptable without work. Therefore adore by believing rightly, serve by working well. But it may be asked whether what he said, *him alone,* is to be referred [0009C] to both, so that it be said, Him alone shalt thou adore and him alone shalt thou serve? But how will this be able to stand, since we often read in the Old Testament that holy men adored not only [0010A] angels, but even men, and yet we nowhere find them reproved on that account? And in the New Testament the Apostle indeed most earnestly exhorts even the faithful to serve their superiors and prelates. It must therefore be known that men are adored in one way, and God is commanded to be adored in another way: for by ancient usage any superiors whatever were said to be adored by their inferiors, when reverence was shown to them by these, whether in the bending of the knees or in the inclination of the head. But to adore God is to lay down the whole mind beneath him through humility and devotion, and to believe him the beginning and end of all good. That we owe this to him alone, there is no one of sound mind who would doubt. Whence he himself also testifies concerning himself through the prophet, saying: *My glory I will not give to another: [0010B] nor my praise to graven images [n: (Isa. XLII)]*. But concerning service, the same thing can fittingly be understood, since undoubtedly every man is most rightly said to serve God alone who both, in accordance with God, humbly subjects himself to a superior man, and, where the cause of God is assailed, confidently gainsays it; who carefully takes heed lest in his service he either do anything against God for fear of man, or set the gain of earthly recompense before the heavenly reward in his intention. But in the Greek the meaning is expressed more plainly. For the Greek diction distinguishes divine service from human by its own word, which the Latin tongue does not have: for there the service of God is called *latria,* and human service *dulia.* And on this account those were called idolaters who rendered to idols the service which they owed to God. But the Latin tongue embraces both [0010C] services under the same name, and therefore the signification has become more obscure when it is said, *Him alone shalt thou serve,* which in the Greek is not [0011A] ambiguous. But since this precept pertains to the Father, why is it said, *Him alone shalt thou serve,* as though one ought not to serve also the Son and the Holy Spirit? But what is said, *alone,* does not exclude the communion of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: but whatever is not God. Now the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one God, and he alone is to be adored, and to him alone, and to no other, is service to be rendered — namely, with that service which is owed to him alone. For also in the Gospel, when it is said, *No one knows the Father, but the Son [n: (Matth. XV)]*, etc., the Holy Spirit is surely not excluded from the knowledge of the Father, since he too searches the deep things of God, as the Apostle testifies [n: (I Cor. II)]. But it is a manner of speaking of this kind, so that it is said, no one but he — namely, no one who is not that which he is.

[0011B]These things having been passed over for brevity's sake, let us pass on to the discussing of the following commandment, which is this: *Thou shalt not take the name of thy God in vain [n: (Exod. XX)]*. This, according to the simple sense of the letter, ought to be understood thus: that a man take not the name of God in vain, that is, either for confirming a lie or for venerating an idol — namely, that he neither honor idols with the divine name, nor associate the name of God with falsehood. But mystically, to take the name of God in vain is to reckon the Son of God, made visible through his humanity, to be a creature. For he takes the name of God in vain who believes that the eternal Son of God began in time. For the Son is called the name of the Father, because in the Son, and through the Son, the invisible Father is made manifest — not only when through him the world was made, but [0011C] also when through him man was redeemed. Surely those who confess the Son of God made man in no way take the name of God in vain, because him whom they believe to be man through that which he assumed in time, they acknowledge to be true God through that which he was from eternity. It can still be understood in another way, what was said: *Thou shalt not take the name of thy God in vain.* For they take the name of God in vain who despise the Son of God, sent to them and incarnate for their salvation. What then is it to say, *Thou shalt not take the name of thy God in vain,* except: As you venerate and adore him because you were made by him, so adore him and venerate him because you were redeemed by him, who conferred upon you no less when he redeemed than when he created? To the same sense pertains [0011D] what the Son himself says in the Gospel to the disciples, and through the disciples to all who believe in him: *You believe in God, believe also in me [n: (Joan. XIV)]*: admonishing us indeed with a modest suggestion (as befitted the merciful one), that we may understand that he is to be adored by us not only in his divinity, by which he created, but also in his humanity, by which he redeemed.

