De meditatione.
The Nature and Freedom of Meditation
Meditation is a free, careful reflection that begins with reading but roams beyond all fixed rules to examine the causes, origins, and purposes of things.
Meditation is careful, repeated reflection that thoughtfully examines the cause, origin, manner, and purpose of each thing. Meditation starts with reading, but it isn't bound by any rules or guidelines of reading. For meditation delights in running freely through an open field, where it can fix its gaze on the truth without restraint — at one time touching on these causes of things, at another time those, and at another probing the deepest matters, leaving nothing uncertain and nothing obscure unexplored.
The Joy and Rest Found in Meditation
Devoted meditation brings deep joy, comfort in trouble, separation from earthly noise, and a foretaste of eternal rest through delight in the Creator.
So reading is the beginning of learning, but meditation is its completion. If someone learns to love meditation intimately and is willing to devote time to it, it makes life deeply joyful and offers the greatest comfort in times of trouble. For this is what most of all separates the soul from the noise of earthly affairs and allows it, even in this present life, to taste in some measure the sweetness of eternal rest. And when, through the things that have been made, a person has learned to seek and understand the One who made all things, then meditation at once trains the soul with knowledge and fills it with joy, so that the greatest delight is found in meditation.
The Three Kinds of Meditation
Meditation is threefold: examining one's character, scrutinizing God's commands, and investigating the works of God.
There are three kinds of meditation. The first consists in examining one's character, the second in scrutinizing God's commands, and the third in investigating the works of God.
Moral Self-Examination
The first meditation examines how character is shaped by vices and virtues.
Character is shaped by vices and virtues.
Meditation on God's Commands
The second meditation scrutinizes divine commandments, which may command, promise, or warn.
A divine commandment may command, or promise, or warn.
Marveling at the Works of God
The third meditation investigates God's works—His power, wisdom, and grace—and the more one knows them, the more one admires and meditates on His wonders.
It is the work of God — what power creates, what wisdom governs, and what grace brings to completion. All these things — how worthy they are of admiration — the more each person knows, the more attentively they have been accustomed to meditate on God's wonders.1
Read the original Latin
Meditatio est cogitatio frequens cum consilio, quae causam et originem, modum et utilitatem uniuscuiusque rei prudenter investigat. meditatio principium sumit a lectione, nullis tamen stringitur regulis aut praeceptis lectionis. delectatur enim quodam aperto decurrere spatio, ubi liberam contemplandae veritati aciem affigat, et nunc has, nunc illas rerum causas perstringere, nunc autem profunda quaeque penetrare, nihil anceps, nihil obscurum relinquere. principium ergo doctrinae est in lectione, consummatio in meditatione, quam si quis familiarius amare didicerit eique saepius vacare voluerit, iucundam valde reddit vitam, et maximam in tribulatione praestat consolationem. ea enim maxime est, quae animam a terrenorum actuum strepitu segregat, et in hac vita etiam aeternae quietis dulcedinem quodammodo praegustare facit. cumque iam per ea quae facta sunt eum qui fecit omnia quaerere didicerit et intelligere, tunc animum pariter et scientia erudit et laetitia perfundit, unde fit ut maximum in meditatione sit oblectamentum. tria sunt genera meditationis. unum constat in circumspectione morum, aliud in scrutatione mandatorum, tertium in investigatione divinorum operum.
mores sunt in vitiis et virtutibus. mandatum divinum, aliud praecipiens, aliud promittens, aliud terrens. opus Dei est, et quod creat potentia, et quod moderatur sapientia, et quod cooperatur gratia. quae omnia, quanta sint admiratione digna, tanto magis quisque novit, quanto attentius Dei mirabilia meditari consuevit.
Notes
- 1 ↩tanto magis ... quanto ...: correlative comparative construction. Rendered as 'the more ... the more attentively' to preserve the proportional logic.
Didascalicon de Studio Legendi (On the Study of Reading) companion
Hugh said begin with small daily portions. Start tomorrow.
Chosen Portion serves one short, ordered devotional reading each day — the medieval lectio pattern, free on iOS.
Hugh taught that formation comes from ordered, incremental daily reading, and Chosen Portion is that ordered daily portion delivered to your phone.
- A curated daily portion in 2-3 minutes, no decision fatigue about what to read
- Progress through complete historic works in order, the way Hugh prescribed
- Free app plus a weekly email unpacking one reading in depth