The Twelve Patriarchs/The Mystical Ark/Book Three of the Trinity [antikvár]

PREFACE The lengthy introduction which Professor Grover Zinn has given us, at the very outset of this book, makes perfectly clear the reasons why the texts of Richard of St. Victor, that he here presents, merited a choice place in a collection dedicated to the great classics of Western spirituality. The preface that he has asked of me can then only express, for this project carried out so well, the sympathy, esteem and interest that everyone must feel who is familiar with the works of Richard and who has admired their richness and depth. Richard of St. Victor is, indeed, a great spiritual figure, perhaps one of the greatest, of a Christian medieval time that included so many. He early enjoyed, in this respect, an exceptional authority of which St. Bonaventure and Dante Alighieri, both justly cited by Professor Grover Zinn, are the most prestigious witnesses. He thus exercised, for several centuries, an influence that all the historians of Christian spirituality agree upon, but whose extent they certainly have not completely delineated. It must, however, be recognized that in spite of the favorable judgments continually accorded him, the spiritual teaching of Richard in modern times has been somewhat passed over and neglected. This relative depreciation, whose causes are worth analyzing, is probably due, on the one hand, to the progressive decline of the monastery where Richard, this Scotus come from Scotland or from Ireland, had set his destiny. The Abbey of Canons Regular of St. Victor of Paris doubtless persisted until the French Revolution. But during the two or three last centuries of its exis-