The third precept is: *Observe the day of the Sabbath [n: (Deut. V)]*. Scripture seems to commemorate four Sabbaths. The first, that in which God is said to have rested, his works being finished. The second, that which is commanded to the children of Israel to be kept carnally. The third, that which is enjoined upon the people of God to be observed spiritually. The fourth, that which in the promise [0012A] God pledges to those who love him, a Sabbath for a Sabbath. There are therefore two Sabbaths outwardly, one of God and one of man; and two inwardly, one of God and one of man. The Sabbath of God, that in which outwardly he is said to have ceased from work, is the sacrament of that inner Sabbath of his, in which his eternal immortality and immortal eternity, enjoying a perpetual and unshaken blessedness, is never wearied by any labor. The Sabbath of man, which is enjoined upon him to be observed outwardly and visibly, is the sacrament of the inner Sabbath, where the holy mind, resting through a good conscience from the servitude of sin, is gladdened in the joy of the Holy Spirit. Whoever in the present life shall so keep this Sabbath as to consent to no evils, shall come in the life to come to that inner and eternal [0012B] Sabbath of God, where he shall feel no evils, as it is said: *And there shall be a Sabbath for a Sabbath, a month for a month.* And so this precept seems to be referred specially to the person of the Holy Spirit, when it is said: *Observe the Sabbath,* namely, that in the present we may receive him and keep him within us unto the joy of a good conscience, so that in the future we may deserve to receive and possess him unto the joy of eternal life. These, then, are the three precepts of the first tablet, in which especially the love of God is commended, and the whole Trinity, one God, is enjoined to be equally adored and worshiped.



## CHAP. II.-- *On the seven commandments of the second tablet.*

The second tablet contained seven others, which instruct man in the love of his neighbor. And therefore [0012C] they are distinguished by the number seven: because in the present life only — which turns in seven days — our charity is exercised toward the neighbor in works of piety; afterward, works being consummated and labors ended, it is to be beatified in God, together with the neighbor alike, through contemplation. The love of neighbor, therefore, is both temporal, as far as pertains to the performance of the work, and eternal, as far as pertains to the effect of love. The first precept of the second tablet pertains to the human father, as the first of the first tablet to God the Father; in both, fatherhood is set first; in both, it is honored with the dignity of a beginning, because in a certain manner we have the beginning of our being born, through generation, from the human father, just as we received the beginning of our existing, [0012D] through creation, from God the Father. And the fatherhood of man is a sacrament and an image of the divine fatherhood. So that the human heart may learn, in the beginning which it sees, what it owes to that beginning from which it is and which it does not see. So then it was said: *Honor thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayst be long-lived upon the earth [n: (Deut. V)]*. As was said above concerning the first precept of the first tablet, so here too not the whole of what is set down pertains to the precept. But there, what was beside the precept was placed before; here it is placed after: *Hear, O Israel, thy God, God is one,* — this whole is set before the precept, the precept itself being brought in afterward: *Him shalt thou adore, and him alone shalt thou serve.* Here the precept precedes, *Honor thy father and thy mother,* [0013A] then is subjoined, *that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayst be long-lived upon the earth.* What then is it that there, before the precept, the ground of the precept is brought in, except that God is to be loved for his own sake, and man for the sake of God? For the love of parents also, if it looks to the flesh alone, does not acquire a spiritual reward. From God, therefore, there is first in us that for the sake of which he is afterward to be loved by us, because our love is anticipated by his grace, and our love, aroused by his grace, follows after. But in the case of the fathers of our flesh, if our love is directed only to that benefit by which our merit is carnally anticipated by them, then, because it advances not beyond the affection of the flesh and above the regard of the flesh, it does not attain to the perfection of a spiritual reward. Therefore for the sake of the life of eternity is the author of temporal life to be loved, [0013B] namely, that he be loved not because we received this life from him, or rather through him, but because through him we are about to enter into life. Well, therefore, when it had been said, *Honor thy father,* the ground was subjoined, *that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayst be long-lived upon the earth,* namely, of the living, because we ought to love this in the author of this life, that by him, through this life, we have been initiated unto the life to come. And beautifully is length of life promised to him who honors his own beginning, because to cleave to God through love merits eternity. Surely, as far as regards the sense of the letter, we ought to honor our parents in two ways: namely, both by obeying them in all things — those excepted in which the love of God the Father is not offended — and by helping them, as far as our means suffice. But [0013C] nothing hinders us from understanding the same thing also of our spiritual fathers, that is, our prelates, to whom we owe obedience as far as our possibility has it, and help — nay, service — as far as our means suffice.

