Isaas of Stella on Intellectus and Intelligentia: Two Levels of the Higher Soul

Robert Fludd, Jacob’s Ladder

AUGUSTINE famously distinguished between two powers or levels of human reason, which he called lower reason (ratio inferior) and higher reason (ratio superior).  These refer, respectively, to discursive reasoning (ratiocination) and intellection (immediate grasp), and correspond to what in the Platonic/Neoplatonic tradition are called dianoia and nous.

Augustine’s views, of course, were very influential in the Middle Ages.  In the 12th century, however, the  Cistercian monk, Isaac of Stella (1100−1178) proposed three ascending levels of rational power: ratio, intellectus, and intelligentia.  That is, basically Augustine’s ratio superior is subdivided into intellectus and intelligentia.  How intellectus and intelligentia differ and is a fascinating question, because it suggest that we have two distinct levels of higher intelligence.

Isaac’s descriptions — given in his Epistle on the Soul (De anima) and Sermon 4 — are frustratingly short and obscure.  In the former he writes:

By reason [ratione] it perceives the dimensions of bodies and the like. This is the first incorporeal object which nevertheless needs a body to subsist and through it is in place and time. By [intellectu] the soul goes beyond everything that is a body or of a body or is in any way corporeal to perceive the created spirit, which has no location but cannot possibly exist without duration since it has a changeable nature. Finally the [intelligentia], in one way or another, and insofar as it is permitted a created nature above whom is the Creator alone, immediately beholds him or who alone is the highest and purely incorporeal being — he who needs neither a body to exist, nor location to be somewhere, nor duration to be at some time or other. (tr. McGinn)

In Sermon 4 he writes:

7. … By [intellectu] the soul perceives that which is above the corporeal or above created spirit united to a body. It does not need a body to subsist and is therefore independent of space, but it cannot exist outside of time because it is by nature mutable.

8. [Intelligentia], in so far as is permitted to a created nature which has nothing above it but the Creator, has immediate sight of the Being who is supremely and purely incorporeal, the One who has no need of a body in which to exist, nor of a place in which to be present, nor of time in which to continue existence. (tr. McCaffrey)

It should be noted that in both places Isaac discusses these in the context of a five-level ascent from the lowest level of cognition (sensu; physical sensation), to imagination (imaginatio), ratio, intellectus and intellegentia).  Behind this scheme is a definite anagogic purpose, i.e., a raising of the soul to union with God.

Note here both intellectus and intelligentia are described as more specific than Platonic intellection or nous, which is the power by which we grasp Forms and relations, including, for example, those of mathematics, geometry, logic and morals (Uebersax, 2013).

What Isaac’s sources were is unclear.  Some suggest Proclus, others Pseudo-Dionysius and John Scotus Eriugena, and still others (perhaps most convincingly), Boethius.  Regardless, he influenced such later writers as Alan of Lille, John of La Rochelle, Alexander of Hales, Thomas Gallus and St. Bonaventure.  How they used the two terms is by no means consistent. However many evidently found it helpful — whether for theoretical reasons or to describe and schematize their own contemplative experiences — to make a division between two levels of higher intelligence.

In one place, for example, Alan of Lille describes intellectus as the mind’s “gaze is turned toward the pure forms,” and intelligentia as the highest power of the soul “which contemplates only divine things.” (Sermo in Die Epiphaniae; d’Alverny, pp. 242−243)

McGinn (1977) supplies many details concerning Isaac’s sources for this distinction and its history.  Isaac’s De anima was included of the composite anonymous work (falsely attributed to St. Augustine) called De spiritu et anima, widely read in the 13th century.

Ultimately, the practical question seems the most important one.  Do we indeed have two, ascending powers of intelligence above discursive reason?  That is, are there two levels of immediate intellection — the higher, perhaps, more specifically spiritual?

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Bibliography

d’Alverny, Marie-Thérése. Alain de Lille: Textes inédits. Études de Philosophie Médiévale LII. Paris, 1965.

Deme, Daniel  (ed.). Selected Works of Isaac of Stella. Ashgate, 2007.

Isaac of Stella. Epistle de anima. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 194 1875B−1890A. Paris, 1855.

Isaac of Stella. Sermones. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 194 1689A−1876A. Paris, 1855.

McCaffrey, Hugh (tr.). Isaac of Stella: Sermons for the Christian Year. Cistercian Publications, 1979.

McGinn, Bernard. The Golden Chain: A Study in the Theological Anthropology of Isaac of Stella. Cistercian Publications, 1972. Chapter IV. The Higher Dimension of the Soul in Isaac of Stella; pp. 197−227.

McGinn, Bernard. Three Treatises on Man. A Cistercian Anthropology. Cistercian Publications, 1977. Includes English translations of Epistola de anima and De spiritu et anima.

Uebersax, John.  Higher Reason.  2013.

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