the Wisdom of Richard Saint Victor: Mystical Vision, Divine Love, and Architecture Inner Life

How does the human soul ascend to the vision of God? Why must the highest being be three persons in one love?In the twelfth-century Abbey of Saint Victor on the southeast edge of Paris, a Scottish-born canon named Richard set out to answer these questions with patient, methodical seriousness. The result was one of the most original syntheses of Christian thought ever written: a body of work that mapped the architecture of contemplation, derived the inner structure of the Trinity from the logic of perfect love, and described the four degrees by which violent love drives the soul to its heights.The Wisdom of Richard of Saint Victor: Mystical Vision, Divine Love, and the Architecture of the Inner Life traces the whole arc of Richard's thought from his arrival at Saint Victor to the long echo of his work through Bonaventure, Dante, the Rhineland mystics, and modern theology.- Discover the allegory of Jacob's twelve sons as the soul's preparation for vision- Follow the six kinds of contemplation mapped through the imagery of the ark of the covenant- Encounter the bold argument that perfect love requires three persons in eternal communion- Trace the four degrees of violent love, from the wounded heart to the self-outpouring of Christ- Understand the Victorine integration of biblical exegesis, theology, and mysticism- See how Richard's voice continues to speak to readers seeking a serious inner lifeWritten in the contemplative, historically grounded tone of a thoughtful philosopher writing for educated general readers, The Wisdom of Richard of Saint Victor: Mystical Vision, Divine Love, and the Architecture of the Inner Life opens the inner world of one of medieval Christianity's most distinctive teachers, whose patient and demanding voice has shaped the Western mystical tradition for more than eight centuries.