RICHARD OF ST.

VICTOR

From: The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Volume 10 edited by

Johann Jakob Herzog, Albert Hauck, Samuel Macauley Jackson, et al., 1911. pp. 25f.

RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR: French Augustinian; b. probably in Scotland; d. at St. Victor 1173
(probably Mar. 10). At an early age he went to Paris and entered the monastery of canons regular
at St. Victor several years before the death of Hugo of St. Victor (q.v.), whose pupil he was. In
1159 he was subprior and in 1162 became prior, although the incapacity of the abbot caused
double responsibility to devolve on Richard. Richard was an important figure in the struggle of
Thomas a Becket with Henry II. of England. Together with a certain abbot of St. Augustine he
recommended Thomas' cause to the pope, and, with Abbot Ervisius, sharply admonished Robert
of Melun, bishop of Hereford, who had deserted his patron Thomas for the king.

Like his teacher Hugo, Richard was one of the theologians who sought to save traditional
dogmas, imperilled by the dialectic methods of Aristotelian logic, by recourse to mysticism.
Holding the objects of belief to be partly in accord with reason, partly transcending reason, and
partly contradictory to reason, he taught that truth could be attained only by him who should
immerse himself in them in believing mysticism, so that where reason failed, meditation and
contemplation might lead to the truth. These views he advanced especially in his Benjamin
minor, or De praeparatione animi ad contemplationem, and the Benjamin major, or De gratia
contemplationis, with the appendix Allegoria tabernaculi faderis. These sources are
supplemented by his De exterminatione mali et promotione boni, De statu interioris hominis, De
eruditione interioris hominis, and De gradibus caritatis, as well as by his interpretations of
Ezekiel and the Apocalypse, the Explicatio aliquorum passuum difficilium (Pauli) apostoli,
Declarations nonnullarum difficultatum scriptura, De Emmanuele, De superexcellenti baptismo
Christi, Mystica adnotationes in Psalmos, Expositio cantici Habacuc, In cantica canticorum,
Quomodo Christus ponitur in signum populorum, and the Easter sermon De missione Spiritus
Sancti.

In the Benjamin minor Richard traces the psychological development of man from his first dim
longings for purer knowledge to the highest contemplation by an allegorical exegesis of the
family of Jacob (Gen. xxix. 16 sqq.). The wives of Jacob represent the basal powers of the soul,
Leah typifying affection and Rachel reason, the two operating through their handmaids
sensuality and imagination (Zilpah and Bilhah). The births in Jacob's house symbolize the
progress of the soul to contemplation, Leah bearing first because the primal impulse comes from
affection. Reuben, the "son of vision," typifies the fear arising from careful consideration of
faults; while the grief following fear wherein man is heard, is symbolized by Simeon, "hearing."
To fear and grief are added the hope (represented by Levi, "addition ") which leads to
forgiveness. The hope gained from fear and grief results in loving praises of God (Judah,
"confessing"). Lest, however, one should now think himself at his goal, Leah, or affection, now
ceases to bear, and Rachel, or reason, longs for offspring, since reason is unable to think through
mere intelligence, but begins with imagination. Bilhah, or imagination, accordingly bears two
sons, Dan typifying the formation of a mental image on the basis of visible objects, and
Naphthali symbolizing the endeavor to rise from the visible to a knowledge of the invisible. The
success of reason now rekindles affection, and when Leah sees that Rachel bears children by her
handmaid, she could not rest until Zilpah also bore, and from sensuality thus controlled
proceeded temperate life (Gad) and patience in adversity (Asher). The way is thus prepared for
new affection and Leah herself again bears. After departing from false joys and idle commotions,
affection gives rise to true joy (Issachar), on which follows hatred of all evil (Zebulon). The
series of virtues is completed by shame (Dinah), which proceeds from abhorrence of sin.

All these affections can not bring man to his goal, for virtues become vices unless controlled by
meditation. God accordingly gives fertility to Rachel, since only through the interposition of
divine grace can man realize his capabilities. Thus Joseph and Benjamin typify meditation and
contemplation. But the birth of contemplation is accompanied by the extremest pangs, yet
reason, though knowing that this birth transcends her powers, is insatiable in her longing. After
the birth of contemplation, therefore, reason must die. Thus the goal is gained, but the soul must
still press on until at the last all darkness shall vanish and eternal truth shall be revealed.

In the Benjamin major Richard, restricting himself to the intellectual factors, distinguished six
grades of contemplation: imagination alone; imagination according to reason; reason according
to imagination; reason alone; above, but not contrary to, reason; and above, and apparently
contrary to, reason.

The three first grades can not dispense with the imaginative faculty, though they gradually
weaken it, so that in the second grade imagination receives reason, and in the third reason rises to
an equality with imagination. The fourth stage is pure reason, which in the sixth is entirely
transcended by true wisdom.