William of St-Thierry

William of Saint-Thierry (Guillaume de Saint-Thierry) was a twelfth-century monastic theologian and mystical writer. He was born at Liège, in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège within the Holy Roman Empire, in the later eleventh century; no contemporary source records an exact year of birth, and modern scholars usually place it in the period around 1075 to 1085. He was educated in the schools of northern France, at Reims and possibly at Laon, where he encountered the early scholastic theology associated with Anselm of Laon. As a young man he entered the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Nicaise at Reims. In 1119 or 1120 he was elected abbot of Saint-Thierry, a Benedictine house near Reims, and he governed it for about fifteen years, working to restore regular observance in a generation marked by widespread monastic reform.

A decisive influence on his life was his friendship with Bernard of Clairvaux. William visited Clairvaux around 1118 and thereafter corresponded with Bernard and stayed at the Cistercian abbey on several occasions. Drawn to Cistercian austerity, he wished to resign Saint-Thierry and live as a monk under Bernard, but Bernard urged him to remain in office and to labor for the reform of the black monks from within. During his abbacy William composed spiritual treatises that became classics of monastic literature. On the Nature and Dignity of Love (De natura et dignitate amoris) and On Contemplating God (De contemplando Deo) set out a theology of the soul's progress in love toward union with God. He also wrote on the Epistle to the Romans and on the Song of Songs, reading Scripture as an account of the soul's relationship with Christ, in a strongly Augustinian and contemplative key.

William took an active part in the doctrinal controversies of his age. In the 1130s he became alarmed by Peter Abelard's application of dialectic to the Trinity and the Atonement. He compiled a list of Abelard's propositions, sent it to Bernard, and pressed the abbot of Clairvaux to intervene; that intervention helped bring about Abelard's condemnation at the Council of Sens in 1140. William likewise wrote against the philosophical theology of William of Conches. His own doctrinal works from these years, the Mirror of Faith (Speculum fidei) and the Enigma of Faith (Aenigma fidei), defend a traditional Augustinian account of the Trinity and of the relation between faith and reason, insisting that the mysteries of faith are approached by love and illumination rather than by unaided speculation.

About 1135 William obtained leave to resign his abbacy. He entered the Cistercian abbey of Signy in the Ardennes as an ordinary monk and spent his remaining years there in prayer, study, and writing. At Signy he produced his most widely read work, the Letter to the Brothers of Mont-Dieu (Epistola ad fratres de Monte Dei), known as the Golden Epistle, addressed to the Carthusians of Mont-Dieu. It describes the stages of the monastic life and for centuries was attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux, which greatly extended its influence. William also wrote a Cistercian commentary on the Song of Songs and began a life of Bernard, of which only the first book was completed. He died at Signy on 8 September 1148. He was never formally canonized by the papacy, but the Cistercian Order has long venerated him as blessed and commemorates him on 8 September. His writings, combining Benedictine lectio, Cistercian affectivity, and an Augustinian theology of love and knowledge, remain among the principal witnesses to twelfth-century monastic spirituality.