The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (3rd ed.)
Description
Translation of: L'amour des lettres et le dâesir de Dieu
"How were prayer requests handled in medieval monasteries?", whose answer references EPUB ref:3.157-60.
The Rule of St. Benedict Supposes Learned Monks
07/13/25The Rule of St. Benedict Supposes Learned Monks : 28
scienter nescius et sapienter indoctus.
The Study of Grammar in St. Benedict
07/13/25The Study of Grammar in St. Benedict : 38
During the Merovingian period, this teaching program was reduced practically to the psalms: and instead of beginning by the grammatical analysis of letters, then of syllables, words, and finally of sentences, the child is immediately put in contact with the psalter, in which he learns to read first verses, and then whole psalms. 24
Studies According to Cassiodorus
07/13/25Studies According to Cassiodorus : 40
Of course an exact parallel cannot be drawn between the Rule of St. Benedict and the Institutiones of Cassiodorus, as if they were the same kind of text. One is a monastic rule, the other a program of studies for monks.
07/13/25Studies According to Cassiodorus : 43
it should be done with ''an attention full of curiosity." 30
Gregory's Influence
07/13/25Gregory's Influence : 54
After Aristotle and St. Augustine, he is the most quoted author in the Summa of St. Thomas;8 he is apparent in the work of Gerson; St. Teresa annotated his Moralia;
Gregory's Education and Character
07/13/25Gregory's Education and Character : 56
apocrisiary
?
St. Boniface
07/14/25St. Boniface : 78
Ars grammatica resembles many others, 6 and this is, no doubt, the reason why it did not detain the attention of the historians of St.
Boniface and of monastic culture. In it, he gives the rules for declension and for the different parts of speech and he illustrates them with examples taken from the classical authors of antiquity. But the original feature of this conception of grammar lies in the brief preface where he explains why and how these rules were established and his examples chosen. 7 He addresses a pupil, an adolescent, with the latter's religious formation in mind
07/14/25St. Boniface : 79
To understand things is to realize the relationship they have to Christ.
Paul the Deacon and Alcuin
07/14/25Paul the Deacon and Alcuin : 82
idiotae, that is to say, men who knew only their own language.
St. Benedict of Aniane and Notker
07/14/25St. Benedict of Aniane and Notker : 85
pupils spoke among themselves, not the vulgar tongue, but Latin: " Usum latinitatis potius quam rusticitatis.
07/14/25St. Benedict of Aniane and Notker : 86
is the first to outline a study on friendship which others after him were to bring to perfection
Smaragdus of St. Mihiel: Christian Learning and Monastic Spirituality
07/14/25Smaragdus of St. Mihiel: Christian Learning and Monastic Spirituality : 88
How does grammar help one get to Heaven? By making possible the reading of the Scripture and the Fathers, it becomes a means for salvation and takes on sublime dignity
07/14/25Smaragdus of St. Mihiel: Christian Learning and Monastic Spirituality : 91
Commentary on the Rule. 34 The latter, among the older commentaries, is at once the richest in ideas, most documented from traditional sources, most precise as to philological content, and the most beautiful
Notes
07/14/25Notes : 101
Virgil was considered as a Christian, because in the Fourth Eclogue he had foretold the coming of Christ
Ascent into Heaven
07/14/25Ascent into Heaven : 110
those who participate in God are all citizens of one and the same Church, in Heaven and on earth
The Fellowship of the Angels
07/14/25The Fellowship of the Angels : 112
since we are already on the threshold of the Kingdom and are participating in the
Page 58
initial benefits of eternal life, it is altogether natural that this present life be described in terms of angelic life. 16
The Gift of Tears
07/14/25The Gift of Tears : 114
The task we face is, really, to substitute the concupiscence of the spirit for that of the flesh. A parallel is established between them in which the role of spiritual concupiscence is to comfort the weary soul with hope of future glory. 19
07/14/25The Gift of Tears : 114
spiritual concupiscence
The Glory of Paradise
07/14/25The Glory of Paradise : 115
One of the best known, most frequently copied, and edited texts is St. Peter Damian's On the Glory of Paradise. 22
poem
07/14/25The Glory of Paradise : 117
Epithalamium between Christ and the Virgins, which is probably by a monk of Hirsau of the twelfth century and which has come down to us through Cistercian manuscripts. 24
John of Fécamp
07/14/25John of Fécamp : 119
Under the names of Cassian, St. Ambrose, Alcuin, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, above all under the title of Meditations of St. Augustine, the writings of John of Fécamp were the most widely read spiritual texts before the Imitation of Christ.