The second precept is: *Thou shalt not kill [n: (Deut. V)]*. Fittingly indeed, he to whom in the preceding commandment length of life is promised, here is forbidden to extinguish another's life; so that this is of the love of God — that, honoring his own beginning, he gapes after the life that knows no end; but this of the love of neighbor — that he loosens himself to the ending of another's life by no hatred of cruelty.

Then follows the third precept: *Thou shalt not commit adultery* [0013D] [n: (ibid.)]: and the fourth: *Thou shalt not commit theft [n: (ibid.)]*. *Thou shalt not commit adultery,* this pertains to one's own life: *Thou shalt not commit theft,* this pertains to another's life. For above he was commanded to preserve both his own and another's life; here he is commanded not to harm both his own and another's life. For it is just that he beware of corruption in the way of life who awaits an incorrupt life in the fatherland, and that he who does not oppress his neighbor's life by open violence should not harm him even by hidden fraud in those things which are given for the use of living. And let him not only not harm of himself, but let him not presume to furnish confidence or support, by his authority or attestation, to those who harm and who wish to harm. For this is forbidden by the following commandment, [0014A] when it is said: *Thou shalt not bear false witness [n: (ibid.)]*. And because he cannot long restrain himself from the work of harming who does not restrain his mind from the intention and the will of harming, it follows and says: *Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife: neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor's goods [n: (ibid.)]*. That you commit not adultery, covet not your neighbor's wife; that you commit not theft, covet not your neighbor's goods. These are the ten precepts, which open the way of the first perfection and the path of direction. For the first perfection directs man in himself through good working. The second expands him in breadth through the charity of neighbor. The third lifts him on high through the charity of God. For the number ten sets forth the line of the first perfection, the number a hundred expands the breadth of the second: the number a thousand [0014B] raises on high the summit of perfection.

## CHAP. III.-- *On the order of the precepts of God.*

But it is not fitting to pass over without consideration the order of these precepts of God themselves. For if there is an order of living, there is surely also an order of commanding. First, therefore, attend to what is said to you, *that you adore your God, and serve him,* — this is the first precept. In adoration acknowledge faith, in service understand good working. After these the second precept follows: *That you take not the name of your God in vain,* so that the word of truth may be in your mouth for the sake of truth, that after the faith of the heart may follow the confession of the mouth. First, devotion unto a good conscience; then, the example of work unto a good repute; last, the word of preaching unto doctrine. Then follows [0014C] the third precept, and it is said to you, *that you observe the Sabbath,* that is, that you keep the quiet of the mind, so that you be not disturbed by the adversities that meet you from without on account of the truth. But that you may learn to be peaceable even among those who hate peace, that you may preach the truth, and not omit charity. These are the three precepts of the first tablet, concerning those things which pertain to God. After which follows the second tablet, concerning those things which regard the neighbor. The first precept, therefore, of the second tablet is that in which it is enjoined upon you, *that you honor your beginning, that you may be able to have a long life,* since he who does not honor him from whom he is, is worthy that he should not be able to retain that which he is. The second, *Thou shalt not kill,* follows in due order, because if, by observing the first precept of this tablet, [0014D] you wish to be *long-lived upon the earth,* it is consonant with reason and with the dictate of nature that you kill no one, nor, namely, do to any other what you would not wish done to yourself. With which the third, fourth, and fifth also agree; for as you wish not only your life to be safe, but also wish to have your spouse, and your property, and your repute inviolate, so it is fitting *that you commit not adultery, commit not theft, bear not false witness,* by which last you might harm your neighbor in three things: in life, in property, and in repute. Furthermore, because for justification it is not enough to restrain the hand from unlawful things through the dread of punishment, but it is necessary that we restrain ourselves also in mind, by the love of God and of virtue, the two remaining are well subjoined: that you covet neither the wife nor the property of your neighbor.



