Hugues de Saint-Victor

v. 1096-1141 12th century

Order and love of study, patient formation of the mind, discipline of attention as a spiritual path. Everything he touches becomes a staircase toward God.

Who was Hugues de Saint-Victor?

He came young from northern Europe to Paris, taught all his life at the abbey of Saint-Victor on the left bank, and formed a whole generation: theology, grammar, geometry. Everything seemed to him worth knowing for one who wants to see God. His books are practical guides for reading, meditating, praying, listing the steps like a staircase to climb. He kept saying that the discipline of true attention (for a text as for a face) is already a form of love.

In their own words

Learn everything: later you will see that nothing was useless.

Didascalicon, on the order of studies

So I am still adrift, unsure in my desires: I cannot be without love, and I do not find the true love.

Soliloquium de arrha animae (Soliloquy on the Earnest-Money of the Soul), the soul's answer, trans. from the Latin by the Manna team