"Active" Reading
07/15/25"Active" Reading : 143
The monastic lectio is oriented toward the meditatio and the oratio. The objective of the first is science and knowledge; of the second, wisdom and appreciation. In the monastery, the lectio divina, which begins with grammar, terminates in compunction, in desire of heaven.
Meditative Prayer and Reminiscence
07/15/25Meditative Prayer and Reminiscence : 143
The meditatio consists in applying oneself with attention to this exercise in total memorization;
The Eastern Monastic Tradition
07/16/25The Eastern Monastic Tradition : 179
Benedict of Aniane accords great importance to the Eastern rules in his Codex regularum.
The Greek Fathers
07/16/25The Greek Fathers : 185
Benedict of Aniane includes St. Basil and St. Pachomius in his Codex regularum, and in his Concordia regularum he furnishes numerous Eastern parallels to the Rule of St. Benedict
Philosophia
07/16/25Philosophia : 200
theorica mysteria, theorica studia, which must not be translated as "theoretical studies," but as "love of prayer
Disciplina
07/16/25Disciplina : 202
To lead a monastic life is simply "to philosophize." Du Cange gives no other medieval equivalent for the word philosophari than: monachum agere
Continuity of the Patristic Age and the Monastic Middle Ages
07/16/25Continuity of the Patristic Age and the Monastic Middle Ages : 212
Our intention here is by no means to deny that scholasticism represents a legitimate evolution and a real progress in Christian thought, but rather to point out this coexistence of two Middle Ages.
Optimism About Pagan Authors
07/18/25Optimism About Pagan Authors : 234
St. Paul quotes verses by Epimenides, Menander, and Aratus
He did?
Allegorical Interpretation
07/18/25Allegorical Interpretation : 235
The anonymous Accessus ad auctores has 29 paragraphs dealing with 19 authors
07/18/25Allegorical Interpretation : 235
Ovid; he is constantly presented as a moralist: bonorum morum est instructor, malum vero extirpator. "His intention is to counsel legitimate love and marriage." 17
He teaches chastity, "lawful love," 18 and for that reason suffered persecution. 19 Such judgments would have doubtless been a surprise to Ovid, but did they not believe that he had died a Christian
07/18/25Allegorical Interpretation : 235
Horace was as often presented as a moralist ( ethicus) as he was as a pagan ( ethnicus).
Are those 2 words etymologically related?
07/18/25Allegorical Interpretation : 237
St. Benedict's Rule takes from Terence the ne quid nimis, "which had been applauded in the theater when Calliope recited it
07/18/25Allegorical Interpretation : 238
We are called," says St. Paul, "in liberty": let us serve our King, then, through liberal studies. 31
Oral Commentary
07/18/25Oral Commentary : 241
This declinatio, as the ancients understood it, implied what is called today both "declension" and "conjugation." 36 On the use of this method, we fortunately possess a very detailed document. St. Anselm, then prior of Bec, wrote these words to one of his young monks who was staying for a time at Canterbury:
The Monastic Scriptorium
07/18/25The Monastic Scriptorium : 245
Abbo of Fleury tells us that copying a book was, like prayer and fasting, a means for correcting one's unruly passions.
07/19/25The Monastic Scriptorium : 245
Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas, oblationem huius codicis . . . reads the heading of an eleventhcentury text of Flavius Josephus from Stavelot.
07/19/25The Monastic Scriptorium : 246
He cannot take to the plow? Then let him take up the pen; it is much more useful. In the furrows he traces on the parchment, he will sow the seeds of the divine words. . . . He will preach without opening his mouth; without breaking silence, he will make the Lord's teaching resound in the ears of the nations; and without leaving his cloister, he will journey far over land and sea. 42
07/19/25The Monastic Scriptorium : 247
Since the monks cannot preach the word of God by word of mouth, let them do so with their hands. The books we transcribe are so many proclamations of the truth." 44
07/19/25The Monastic Scriptorium : 247
a flock of sheep was needed to provide the parchment necessary for copying a book by Seneca or Cicero
Interest in Archaeology
07/19/25Interest in Archaeology : 250
pagan writings, if understood with pure intentions, are a source of edification.
Literary Exaggeration
07/21/25Literary Exaggeration : 261
toponymy
?
Monastic Verse
07/21/25Monastic Verse : 269
St. Odo of Cluny, to enhance the dignity of the monastic ideal, wrote a long poem of 5,600 Virgilian hexameters.
