Isaac of Stella, also referred to as Isaac de l'Étoile, (c. 1100, in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

– c. 1170s, Étoile,

Archigny Archigny () is a commune in the Vienne department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in western France. See also *Communes of the Vienne department The following is a list of the 266 communes of the Vienne department of France F ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

) was a

Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...

and later a

Carthusian The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians ( la, Ordo Cartusiensis), are a Latin enclosed religious order of the Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its ...

monk, theologian and philosopher.

Life

Born in England, after studies in Paris, he entered the

Order of Cistercians The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint B ...

, probably at Pontigny, during the reforms of Saint

Bernard of Clairvaux Bernard of Clairvaux, O. Cist. ( la, Bernardus Claraevallensis; 109020 August 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templars, and a major leader in the reformation of the Benedictine Order through ...

. In 1147 he became

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The fem ...

of the small

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

of Stella, outside Poitiers. At some time in his later life, most probably in 1167, he left Stella to set up a monastery on the

Île de Ré Île de Ré (; variously spelled Rhé or Rhéa; Poitevin: ''ile de Rét''; en, Isle of Ré, ) is an island off the Atlantic coast of France near La Rochelle, Charente-Maritime, on the northern side of the Pertuis d'Antioche strait. Its highe ...

on the Atlantic coast. He later returned to Stella, where it is known that he lived into the 1170s since in one of his sermons he refers to meeting 'Saint' Bernard - and Bernard was only canonised in 1174. Isaac's most popular work was an allegorical commentary on the canon of the Mass in the form of a letter to John of Canterbury, bishop of Poitiers. His 55 surviving sermons (and three sermon fragments), as well as his ''Letter to Alcher on the Soul'', constitute his real theological contribution. The ''Letter'' (1962) was addressed to Alcher of Clairvaux, and combined Aristotelian and Neoplatonic theories about psychology with Christian mysticism. It exercised a significant role in later mystical speculation due to the incorporation of large sections of Isaac's work in the anthropological compendium known as ''De spiritu et anima'' (''The Spirit and the Soul''), which circulated under the name of Augustine and was widely used in the 13th century.McGinn, ''Growth'', p286. It appears under the name of Augustine in PL 40:779-832 (McGinn, ''Growth'', p544). An English translation exists in B. McGinn (tr), ''Three Treatises on Man: A Cistercian Anthropology'', (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1977). It in fact seems to be a compilation by a Cistercian, and to date from the 1170s. Isaac's works make use of logical argumentation, influenced by

Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Af ...

Neoplatonism Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonism, Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and Hellenistic religion, religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of ...

References

Sources

* *Bernard McGinn, ''The Growth of Mysticism'', (1994), pp286–296 *Bernard McGinn, ''The Golden Chain: A Study in the Theological Anthropology of Isaac of Stella'', (Washington, DC: Cistercian Publications, 1972) *J.-P. Migne, ''Patrologia Latina'' 194

Translations

*''The Selected Works of Isaac of Stella: A Cistercian Voice from the Twelfth Century'', tr. D Deme, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007) *''Sermons for the Christian Year'', tr. H McCaffrey, (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979) *''Epistola de anima'', in B McGinn (tr), ''Three Treatises on Man: A Cistercian Anthropology'', (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1977) {{Authority control English Cistercians English theologians 12th-century English people 1100s births 1160s deaths