Hincmar of Rheims (806-882 AD)
• Hincmar (/ˈhɪŋkmɑːr/; French: [ɛk̃ maʁ]; Latin: Hincmarus; 806 – 21 December 882), archbishop of Reims, was a
Frankish jurist and theologian, as well as the friend, advisor and propagandist of Charles the Bald. He belonged to a noble
family of northern Francia.
• [Early life] Hincmar was born in 806 to a distinguished family of the West Franks. Destined to the monastic life, he was
brought up at Saint-Denis under the direction of the abbot Hilduin (died 844), who, when appointed court chaplain in 822,
brought him to the court of the emperor Louis the Pious.[2] There he became acquainted with the political as well as the
ecclesiastical administration of the empire. When Hilduin was disgraced in 830 for having joined the party of Lothair I,
Hincmar accompanied him into exile at Corvey in Saxony. Hincmar used his influence with the emperor on behalf of the
banished abbot, and not without success: for he stood in high favour with Louis the Pious, having always been a faithful
and loyal adherent. He returned with Hilduin to Saint-Denis when the abbot was reconciled with the emperor and
remained faithful to the Louis during his struggle with his sons.[3]
• [Reign of Charles the Bald] After the death of Louis the Pious (840) Hincmar supported Charles the Bald (see
Capitularies of Charles the Bald), and received from him the abbacies of Nôtre-Dame at Compiègne and Saint-Germerde-
Fly. In 845 Hincmar obtained through the king's support the archbishopric of Reims, and this choice was confirmed at
the Synod of Beauvais (April 845). He was consecrated archbishop on 3 May 845; in 847 Pope Leo IV sent him the
pallium.[3] His authoritative and energetic will inspired, and in great measure directed, the policy of the West Frankish
kingdom until his death. As an expert on government and court ceremonial, an aggressive advocate of ecclesiastical
privilege[4] Hincmar took an active part in all the great political and religious affairs of his time, and was especially
energetic in defending and extending the rights of the church and of the metropolitans in general, and of the metropolitan
of the church of Reims in particular. In the resulting conflicts, in which his personal interest was in question, he displayed
great activity and a wide knowledge of canon law, but did not scruple to resort to disingenuous interpretation of texts.
• [Gottschalk_and_predestinarianism] Hincmar' first encounter was with Gottschalk, whose predestinarian doctrines
claimed to be modelled on those of St Augustine. Hincmar placed himself at the head of the party that regarded
Gottschalk's doctrines as heretical, and succeeded in procuring the arrest and imprisonment of his adversary (849). For a
part at least of his doctrines Gottschalk found ardent defenders, such as Lupus of Ferrières, Prudentius of Troyes, the
deacon Florus, and Amolo of Lyons. Through the energy and activity of Hincmar the theories of Gottschalk were
condemned at the second council of Quierzy (853) and Valence (855), and the decisions of these two synods were
confirmed at the synods of Langres and Savonnières, near Toul (859). To refute the predestinarian heresy, Hincmar
composed his De praedestinatione Dei et libero arbitrio, and against certain propositions advanced by Gottschalk on the
Trinity he wrote a treatise called De una et non trina deitate. Gottschalk died in prison in 868.