Monastic Humor
07/21/25Monastic Humor : 271
Monastic Humor
07/21/25Monastic Humor : 273
De Consideratione he wrote toward the end of his life and addressed to the pope
The Classics: A Source of Wisdom
07/21/25The Classics: A Source of Wisdom : 273
Burchard of Bellevaux, a friend of St. Bernard, wrote in an amusing and edifying tone a long Apology for Beards
07/21/25The Classics: A Source of Wisdom : 274
the chapter On the difference between the razor and tweezers taken in the moral sense is a goodhumored exhortation to the renunciation taught by the Lord and the Apostles: to forsake the world, poor in spirit and in goods, and detached from all that is superfluous
07/22/25The Classics: A Source of Wisdom : 278
the election of an Indian king, as related by Pliny, is the ideal model for the election of an abbot
Notes
07/22/25Notes : 288
On teaching Grammar to boys. Let no boy be taught grammar within the monastery or on the property of the monstery unless he is a monk or has been received into probation as a novice; they may be so occupied during the time assigned for reading. It is further to be noted that we are not permitted to receive any boys into probation before their fifteenth birthday." Super instituta generalis capituli apud Cistercium XLI, ed. C. Noschitzka, Anal. S. Ord. Cist. (1950) 37.
07/22/25Notes : 292
It is more meritorious to copy books than to tend the vines." MGH, PLAC I 320. Cf. F. Milkau, Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft (Wiesbaden, 1955) III 1.355.
07/22/25Notes : 292
If he wants a school book written by a pagan, he should make the usual sign
Page 146
for a book [palms open before him] and then he should touch his ear with a finger, just as a dog scratches with his foot, since the infidel may well be compared to an animal." Ordo Cluniacensis per Bernardum I 27, ed. Herrgott, Vetus disciplina monastica (Paris, 1726), p. 172.
The Lives of the Saints
07/22/25The Lives of the Saints : 323
snarled skeins
?
The Truth of Hagiography
07/22/25The Truth of Hagiography : 330
life of St. Odilo which St. Hugh of Cluny commissioned St.
Peter Damian to write
07/22/25The Truth of Hagiography : 331
menology
?
Sententiae
07/23/25Sententiae : 336
was no stenography, no system of abbreviations making it possible to take down the words as they were uttered. 72
?
St Thom’s reportatii were’nt literal?
07/23/25Sententiae : 338
four kinds of monks enumerated by St. Benedict
07/23/25Sententiae : 339
Then come the spiritual gyrovagues: their inconstancy carries them from reading to prayer, from prayer to work, preventing them from obtaining the benefits of their undertakings: stability in effort and perseverance in devotion. Victims of acedia, they think it better at one moment to do one thing, and, at another, something else; they begin everything and finish nothing.
sounds like mixed life
Rhetoric and Sincerity
07/23/25Rhetoric and Sincerity : 347
one manual on the art of preaching teaches, for example, eighteen ways to "lengthen a sermon."
!
07/23/25Rhetoric and Sincerity : 347
The end result is a very clear, very logical oration which may be doctrinal and occasionally not devoid of stylistic or theological merit; but from this category, there is not in existence today one work of genius still worth reading. 101 One of the best informed authorities wrote: "The scholastics are professors. . . . Their sermons, like St. Thomas', will themselves be scholastic. And the Church will consider the greatest of them as its doctors,' no longer as itsFathers.'" 102 Consequently, to say the least, it was not in their sermons that they gave the best they had to offer.
odd conclusion
Monastic Letter Writing
07/23/25Monastic Letter Writing : 353
We have information as to the ritual which
Page 177
accompanied his reception in several of the monasteries: first, he would bow before the altar, greet the community, and then unfurl his roll in the middle of the choir. A young religious would take it up and present it to the cantor who would read it aloud. Then the prayers requested in the announcement would begin.
explains how prayer requests were handled
07/23/25Monastic Letter Writing : 354
An ancient roll from the Abbey of St. Peter of Ghent measures almost 70 feet in length and this is in proportion to the distance traveled, for the carrier visited as many as 524 religious houses and the additions made to the document required 28 extra pieces of parchment. The carrier was almost 16 months on his journey. A roll from St. Bavo is almost 100 feet long. It consists of fifty pieces of parchment and represents a twentymonth journey. Hence, with good reason, we can visualize medieval Europe as being crisscrossed in every direction by countless monastic couriers
07/23/25Monastic Letter Writing : 356
Even personal letters therefore are almost always somewhat public in quality. It is generally taken for granted that the letter's contents will fall under the eyes, or reach the ears, of several others, and that the receiver will take pains to see that it is available. This explains how it can happen that the writer will tell his correspondent things that both already know; he is taking into consideration the fact that others will read what he has written. Whenever a member of a religious community received a letter from a friend, everyone was immediately informed. It was passed from one to another or even read in community and admired by all.
no encrypted letters?
