For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

st. paul, 1 corinthians 1:17-25

remember Solomon. truly, all is vanity, and much studying is wearisome to the soul. 

In line at Sam's, the lady in front of me is wearing sweatpants that say "SPORT'S" across the butt. (Mine say "ACADEMIC'S.")

aaron belz

This argument seems strong to me and sufficiently plausible for us to conclude that if God were to decide that from this day forward He is going to will to send rain at the utterance of some word pronounced by someone, then that word, once uttered, would be just as properly a cause of the rain brought about by God at its utterance as heat is a cause of heat. And this seems altogether true. For a creature has nothing except from God's will alone, which grants it to the creature freely and contingently.

gabriel biel, whether the sacraments of the new covenant are effective causes of grace, p.3-4

Monastic theology is a theology of admiration and therefore greater than a theology of speculation: both words describe the act of looking. But the gaze of admiration adds something to the gaze of speculation. It does not necessarily see any farther, but the little it does perceive is enough to fill the whole soul of the contemplative with joy and thanksgiving.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.226

Monastic theology is, in a way, a spiritual theology which completes speculative theology; it is the latter's completion, and fulfillment. It is the added something, the sursum in which speculative theology tends to transcend itself and become what St. Bernard calls an integral knowledge of God: integre cognoscere.

This is what endows monastic theology with both its limitations and its lasting value. The effort it represents is always necessary if theology, while remaining scientific, is to avoid becoming purely abstract (one might venture to say: devitalized); and, as Peter the Cantor expresses it, sacred doctrine is not to be manufactured like machinery.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.223-224

Scholastic theology has recourse more frequently to the philosophers; monastic theology contents itself more generally with the authority of Scripture and the Fathers. But the fundamental sources in both cases are the same. Theology is a method for reflecting on the mysteries revealed in Christian origins.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.223

The scholastics are concerned with achieving clarity; consequently they readily make us of abstract terms, and they never hesitate to forge now words, the profanae vocum novitates which St. Bernard, for his part, avoids. Not that he refuses to use the usual philosophical terminology which through Boethius had come down from Aristotle: on occasion he will use forma, materia, causa efficiens or esse matierale; he does not recoil from the concepts current in the schools, as for example that of satisfactio. But, for him, this terminology is never more than a vocabulary for emergency use and it does not supplant the biblical period.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.200

The content of monastic culture has seemed to be symbolized, synthesized, by these two words: grammar and spirituality. On the one hand, learning is necessary if one is to approach God and to express what is perceived of Him; on the other hand, literature must be continually transcended and elevated in the striving to attain eternal life.

jean leclercq, the love of learning, p.53

This undertaking of a natural history they thought possible because their college halls and libraries seemed firmly established in the shadow of revered institutions like Church and State. Little did they know that scholarship is based on a common bond between laity and scholars called the Church, and on a common law of freedom called the State, in our era. Before we can criticize at leisure, we must be at leisure. No science of man is truly scientific which remains ignorant of this, its own, premise.

rosenstock-heussy, fruit of lips, p.15

But this period of turning upside down [in other words, all modern Biblical scholarship] is at an end. It has no interest to me. For readers who cannot study the question I may mention some facts which put in jeopardy the whole era from Reimarus to Wrede in its quest for an historical Jesus 'behind' our source material. They form a road-clock now against the reductionists. We shall never know an 'historical' Jesus 'behind' so-called 'material.'

1. John writes as an eye-witness who knows the minutest details when he cares to mention them. The apostle is the author of the Gospel. Therefore it carries authority.

2. All four Gospels are apostolic. Matthew was the converted publican, and he wrote under James' (John's brother's) eyes in Jerusalem before AD 42. Mark obeyed Peter. Luke lived with Paul. John dictated to a Greek secretary.

...

rosenstock-heussy, fruit of lips, p.11

or, as i prefer to put the same idea, 'frankly, modern scholarship, i don't give a d***.'