Hugh of St. Victor and the Authorship of In Threnos Ieremiae *

The great esteem in which Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) was held by his contemporaries and by subsequent theologians led to the false attribution of a number of works to the Victorine. The prophetic commentaries have been especially challenged, while In Threnos Ieremiae alone has remained unquestioned. This article questions the authenticity of that work, however, because it departs in both content and style from Hugh’s authentic commentaries. A computer search on words and phrases using the Patrologia Latina Database turned up a number of polemical comments about Jews much at odds with Hugh’s generally irenic attitude toward Jews. Moreover, the search revealed items unique to the Lamentations commentary, but not unique to the non‐authentic works and the disputed prophetic commentaries. Although the literal explanations in Lamentations do generally resemble Hugh’s style, the additions of allegorical and moral explanations are unusual. They may indicate that a second party added to an initial work by Hugh. The polemical use of the words perdy , blindness, Jew, and Judaism, however, suggests authorship by another, particularly since these expressions turn up in other works no longer credited to Hugh of St.Victor.