• Hincmar. Wikipedia. <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hincmar>
• [Steinová] In the mid-ninth century, right in the middle of the predestination controversy, a religious dispute broke out
over the correct way to address the Trinity. The new controversy involved two contestants who had already been (and still
were) pitted against each other in the debate over predestination : Archbishop Hincmar of Reims (845–882) and the monk
Gottschalk of Orbais (c. 808-c. 869). The prelude to the new dispute should be located in the early 850s of the ninth
century, when Hincmar forbade the singing of hymns in his diocese that contained the liturgical formula”trina deitas”(«
trine deity »). The archbishop considered it to be a dangerous term that implied the existence of three gods. Gottschalk,
not amenable to episcopal authority, least of all to the authority of Hincmar, defended the use of this liturgical formula. To
his mind, there were good (grammatical) reasons to use the expression”trina deitas", since”trina”did not mean « three »
but denoted the unity of three different parts, which was, Gottschalk maintained, in line with the orthodox view of the
Trinity. The church fathers had used the expression”trina deitas", he argued, and the term even occurred in the Acts of the
Third Council of Constantinople. Gottschalk wrote several essays on [PAGE 244] the subject in which he opposed
Hincmar’s position on the matter. In 853, at the Council of Soissons, the issue was for the first time debated, but
discussion broke off prematurely. Sometime after the council, between 855 and 857, Hincmar responded to Gottschalk’s
challenge with a treatise called”De una et non trina deitate", in which he attacked Gottschalk and his « blasphemies »
severely. The treatise was addressed to the « beloved children of the Catholic church » and to Hincmar’s co-ministers to
warn them against Gottschalk’s errors. (Steinová, E., & Renswoude, The annotated Gottschalk: Critical signs and control
of heterodoxy in the Carolingian age, 2017, p. 243-244)
• [Davis] In one of the very few essays in English on Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, Eleanor Shipley Duckett calls him
a prince of the Church, a statesman, an administrator, a scholar who rises far above the other figures she
surveys and who stands out in the company of Charles the Great and Pope Nicholas I in the historical records of
the ninth century.1 His long life, from his birth in northern France in 806, his entry into the monastery of St. Denis in 814,
his consecration as archbishop in 845, to his death in 882 at Epernay while fleeing from the Danish invasion, was one
long series of combats calling for a variety of talents. He revealed a deep knowledge of canon law in his various
ecclesiastical disputes with recalcitrant clergy and laity, an astute diplomatic talent in his attempts to knit together the
rapidly unraveling unity of the empire, a broad but un original scholarship in his theological controversies over
predestination and the Trinity which brought him to grips with the leading thinkers of the Carolingian renaissance,
especially the redoubtable Saxon Gottschalk, monk of Orbais. It is with this last controversy that this paper will be
concerned. (L. Davis, Hincmar of Rheims as a Theologian of the Trinity, 1971, p. 455)
• [Davis] Hincmar's book”De una et non trina deitate”represents an example of the work of a busy Carolingian bishop, in a
time of change and evident decay, holding the line on all fronts - for the unity of an empire plagued by dissension within
and attack from without, for the traditional episcopal government against the centralizing papacy of Nicholas the Great, for
the faith of his fathers against, in his opinion, the novelties of an unfrocked monk. (L. Davis, Hincmar of Rheims as a
Theologian of the Trinity, 1971, p. 456)
• [Davis] Thus grounded in Scripture, Hincmar embarks on his refutation. The chief characteristic of his method, as all his
critics have pointed out scornfully, is the heaping up of apposite texts culled from the Fathers. In this he is indefatigable. In
all, he quotes some twenty-five authors 423 times. St. Augustine whom he counsels Gottschalk to hear and hear again
heads the list with some 123 quotations from twenty-nine works, principally, of course, the De Trinitate. St. Ambrose
follows with eighty-nine citations from his often repeated hymns, his De fide, De Spiritu sancto, and the Liber de
poenitentia. What passed for the works of St. Athanasius are represented by thirty-six quotations from four books.
