PETER of CELLE (Petrus Celensis). — Benedictine spiritual writer, born in Champagne around 1115, died at Chartres on 20 February 1183. He was elected abbot of Moëtier-la-Celle (a dependency of Troyes) around 1145, took charge of the abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims in 1162, and in 1181 was appointed bishop of Chartres. His writings, marked by an easy and imaginative style and drawn from experience, make him more a witness than a systematic theorist of Benedictine spirituality.
Among his 177 Epistolae (PL 202, 405-636), those addressed to friends scattered throughout Christendom stand out. The Sermones (cols. 637-926) reflect the inner state of his devout soul; the Tractatus offer allegorical explanations of certain biblical themes: in De panibus (cols. 205-1046) all scriptural allusions to bread acquire the value of a sign, at least implicit, of the Eucharist; in De tabernaculo Moysi (cols. 1047-84; also ed. Leclercq [V. BIBLICA.], pp. 147-67) the Church becomes the vestibule of heaven; in the Commentarius in Ruth (of which Leclercq, pp. 168-73, has edited the conclusion), there is an ample mystical exegesis of the relationship of Christ with the Church and the Virgin. Notable among his monastic opuscula are De puritate animae (ed. Leclercq, pp. 174-92), addressed to novices, and De conscientia (ibid., pp. 193-230), written at CLERVAUX (CLERF) (v.), a treatise on the process of the soul’s interiorization in the imitation of Christ. He also wrote De afflictione et lectione (ibid., pp. 231-39) and De claustrali disciplina (PL 200, cols. 1099-1146).