Arno of Reichersberg

ARNO OF REICHERSBERG: A younger brother of the more famous Gerhoh of Reichersberg; d. Jan. 30, 1175. The year of his birth is not known, He received his education from Gerhoh, whose “son in the Lord” he calls himself. A third brother, Ruodger, was dean at Augsburg, and later at Neuburg. After Gerhoh’s death, Arno, then dean, was unanimously chosen provost of the collegiate church of Reichersberg on the Inn, in the diocese of Passau (June 29, 1169). He wrote his Scutum canonicorum (in MPL, cxciv. 1489–1528) under Eugenius III., and so earlier than 1153. It was called out by the jealousy existing between the monks and the canons, which Arno wholly condemns, pleading for fraternal unity between the two foundations with similar aims. At the same time he vigorously defends the canons’ rule of life, considering them the true imitators of Christ and the apostles, especially because, unlike the monks, they occupy themselves directly with the service of their neighbors. He also wrote an apologetic treatise (ed. C. Weichert, Leipsic, 1888), defending the teaching of Gerhoh against Provost Folmar of Triefenstein, on a question of Christology—whether the man (homo) taken into God at the Incarnation is truly and strictly the Son of God. Arno vehemently asserts the affirmative, maintaining that all the qualities of the Godhead were communicated to the human nature, though veiled during the earthly life of Christ. As a corollary he condemns the prevailing view of a local heaven, in which Christ sits in bodily presence. Underneath his polemic against Folmar there is another, expressed or unexpressed, against a more important theologian, Peter Lombard; and in one place he also controverts Hugo of St. Victor. Among other contemporary theologians, he knows Bernard of Clairvaux and Rupert of Deutz.

(A. Hauck.)

Bibliography: Wattenbach, DGQ, ii. 314, note 3; Hauck, KD, iv. 444 sqq.