Gregory the Great contributed thirty-three citations from ten works, especially the sixteenth Homily on Ezechiel; Leo the
Great, twenty-two, principally Letter IV to Turibius; Boethius, twenty-eight, from two works, his De Trinitate and Letter to
John of Antioch; Jerome, eighteen, from five works, particularly Letter LVII to Damasus. Other authors are cited less often:
Hilary and Sophronius of Jerusalem eight times each; Celestine six, especially Letter VI to John of Antioch; Bede six;
Prosper of Aquitaine four; Theophilus of Antioch three. Near contemporaries like Alcuin and Prudentius of Troyes appear
too, one four times, the other once. The popes, Pelagius and Gelasius, figure twice each. Poets and grammarians too are
pressed in the service of theology; Sedulius once, Prudentius twice, and Aratorten times; while Donatus and Priscian are
only mentioned. Proclus of Constantinople, the Liturgy of St. Basil, and Peter of Nicomedia are all cited once. Besides, he
mentions without explicit quotation Denis the Areopagite, Cyprian, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen - whom he
quotes through St. Augustine - John Chrysostom, Timothy and Cyril of Alexandria, and Epiphanius. In all likelihood,
Hincmar had the works of these theologians before him and could presume that they were available also to his
monastic readers. For he comments at one point that the weight of tradition is on his side”as anyone who so wishes
may easily find out in the aforementioned books of those thinkers”(Latin: sicut in me moratis eorum libris qui volet
sine difficultate praevalet invenire). [Migne Latina, PL 125.489] At this spot in his argument he has already mentioned a
considerable library. (L. Davis, Hincmar of Rheims as a Theologian of the Trinity, 1971, p. 459-460)
• [Hincmar] By these testimonies of orthodox thinkers, who supported their opinions with Gospel truth,
apostolical authority, and the predictions of the law and prophets (as anyone who so wishes may easily find out
in the aforementioned books of those thinkers), it is made absolutely clear that the godhead which is the unity of the
Trinity, should not be understood, believed, or said to be triple in persons as Godescalc blasphemously says. (Hincmar,
De una et non trina deitate; Migne Latina, 125.489; Translated by Sarah Van der Pas, correspondence, August 2020)
Hincmar Quotes De Trinitate Book 1 (wherein is 1 John 5:7)
● [Hincmar] St. Athanasius in the first book of the Trinity:”You, the only God the Father and [only-begotten] Son
and Holy Spirit, you have declared us your divinity and you have revered the indivisible glory of your sacrosanct
unique divine nature, and you have shown us the absolute eternity of your Trinity, for this I have believed to do a
very useful work because your truth, made clear, shine forth, and the blindness of heretics, made manifest,
becomes known to all.”[De Trinitate, book 1]
(Hincmar of Rheims, The one Godhead, not three; Translated by Lorenzo Dattrino, 1994)
○ Latin: Sanctus Athanasius dicit in capite libri primi de Trinitate: « Tu unus Deus Pater, et unigenitus
Dei Filius, Deus Spiritus sanctus, qui unam deitatem nobis declarasti, et sacrosanctae solius divinitatis
indivisam gloriam revelasti, et perfectam gloriam Trinitatis tuam sempiternam plenitudinem demonstrasti.
Ideo optimum duxi, ut tua veritas patefacta claresceret, et haereticorum detecta caecitas innotesceret.
(0543D)”[De Trinitate, Book 1.1; CCSL 9:3; Migne Latina, PL 62.237B] (Hincmarus Rhemensis, De una et
non trina deitate; Migne Latina, PL 125.543)
● [Hincmar] In the following manner, Athanasius in the first book on the Trinity:”This is, I would say, the true
formula of faith, in our conflict with the heretics, and this is also the reason for the victory in the clarity of
Catholics. What does the fundamental divine commandment mean: Go and baptize all peoples in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Listen. In that marvelous and sovereign precept, in which all the
sacraments in relation to the divine Trinity are included in strict union, in having begun the formula with the
expression in the name, he evidently wanted to declare only one divinity in the Trinity, and having continued with
the words of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit he intended to distinguish, for each single name, the
single Persons.”(Hincmar of Rheims, The one Godhead, not three; Translated by Lorenzo Dattrino, 1994)
○ Latin: Hoc modo Athanasius in libro primo de Trinitate: « Haec est, inquit, materia formulae in
collisione haereticorum, et haec tituli victoria in absolutione catholicorum, quam significat principale
mandatum Dei: Euntes baptizate omnes gentes in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti (Matth. XXVIII,
19) . Audi in hoc admirabile et regale decretum, in quo omne sacramentum in deitate Trinitatis uniter
continetur. (0486B) Qui dixit in nomine, evidenter unam deitatem in Trinitate consistere declaravit: et
quod prosecutus est, Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti, per singula nomina, singulas personas inesse
distinxit. » [De Trinitate, book 1; CCSL 9:5; Migne Latina, PL 62.238] (Hincmarus Rhemensis, De una et
non trina deitate; Migne Latina, PL 125.486)
Codex
