Isaac of Stella (d. c.1177)

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ◽

10.4324/9780415249126-b057-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Winthrop Wetherbee

Keyword(s):

Twelfth Century ◽

Human Experience ◽

Spiritual Psychology ◽

Contemplative Life ◽

Cosmic Model

Like other twelfth-century Cistercians, Isaac of Stella was well versed in secular learning. Centrally engaged with the contemplative life, he expresses his spiritual insights in terms of the science of his day, and combines a spiritual psychology derived from Johannes Scottus Eriugena and Hugh and Richard of St Victor with an anthropology grounded in Stoic physics, Greek and Arab medicine, and a cosmic model derived from Plato’s Timaeus. A unifying theme of his writings is the relation between the physical and spiritual dimensions of human experience.

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Hugh of St Victor, Isaiah’s Vision, and De arca Noe

Studies in Church History ◽

10.1017/s0424208400012407 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 28 ◽

pp. 99-116

Author(s):

Grover A. Zinn

Keyword(s):

Twelfth Century ◽

Significant Relationship ◽

The Earth ◽

Hands And Feet ◽

Contemplative Life ◽

Noah's Ark

Hugh of St Victor’s two treatises on Noah’s Ark, De arca Noe morali and De arca Noe mystìca, are major twelfth-century writings on the contemplative life with a significant relationship to the medieval iconographie tradition. Both refer to a drawing that symbolically presents the spiritual teaching of the treatises. Unfortunately this drawing no longer exists, but De arca Noe mystica describes it in detail. That description and passages in De arca Noe morali show that the drawing had three major iconographie elements:(1) a figure of Christ ‘seated in majesty’ as seen in a vision by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 6);(2) a symbolic cosmos, with the earth at the centre, surrounded by the regions of aer and aether; and(3) a schematized drawing of Noah’s Ark, depicting it as a three-storeyed, pyramidal vessel viewed from above.These three ‘units’ were arranged so that the figure of Christ held the symbolic cosmos in front of his body (with only his head, hands, and feet visible), while the diagram of the Ark was placed in the centre of the symbolic cosmos so that the earth surrounded the Ark.

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