Abstract

The writings of Richard of St. Victor contain exegetical, mystical, and theological texts. The exegetical writings of Richard are grounded in the works of Hugh of St. Victor. These exegetical writings support an ambitious project of tracing the soul’s spiritual ascent - and its objects of contemplation - as the soul ascends from imagination to reason and finally beyond reason. This spiritual project culminates in Richard’s systematic treatise on the Trinity, in which he considers the nature of the Triune God as the highest level of the soul’s spiritual contemplation.

Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173) was a member of the Augustinian canons regular at the Abbey of St. Victor, located on the left bank of the Seine just outside the city walls of twelfth-century Paris. Richard probably arrived at the Abbey after the death of Hugh (1141) in the 1150s, and he follows Hugh closely in his exegetical, mystical, and theological writings. Richard was elected sub-prior of the abbey in 1159 and prior in 1162, spending much of his time as prior under the problematic abbacy of Gilduin.

Richard continued the intellectual program begun by Hugh of Saint Victor, employing a similar exegetical method and operating within the same intellectual framework as Hugh. This is evident in Richard’s reliance on Augustine of Hippo, and his own intellectual debt to Hugh. But, given these similarities, Richard’s own works are more “scholastic” in nature. The methodological approach of Richard’s De trinitate and his reliance on Anselm’s concept of ‘‘necessary reasons’’ anticipate certain late twelfth - and early thirteenth-century developments in trinitarian theology. Richard’s works are collected in Patrologia Latina 196 and are currently being edited in modern critical editions.