Chapter LXVIII

Of the Saint's Understanding in Holy Scripture and of the Power of his Words

102. Though this blessed man had not been nurtured in any learned studies, yet being a learner, from God, of the "wisdom which is from above," and being illuminated by the brightness of the eternal light, he had no mean knowledge of the Scriptures. For his genius, pure from all taint, pierced through hidden mysteries, and the lover's affection entered within, whereas the knowledge of masters remains without. He would sometimes read the sacred books; and what he had once put into his mind he wrote indelibly on his heart. Memory supplied the place of books; for if he heard a thing once it was not in vain, because his affection ruminated it with continual devotion. This, he said, was the fruitful way to learn and read; not to wander through a thousand treatises. He held him for a true philosopher who should put nothing before the longing for eternal life: and he would say that a humble and not presumptuous inquirer applying himself to Scripture would easily attain from the knowledge of himself to the knowledge of God.

He often unravelled difficult questions, and, though unskilled in words, made his understanding and power abundantly manifest.