ISACCO della STELLA. — Cistercian abbot and theologian, born in England at the beginning of the twelfth century, died in the monastery of La Stella (near Poitiers) around 1169. A monk of La Stella in 1145, he became its abbot two years later. Having gone with several fellow monks to the deserted Île de Ré (La Rochelle), he founded a monastery there, where he lived in extreme poverty and with extraordinary spiritual fervor, fully putting into practice the ideals of s. Bernardo, of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer.
He wrote: 54 Sermones de tempore et de festo (PL 194, 1689-1876), of which 41 were delivered on the Île de Ré and 13 in the abbey of La Stella; Epistola de anima ad Alcherum (ibid., 1875-90), written in 1162 and particularly important for the history of rational psychology; Epistola de officio Missae ad Ioannem ep. Pictavienem, of which three versions are preserved: the brevior, which reproduces the text left incomplete because of an attack on the monastery (ibid., 1889-95); the longior, which contains the text completed after the incident (Vienna, Bibl. Naz., lat. 1968, ff. 59-61); the brevissima, a kind of summary made by others (in Paris, Bibl. Naz., lat. 812, ff. 358-62; 1252, ff. 1-5; 1828, ff. 168-69; 2474, ff. 22-23 [fragments]; 11579, ff. 52-53). L. D'Achery (Spicilegium, I, Paris 1655, pp. 343-52) gives the brevissima version. The Commentarius in Ruth remains unpublished.
A man of extraordinary philosophical and theological culture, he stands worthily alongside his contemporaries Abelardo, Ugo di S. Vittore, and Pietro Lombardo, in his successful attempt to elucidate revealed truths speculatively. Platonically inclined and employing modes characteristic of the school of Chartres, in the admirable Sermones, a true preached theological summa, he displays the unmistakable traits of an original thinker, endowed with fine psychological sensitivity, who argues with dialectical vigor and penetrates into the very heart of truth, revealing its profound bonds and hidden connections with flexibility of thought and incisiveness of expression. «Solebat aut invenire prorsus nova, aut eleganter innovare vetera» (Sermo 48: PL 194, 1853). The guiding idea of his soteriological and Marian doctrine is the idea of our solidarity in Christ.