## CHAP. IV.-- *On the substance of love, and on ordered charity.*

[0015A]

We daily sow a discourse on love, lest perchance, we not marking it, the fire spark in our hearts and blaze up, making a flame — either consuming the whole, or purging the whole. For from it is everything that is good, and everything that is evil is from it. One fount of love, springing up within, pours forth two streams. The one is love of the world, cupidity: the other is love of God, charity. For the heart of man is the midpoint, whence the fount of love breaks forth; and when through appetite it is led to outward things, it is called cupidity: but when it directs its desire to inward things, it is named charity. Therefore there are two streams that flow from the fount of love, cupidity and [0015B] charity. And cupidity is the root of all evils, and charity the root of all goods. From it, therefore, is everything that is good, and everything that is evil is from it. Whatever, then, that is, it is a great thing which is in us, and from it is the whole that is within us; and this is love. What is love, and how great? what is love, or whence is love? And the word of God speaks of love. Is this business not rather that of those who are wont to prostitute love, who are wont to prostitute chastity? Behold how many there are who willingly take up its mysteries, how few who do not blush to bring its words into the open. What, then, do we do? Perhaps we have a brow broken with much shamelessness, we who are not ashamed to fashion love into a discourse, which even the unchaste sometimes [0015C] cannot express in words without shame. But it is one thing to investigate a vice that it may be rooted out, another to exhort to a vice, so that virtue and truth be not loved. We, therefore, investigate and seek that we may know, and knowing may beware — a thing which they too investigate that they may know, but know that they may do — namely, what that is in us which so manifoldly divides our desires, and leads our heart into diverse things. But we find that this is nothing other than love, which, since it is a motion of the heart, according to its nature single and one, but according to its action divided — when it moves itself inordinately, that is, toward the things it ought not, it is called cupidity; but when it is ordered, it is called charity. This very motion of the heart, then, which we call [0015D] love, by what definition shall we be able to mark it? It is expedient for us to look upon it more closely, lest it lie hidden in any degree and be not known, and therefore be neither guarded against when it is evil, nor sought or found when it is good — this, from which, both when it is evil so great evils come, and when it is good so great goods proceed. How, then, we may define it, let us investigate and consider, because what is sought is hidden, and the more inwardly it is placed, the more it holds mastery over the heart on either side. Therefore love appears, and love is the loving of someone's heart toward something for the sake of something: a desire in seeking, and a joy in enjoying: [0016A] running through desire, resting through joy. Here is your good, and here is your evil, O human heart, because you are good from no other source if you are good, nor evil from any other source if you are evil, except that you love, either ill or well, that which is good. For everything that is, is good; but when that which is good is loved ill, that is good, and this is evil. Therefore neither is he who loves evil, nor is that which he loves evil, nor is the love by which he loves evil, but that he loves ill — and this alone is evil. Order your charity, then, and there is no longer any evil. We wish to commend a great matter, if only we are strong enough for what we wish. Almighty God, who needs nothing, because he himself is the highest and true good, who can neither receive from another anything by which he might grow, since from him [0016B] are all things, nor lose anything of his own by which he might fall away, since in him all things immutably subsist — he created the rational spirit by charity alone, by no necessity, that he might make it a partaker of his blessedness. Furthermore, that the same might be fit to enjoy so great a blessedness, he made love in it — a spiritual palate, in a certain manner rendering it sensible to the taste of the inward sweetness: so that through this love, namely, it might savor the gladness of its own happiness, and might cleave to him with untiring desire. Through love, therefore, God joined the