The twelve patriarchs ; The mystical ark ; Book three of The Trinity by Richard of St. Victor

Author:Richard of St. Victor [Victor, Richard of St.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mysticism -- History -- Middle Ages, 600-1500
Publisher: Paulist Press
Published: 1979-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR

the investigation of invisible things. Truly, in this the outer person assists the inner person in the course of his investigation. For that purpose he represents to him an image of invisible things by means of the imagination of visible things. And while he completes the duty of his leadership, he leads the inner person by means of the stony path of similitudes to that place which he dares not enter. So servants often go before their lords in the way as far as the royal palace gates, and yet while the lords hasten within to the interior of the palace, the servants remain outside. Thus I think it is evident, as we have already said above, how we ought to understand that this kind of contemplation exists in reason and according to imagination, because there are invisible things that we perceive mentally and yet we form them in us out of a similitude of visible things. For what shall I call the form of visible things except a kind of picture of invisible things, as it were? Should there be anyone who says that he has never seen a lion and yet longs to see one, if the image of a lion, portrayed suitable in some picture, is shown to him, certainly the sort of thing he ought to conceive in the mind is suggested immediately from that which he sees. Thereupon, he considers according to the features that have been portrayed on a surface, and he forms in the mind the solid members and the living animal itself. Now think how much difference there is between that which we see externally and this which it shapes internally for him in his thinking. So certainly in this kind of contemplation the invisible things that we engage in the mind differ greatly from those things which we perceive by means of imagination, and yet we draw upon the similitude of the latter, in order to portray the former. We have now declared how we were able to give a reason why this kind of contemplation seems to be in reason and according to imagination.

Chapter XIX

How whatever a ray of contemplation illumines pertains to the permission

or working of God

The order of reason requires that some things be said briefly in this place concerning the rings and the poles, so that the same order may be followed in exposition as the author wished to follow in

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