Peter Lombard

Peter Lombard, Lat. Petrus Lombardus, c.1100–c.1160, Italian theologian, often called Magister Sententiarum. He studied at Bologna, Reims, and Paris, where he is said to have been a student of Abelard. He acquired some fame as a teacher and was given high offices, serving for a time as archbishop of Paris. His Sentences, one of the most celebrated of all theological works, is a compilation of opinions of earlier theologians, often in conflict and not always reconciled. It was particularly important because its doctrine on sacraments (that a sacrament is both a symbol and a means of grace and that seven fulfill the required conditions) was adopted as the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent (see Trent, Council of). By the 13th cent., the Sentences had become the principal theological text in the universities, and many of the greatest scholastics wrote commentaries on it.

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Peter Lombard

(born c. 1100, Novara, Lombardy—died Aug. 21/22, 1160, Paris) French bishop and theologian. He studied in Bologna and taught theology in the school of Notre-Dame, Paris. He was consecrated bishop of Paris in 1159. His Four Books of Sentences (1148–51), a systematic collection of teachings of the Church Fathers and opinions of medieval theologians, served as the standard theological text of the Middle Ages. In it Peter touched on every doctrinal issue, from God and the Trinity to the four “last things” (death, judgment, hell, and heaven). He asserted that sacraments are the cause and not merely the signal of grace and that human actions may be judged good or bad according to their cause and intention.