Vocation Letters
07/23/25Vocation Letters : 359
Vocation letters," 114 in which a monk, sometimes a young monk, full of admiration for his new state, urges his former fellowstudents to follow his example: "If you only knew how content I am in the monastery," he tells them in substance, "you would immediately come and share this same existence."
07/24/25Vocation Letters : 360
Letters of exhortation, of consolation, of "direction" as we would say today: many such are found in the correspondence of Elmer, 115 St. Bernard, Peter the Venerable, Adam of Perseigne, and many other abbots.
07/24/25Vocation Letters : 362
great importance given to friendship in the monks' letters
I thought particular friendships weren’t allowed.
Notes
07/24/25Notes : 368
Saepius relegere, as Alcuin had recommended. 139 Cotidie lectitare et lecta frequenter in corde revolvere advises John of Fécamp.
07/24/25Notes : 385
The expression spiritualis amicitia is found as early as St. Boniface to some nuns; MGH, Scr. rer.
germ. N.S. I (Berlin, 1955), S. Bonifatii et Lullii epist. 221.5. Friendship in the poetic and epistolary literature of the Carolingian era would be a fruitful field of study. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage, p. 184 makes reference to this.
The Cloister and the Schools
07/24/25The Cloister and the Schools : 402
Peter Comestor, likewise emphasized the contrast between two categories of Christians: "There are some who do more praying than reading: they are the cloister dwellers; there are others
Page 199
who spend all their time reading and rarely pray: they are the schoolmen." 36
Differences in Method
07/24/25Differences in Method : 402
All concur that once one has centered upon monastic life, he should not wish to leave it to study in a different way from that in the cloister. St. Peter Damian raises his voice clearly in a work Against Monks who Contemplate Studying Grammar: although already settled in their vocation they wish to leave and join the turbulent crowds of the students of letters. 44
07/24/25Differences in Method : 404
an ally of the past cannot be a logician
interesting statement
07/24/25Differences in Method : 404
Littera sordescit, logica sola placet: the entire conflict is rooted in this antithesis.
07/24/25Differences in Method : 405
Geramus morem Scripturae.
The Need for Dialectics
07/24/25The Need for Dialectics : 409
Aelred is not alone in enlisting the aid of mathematical figures, perhaps under the influence of Boethius and the school of Chartres. 58
07/24/25The Need for Dialectics : 409
William of Auberive, Geoffrey of Auxerre, and Odo of Morimond also compose treatises on the meaning of numbers. 59
07/24/25The Need for Dialectics : 409
way of a scholastic such as Thibaut of Langres. 60
Respect for Mystery
07/24/25Respect for Mystery : 410
Scholasticism's essential method of procedure had been fixed since the ninth century, and it consisted in "disputing";
07/24/25Respect for Mystery : 411
the mechanical arts were trades for serfs. Hugh of St. Victor defined them as being stained with "adultery," "as if the spirit engaging in them were soiled by an immoral contact with something degrading." 68
Holy Simplicity
07/24/25Holy Simplicity : 412
Alexander of Jumièges. The title attributed to Alexander's treatise is significant: De praescientia Dei, contra curiosos. 73
07/24/25Holy Simplicity : 414
All agreed that knowledge is better than ignorance: "Holy simplicity is good, but holy knowledge is better.'' 83
07/24/25Holy Simplicity : 414
St. Bernard was to say that the spouse of the Lord should not be a simpleton. 84
07/24/25Holy Simplicity : 417
At the end of the twelfth century Stephen of Tournai felt justified in writing the pope: "Students no longer take any interest in anything except novelties; masters who cherish their own popularity above all else are daily composing new Summae and new works on theology which entertain their readers and lead them astray as if the writings of the Fathers, they who have explained the Scriptures, did not suffice." 94
Learning and Love
07/24/25Learning and Love : 419
prebends,
?
07/24/25Learning and Love : 419
St.
Benedict who was "learnedly ignorant and wisely unlearned
07/24/25Learning and Love : 420
St. Gregory had said in this connection: Love itself is knowledge: the more one loves, the more one knows. 99
07/24/25Learning and Love : 421
According to a certain nineteenthcentury historian, "to men like St. Bernard the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas, with its objections and its free discussions, would have seemed a display of human pride, of intellectual presumption as shocking as Abailard's Theology." 104 But today, many historians do justice to Bernard's clairvoyance:105 he perceived in Abailard deviations which St. Thomas, although he inherited his method, was to avoid a century later.
