Because of these three things, we books, who have
ever procured their advancement and have granted them to sit
among the powerful and noble, are put far from their heart's
affection and are reckoned as superfluities; except that they
rely upon some treatises of small value, from which they derive
strange heresies and apocryphal imbecilities, not for the
refreshment of souls, but rather for tickling the ears of the
listeners. The Holy Scripture is not expounded, but is neglected
and treated as though it were commonplace and known to all,
though very few have touched its hem, and though its depth is
such, as Holy Augustine declares, that it cannot be understood by
the human intellect, however long it may toil with the utmost
intensity of study. From this he who devotes himself to it
assiduously, if only He will vouchsafe to open the door who has
established the spirit of piety, may unfold a thousand lessons of
moral teaching, which will flourish with the freshest novelty and
will cherish the intelligence of the listeners with the most
delightful savours. Wherefore the first professors of evangelical
poverty, after some slight homage paid to secular science,
collecting all their force of intellect, devoted themselves to
labours upon the sacred scripture, meditating day and night on
the law of the Lord. And whatever they could steal from their
famishing belly, or intercept from their half-covered body, they
thought it the highest gain to spend in buying or correcting
books.
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