ISACCO della STELLA. - Cistercian abbot and theologian, born in England at the beginning of the 12th century, died in the monastery of the Stella (near Poitiers) c. 1169. He became a monk of the Stella in 1145 and two years later its abbot. With some fellow monks he went to the deserted Île de Ré (La Rochelle) where he founded a monastery, living there in extreme poverty and extraordinary spiritual fervor, fully realizing the ideals of St. Bernard, of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer.
He wrote: 54 *Sermones de tempore et de festo* (PL 194, 1680-1876), of which 41 were delivered on the Île de Ré and 13 in the abbey of the Stella; *Epistola de anima ad Alcherum* (ibid., 1875-90), written in 1162, particularly important for the history of rational psychology; *Epistola de officio Missae ad Ioannem ep. Pictaviensem*, of which three versions survive: the *brevior*, reproducing the text left incomplete due to an attack on the monastery (ibid., 1889-95); the *longior*, containing the complete text after the incident (Vienna, National Library, lat. 1068, ff. 59-61); and the *brevissima*, a kind of summary made by another (Paris, National Library, lat. 812, ff. 358-62; 1252, ff. 1-5; 1828, ff. 168-69; 2474, ff. 22-23 [fragments]; 1179, 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 The *Commentarius in Ruth* remains unpublished.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 beside his contemporaries Abelard, Hugh of Saint-Victor, and Peter Lombard in his successful attempt to illustrate revealed truths speculatively. With Platonic tendencies and characteristics of the School of Chartres, in his admirable *Sermones*—a true theological sum preached—he displays the unmistakable traits of an original thinker, endowed with fine psychological sensitivity, who argues with dialectical vigor and penetrates to the heart of truth, revealing its deep connections and hidden bonds with elastic thought and incisive 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.