Unflagging zeal for prayer with a continual exercise of virtue
had led the man of God to such serenity of mind that,
although he had no expertise in Sacred Scripture through learning,
his intellect, nevertheless enlightened by the splendor of eternal light,
probed the depths of Scripture with remarkable incisiveness.
For his genius, pure and unstained, penetrated hidden mysteries,
and where the knowledge of teachers stands outside,
the passion of the lover entered.
Whenever he read the Sacred Books and something struck his mind
he imprinted it tenaciously on his memory,
because he did not grasp in vain what his attentive mind heard,
for he would mull over it with affection and constant devotion.
Once, when the brothers asked him whether he was pleased
that the learned men, who, by that time, had been received into the Order,
were devoting themselves to the study of Sacred Scripture, he replied:
"I am indeed pleased, as long as, after the example of Christ,
of whom we read that he prayed more than he read,
they do not neglect zeal for prayer, "and,
as long as they study, not to know what they should say,
but to practice what they have heard and,
once they have put it into practice, propose it to others.
I want my brothers," he said, "to be Gospel disciples
and so progress in knowledge of the truth
that they increase in pure simplicity without separating
the simplicity of the dove from the wisdom of the serpent
which our eminent Teacher joined together
in a statement from his own blessed lips."
Bonaventura Legenda major, Chapter Eleven THE UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE AND THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY
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