Richard of St Victor

Although under-researched by comparison to his earlier contemporary, Hugh, Richard of St Victor’s work in spirituality and theology was highly innovative in its own day. Richard was the first to schematize the pathway to knowledge of God that had been referred to in more individualistic terms by previous thinkers. He departed significantly from the previous Western tradition which focused on the simplicity of God and proffered a psychological analogy for the relations amongst the persons of the Trinity. In its place, he developed a version of the more Eastern tendency to speak of God as first and foremost infinite and to explain the Trinity in terms of a social analogy. To this end, he redefined common Latin ideas of human personhood. In these areas and others, he exerted a greater and more lasting influence on subsequent thinking than any of his near contemporaries

History · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy