On Love: A Selection of Works of Hugh, Adam, Achard, Richard, and Godfrey of St Victor

The version of the Rule of St Augustine used at the Abbey of St Victor began with the command to love God above all things and one's neighbor as oneself. Not surprisingly, then, love was a pervasive theme in the writings produced there, many of which are introduced and translated here: (1) five lyrical essays by Hugh of St Victor (d. 1141): ThePraise of Charity; The Betrothal Gift of the Soul; In Praise of the Spouse; On the Substance of Love; What Truly Should Be Loved ?; (2) On the Four Degrees of Violent Love, by Richard of St Victor (d. 1173), which traces the likenesses and differences between romantic love and the love of God; (3) Achard of St Victor (d. 1170), Sermon 5 and two of Adam of St Victor's sequences are examples of how these authors wove love into their writings; (4) excerpts from the Microcosmus by Godfrey of St Victor (d. ca. 1195), summarize the central place of love in his humanistic theological anthropology.