Tradition and Progress
07/24/25Tradition and Progress : 423
An outstanding example of the progress that monastic theology is capable of instigating is found in the treatise composed by Eadmer, a disciple of St. Anselm's, on the subject of the Conception of the Virgin. The latest Dominican historian to treat this question felt justified in calling Eadmer, in the title of the study consecrated to the subject, "the first theologian of the Immaculate Conception." 109
07/24/25Tradition and Progress : 425
the monk repeats: "I myself believe and profess that Mary is conceived immaculate, and that she is likewise free from the slightest stain." 110
07/24/25Tradition and Progress : 425
of Eadmer's period, the pseudo
Augustine, whose treatise caused decisive progress to
Page 211
be made in the understanding of the dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.
Knowledge Through Love
07/24/25Knowledge Through Love : 428
But altogether the great difference between the theology of the schools and that of the monasteries resides in the importance which the latter accord the experience of union with God. This experience in the cloister is both the principle and the aim of the quest. It can be said of St. Bernard that his watchword was not Credo ut intelligam, but Credo ut experiar. 119
”Experience” sounds Modernist.
07/24/25Knowledge Through Love : 428
Rupert: This knowledge does not come from an outer, as if foreign, document, it comes from an inner and personal experience
vitalism, immanentism?
07/24/25Knowledge Through Love : 432
The reasoning of faith,"
says St. Bernard, "should not be the object of petty human rationalizations." 128
07/24/25Knowledge Through Love : 434
To understand" is not necessarily ''to explain" through causality; it can also mean the acquiring of a general view: comprehendere.
07/24/25Knowledge Through Love : 436
We owe to contemplatives the explication of most dogmas, particularly those concerning Mary's privileges. 134
Theology and Contemplation
07/26/25Theology and Contemplation : 444
Eadmer antedated the efforts of Scotus and the greatest theologians of the high scholastic era, and "it is Eadmer's doctrine which triumphed on December 8, 1854." 142
The Kiss
07/29/25The Kiss : 456
Monastic theology is a theology of admiration and therefore greater than a theology of speculation.
Notes
07/29/25Notes : 459
knowledge which is vain, being without charity, does not come from a kiss
07/29/25Notes : 460
Archbishop Landgraf was good enough to write me about monastic theology: "Sie ist die traditionelle Theologie, von der sich die Frühscholastik losgelöst hat." I want to thank the eminent theologian for letting me quote this highly authoritative judgment.
transl.
07/29/25Notes : 467
57. "A puero advectus sufficienter didicit monasticam normam; deinde in grammaticae studuit fundamento, sed et dialecticae litavit aliquando acumina," ed. G.
07/29/25Notes : 468
59. "L'arithmétique de Guillaume d'Auberive," Analecta monastica I 181204. Therefore the "animosity" of the monks toward scholasticism, of which H. Weisweiler speaks in Scholastik (1955) 407, should not be attributed to the use of mathematical figures more than to any other causes. Tannery and Clerval, "Une correspondance d'écolâtres au XIe s.," in Notices et extraits des mss. de la Bibl. nationale 36.2 (1899) 53336, have published a letter from a monk to a teacher of arithmetic which shows the good relations which the monks maintained with the scholastics and the interest they had in arithmetic.
07/29/25Notes : 469
tractant et carpunt ac si ars liberalis esset mecanica."
07/29/25Notes : 476
Philosophia autem est amor sapientiae; sapientia autem est integra comprehensio veritatis eorum quae sunt, quam nullus vel parum adipiscitur nisi amaverit,"
Page 234
E. Jouneau, ed. "LèPrologus in Eptateuchon' de Thierry de Chartres," Mediaeval Studies 16 (1954) 174.
07/29/25Notes : 479
Peter Abailard seeks to deprive Christian faith of all merit, when he imagines that the nature of God can be understood by human reason." St. Bernard, Epist.
08/09/25Notes : 519
Bernards, Speculum virginum,
Literary Style: An Act of Homage to God
08/09/25Literary Style: An Act of Homage to God : 524
on the whole, minds were less cultivated then than in earlier centuries, centuries so happy that no need to produce was felt; it was enough to be alive
Learning and Conscience
08/09/25Learning and Conscience : 529
Mea grammatica Christus est, affirms St. Peter Damian with the vehemence of love.
Detachment
08/10/25Detachment : 542
St. Thomas Aquinas, as death was drawing near, heard the Lord ask: "You have spoken well of Me; what reward would you like?"—"Nothing but Yourself, Lord," he answered. He was able, at that moment, to make such a reply since he had previously, in his mortal life when speaking and writing of God, desired nothing but God alone. It is for that very reason that he spoke of Him well.