Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/72

 RICHARD

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RICHARD

acterizes all his writing, " Sapientia insipida et doctrina indocta" ; and the professor of such learning is "Cap- tator famae, neglector conscientise". Such worldly- minded persons should stimulate the student of sacred things to greater efforts in his own higher sphere — "When we consider how much the philosophers of this world have laboured, we should be ashamed to be inferior to them"; "We should seek always to com- prehend bv reason what we hold by faith."

His works fall into the three classes of dogmatic, mvstical, and exegetical. In the first, the most im- po'rtant is the treatise in six books on the Trinity, with the supplement on the attributes of the Three Persons, and the treatise on the Incarnate Word. But greater interest now belongs to his mystical theology, which is mainlv contained in the two books on mystical con- templation, entitled respectively "Benjamin Minor" and "Benjamin Major", and the allegorical treatise on the Tabernacle. He carries on the mystical doc- trine of Hugo, in a somewhat more detailed scheme, in which the successive stages of contemplation are described. These are six in number, divided equally among the three powers of the soul — the imagination, the reason, and the intelligence, and ascending from the contemplation of the visible things of creation to the rapture in which the soul is carried "beyond it- self" into the Divine Presence, by the three final stages of "Dilatio, sublevatio, alienatio". This schematic arrangement of contemplative soul-states is substantially adopted by Gerson in his more systema- tic treatise on mystical theology, who, however, makes the important reservation that the distinction between reason and intelligence is to be understood as func- tional and not real. Much use is made in the mystical treatises of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture for which the Victorine school had a special affection. Thus the titles " Benjamin Major" and " Minor" refer to Ps. Ixvii, "Benjamin in mentis excessu". Rachel represents the reason, Lia represents charity; the tabernacle is the type of the state of perfection, in which the soul is the dweUing-place of God. In like manner, the mystical or devotional point of view pre- dominates in the exegetical treatises; though the critical and doctrinal exposition of the text also re- ceives attention. The four books entitled "Tractatus exceptionum", and attributed to Richard, deal with matters of secular learning. Eight titles of works attributed to him by Trithemius (De Script. Eccl.) refer probably to MS. fragments of his known works. A "Liber Penitentialis" is mentioned by Montfau^on as attributed to a "Ricardus Secundus a Sancto Victore", and may probably be identical with the treatise "De potestate solvendi et ligandi" above mentioned. Nothing is otherwise known of a second Richard of St. Victor. Fifteen other IMSS. are said to exist of works attributed to Richard which have appeared in none of the published editions, and are

Erobably spurious. Eight editions of his works have een published: Venice, 1506 (incomplete) and 1592; Paris, 1518 and 1550; Lyons, 1.534; Cologne, 1621; Rouen, 1650, by the Canons of St. Victor; and by Migne.

HcooNiK, Notice sut R. de Si. Victor in P. L.. CXCVI; Enoel- HAKDT, H. ton St. Victor u. J. Ruyshroek (Erianeen, 1838); Vacohan, HouTt leilh the Mystics, V (London, 189.3); Inge, Christian Mysticism (London, 1898); De Wulf, Histoire de la phihsophie midiivale (Louvain, 1905); Bconamici, R. di San Vittore^saggi di studio suUa fdosofia mislica del gecoJoX 77 (Alatri, 1898); VON HCoEL, The Mystical Element in Religion (London, 1909; ; Underbill, Mysticism (Ix)ndon. 1911).

A. B. Sharpe.

Richard Reynolds, Blessed. Sec John Hough- ton, Blessed.

Richardson ('alias Anderson), William, Vener- able, last martyr under Queen Elizabeth; b. accord- ing to Challoner, at Vales in Yorkshire (i. e. presu- mably Wales, near Sheffield), but, according to the Valladolid diary, a Lancashire man; executed at

Tyburn, 17 Feb., 1603. He arrived at Reims 16 July, 1592, and on 21 Aug. following was sent to Valladolid, where he arrived 23 Dec. Thence, 1 Oct., 1594, he was sent to Seville where he was ordained. According to one account ho was arrested at Clement's Inn on 12 Feb., but another says he had been kept a close pris- oner in Newgate for a week before he was condemned at the Old Bailey on the 15 Feb., under stat. 27Eliz.,c. 2, for being a priest and coming into the realm. He was betrayed by one of his trusted friends to the Lord Chief Justice, who expedited his trial and execution with unseemly haste, and seems to have acted more as a public prosecutor than as a judge. At his execution he showed great courage and constancy, dying most cheerfully, to the edification of all beholders. One of his last utterances was a prayer for the queen.

GiLLOW, Bibl. Diet. Eng. Cath., V, 414; Challoner, Missionary Priests, I, n. 134; Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1601-3 (Lon- don, 1870), 292. 298, 300, 301, 302.

John B. Wainewright.

Richard Thirkeld, Blessed, martyr; b. at Conis- cliffe, Durham, England; d. at York, 29 May, 1583. From Queen's College, Oxford, where he was in 1564- 5, he went to Reims, where he was ordained priest, 18 April, 1579, and left 23 May for the mission, where he ministered in or about York, and acted as confessor to Ven. Margaret Clitheroe. On the eve of the Annuncia- tion, 1583, he was arrested while visiting one of the Catholic prisoners in the Ousebridge Kidcote, York, and at once confessed his priesthood, both to the pursuivants, who arrested him, and to the maj^or before whom he was brought, and for the night was lodged in the house of the high sheriff. The next day he was sent to the Ousebridge Kidcote. On 27 May his trial took place, at which he managed to appear in cassock and biretta. The charge was one of having reconciled the queen's subjects to the Church of Rome. He was found guilty on 27 May and condemned 28 May. He spent the night in instructing his fellow- prisoners, and the morning of his condemnation in up- holding the faith and constancy of those who were brought to the bar. No details of his execution are extant: six of his letters still remain, and are summar- ized by Dom Bede Camm.

Camm, Lives of the English Martyrs, II (London, 1904 — ), 635-53; Challoner, Missionary Priests, I, no. 20; Surtees, His- tory of Durham, III (London, 1820-40), 381.

John B. Wainewright.

Richard Whiting, Blessed, last Abbot of Glaston- bury and martyr, parentage and date of birth un- known, executed 15 Nov., 1539; was probably edu- cated in the claustral school at Glastonbury, whence he proceeded to Cambridge, graduating as M.A. in 1483 and D.D. in 1505. If, as is probable, he was already a monk when he went to Cambridge he must have received the habit from John Selwood, Abbot of Glastonbury from 1456 to 1493. He was ordained deacon in 1500 and priest in 1501, and held for some years the office of chamberlain of his monastery. In February, 1525, Richard Bere, Abbot of Glastonbury, died, and the community, after deciding to elect his 8UCces.sor per formam compromi.'isi, which places the selection in the hands of some one person of note, agreed to request Cardinal Wolsey to make the choice of an abbot for them. After obtaining the king's per- mission to act and giving a fortnight's inquiry to the circumstances of the case Wolsey on 3 March, 1525, nominated Richard Whiting to the vacant post. The first ten years of Whiting's rule were prosperous and peaceful, and he appears in the State papers as a care- ful overseer of his abbey alike in spirituals and tem- porals. Then, in August, 1.535, came the first "visi- tation " of Glastonbury by Dr. Layton, who, however, found all in good order. In spite of this, however, the abbot's jurisdiction over the town of Glastonbury was suspended and minute "injunctions" were given to him about the management of the abbey property;