rational creature to himself, so that, ever cleaving to him, it might, in a certain manner, by affection suck from him the good by which it was to be beatified, and drink of him by desire, and possess it in him by joy. Suck, O little bee, suck. Suck and drink the ineffable pleasantness of your [0016C] sweetness. Plunge in, and be filled, because he knows not how to fail, if you do not begin to loathe; cleave, then, and cling; take and enjoy. If the taste be everlasting, everlasting also will be the blessedness. Let it no longer shame us nor grieve us to have made a discourse on love. Let it not grieve us where there is so great profit: let it not shame us where there is such honor. Therefore by love is the rational creature united to its Maker: and it is the bond of love alone that binds them both into the selfsame, and the more happily the more strongly. For which reason also, that an undivided fellowship and a perfect concord might be had on both sides, the bond budded forth into the charity of God and of neighbor, so that through the charity of God all might cleave to the One, through the charity [0016D] of neighbor all might become one toward one another; so that what each, of that One to whom all cleaved, could not contain in himself, he might more fully and more perfectly possess in another through the charity of neighbor; and the good of all might become the whole of each. Order your charity, then. What is it to order charity? If love is desire, let it run well: if it is joy, let it rest well. For love (as has been said) is the loving of someone's heart toward something for the sake of something: a desire in seeking, and a joy in enjoying: running through desire, and resting through joy: running to that, resting in that. To what, or in what? [0017A] Hear, if perchance we may be able to explain whither our love ought to run, or in what to rest. There are three things which can be loved well or ill, that is, God, the neighbor, and the world. God is above us: the neighbor is beside us: the world is beneath us. Order your charity, then. If it runs, let it run well: if it rests, let it rest well. Desire runs: joy rests. Wherefore joy is uniform, because it is always in one thing: nor can it be varied by change. But desire admits of changeableness, and therefore does not contain itself in one thing, but represents various forms. For every course is either from that, or with that, or in that, toward which it is. How, then, ought our desire to run? There are three: God, the neighbor, and the world. Let God have three, [0017B] the neighbor two, and the world one, in the course of our desire. And so in desire there is ordered charity. For love, through desire, can run in due order both from God, and with God, and into God. It runs from God when it receives from him that whence it loves him. It runs with God when it contradicts his will in nothing. It runs into God when it seeks to rest in him. These are the three which pertain to God. Two are the neighbor's. For desire can run from the neighbor, but into the neighbor it cannot. From the neighbor, that it may rejoice in his salvation and advancement. [0018A] With the neighbor, that it may desire to have him, in the way of God, both a companion of the journey and a partner in the arrival. But into the neighbor it cannot, so as to place its hope and trust in a man. These are the two which pertain to the neighbor, that is, from him, with him, not into him. One is the world's, to run from it: not with it, or into it. Desire runs from the world when, the work of God being beheld without, through wonder and praise it turns itself the more ardently within toward him. It would run with the world if, according to the changeableness of temporal things — whether casting itself down in adversities, or lifting itself up in prosperity — it conformed itself to this age. It would run into the world if it wished ever to rest in its delights. Order your charity, then: that desire may run from God, with God, into God; from the neighbor, [0018B] with the neighbor, not into the neighbor; from the world, neither with the world, nor into the world. And let it rest in God alone through joy, because, if it is joy, let love rest well; if it is desire, let love run well. For love, as has been said, is the loving of someone's heart toward something for the sake of something: a desire in seeking, and a joy in enjoying, running toward another, resting in that. This is ordered charity, and besides it, everything that is done is not ordered charity, but inordinate cupidity.
