De humilitate.
The Root of All Learning
Humility is the beginning of all learning, and those who chase reputation rather than wisdom only drift further from it.
The beginning of all learning is humility. Though its lessons are many, these three matter most for the reader: first, hold no branch of knowledge and no passage of Scripture to be beneath you; second, be willing to learn without embarrassment from anyone at all; and third, once you've gained real knowledge, don't look down on others. Many people are deceived by this: they want to appear wise before their time. This is how they swell with a kind of conceit: they begin both to pretend to be what they are not and to feel ashamed of what they are — and the more they do this, the further they drift from real wisdom, because they care not about being wise but only about being thought wise. I've known many people like this: still struggling with the very basics, yet they think themselves important only if they've read or heard the writings or words of great and learned authors. 'We,' they say, 'have seen those people.' We've read their works. They used to talk with us often. Those eminent, those celebrated figures — they recognized us.'
Glory in What You Do Not Know
True humility glories in what it has not yet grasped and remains willing to learn from any teacher.
But would that no one knew me, and that I knew everything! To have seen Plato, not to have understood — I glory in that.1 I think it's beneath you, from now on, to listen to me. I am not Plato, nor have I deserved to see Plato. It's enough for you: you've drunk from philosophy's very source — but would that you were still thirsty! A king, after golden cups, drinks from an earthen vessel.2 Why are you ashamed? You've heard Plato — now hear Chrysippus too.
Learning from Everyone
Since no one knows everything, a wise reader seeks instruction from all and measures ignorance rather than knowledge.
There's a proverb that says: What you don't know, perhaps Ofellus does. No one has been given the gift of knowing everything, and yet no one is without some particular ability received from nature. A wise reader, then, listens willingly to everyone, reads everything, and despises no writing, no person, no teaching. Without prejudice, he seeks from everyone whatever he sees he himself lacks, and he measures not how much he knows but how much he doesn't. Hence that saying they attribute to Plato: I'd rather learn from others with humility than push my own views forward with shameless confidence. Why are you ashamed to learn, and yet not ashamed to remain ignorant? That shame is greater than the other. Or what are you reaching for the highest things, when you're lying in the lowest?3
The Orderly Path to Wisdom
Steady, humble progress from all sources leads to true wisdom more surely than rash leaps beyond one's strength.
Consider instead what your own strength can bear. A person walks most steadily who walks in an orderly way. Some people, wanting to take a great leap, fall over a cliff. So don't rush too much. This way you'll reach wisdom sooner. Willingly learn from everyone what you don't know, because humility can make common to you what nature has made proper to each. You'll be wiser than everyone if you're willing to learn from everyone. Those who receive from everyone are richer than everyone.
No Knowledge Beneath You
All knowledge is good, so the humble reader despises no writing and discerns what to read while remaining teachable.
Finally, don't hold any knowledge in contempt, because all knowledge is good. Don't despise any writing, if you have the time, or at least refuse to read it. If you gain nothing, you lose nothing either — especially since, in my judgment, there is no writing that doesn't offer something worth pursuing, if it's handled in a fitting place and order. No writing lacks something distinctive that a careful student of the word wouldn't find elsewhere: the more rarely it appears, the more welcome it is to uncover.4 Yet nothing is good that pride takes away.5 If you can't read everything, read the things that are more useful. And even if you are able to read everything, the same effort shouldn't be given to everything. But some things should be read so they aren't unknown, and others so they aren't unheard of — because sometimes we believe something is more valuable when we haven't heard it, and a thing is more easily valued when its fruit is recognized. You can now see how necessary this humility is for you: that you hold no knowledge in contempt and willingly learn from everyone.
The Good Reader
Having gained wisdom, do not scorn others; the good reader remains humble, patient, and slow to judge.
In the same way, it's also good for you that once you've started becoming wise about something, you shouldn't look down on others. But this swollen pride happens to some people because they scrutinize their own knowledge too closely, and when they've seemed to themselves to be something, they think others — whom they haven't known — to be neither such nor capable of becoming such.6 From this also bubbles up the fact that some trifling fellows here and there — I don't know from where — are boasting, accusing earlier fathers of simplicity, and believe that wisdom was born with them and will die with them.7 They say that in divine utterances the simple manner of speaking should be such that one ought not listen to teachers in them, since each person can sufficiently penetrate the mysteries of truth by their own talent.8 They wrinkle their nose and squint at readers of divinity, and they don't understand that they do injury to God, whose words they proclaim as simple indeed in beautiful language, but perverse and tasteless in meaning.9 It's not my counsel to imitate such people. For a good reader ought to be humble and gentle, completely removed from vain cares and the allurements of pleasures, diligent and zealous, so as to willingly learn from everyone, never presume about their own knowledge, flee the authors of perverse doctrine as if they were poisons, and learn to examine a matter for a long time before judging — not to seem learned, but to be so — seek to understand and love the sayings of the wise, and always strive to hold these things before their eyes as a mirror of their own countenance.10 And if by chance some more obscure things haven't admitted their understanding, let them not immediately break forth into blame so as to believe nothing good except what they themselves have been able to understand.11
A Discipline of Humility
This is the humility proper to the reader's way of life.
This is the humility of the reader's discipline.
Read the original Latin
Principium autem disciplinae humilitas est, cuius cum multa sint documenta, haec tria praecipue ad lectorem pertinent: primum, ut nullam scientiam, nullam scripturam vilem teneat, secundum, ut a nemine discere erubescat, tertium, ut cum scientiam adeptus fuerit, ceteros non contemnat. multos hoc decipit, quod ante tempus, sapientes videri volunt. hinc namque in quendam elationis tumorem prorumpunt, ut iam et simulare incipiant quod non sunt et quod sunt erubescere, eoque longius a sapientia recedunt quo non esse sapientes, sed putari putant. eiusmodi multos novi, qui, cum primis adhuc elementis indigeant, non nisi summis interesse dignantur, et ex hoc solummodo se magnos fieri putant, si magnorum et sapientium vel scripta legerint vel audierint verba. 'nos,' inquiunt, 'vidimus illos. nos ab illis legimus. saepe nobis loqui illi solebant. illi summi, illi famosi, cognovertunt nos.'
sed utinam me nemo agnoscat et ego cuncta noverim! Platonem vidisse, non intellexisse gioriamini. puto indignum vobis est deinceps ut me audiatis. non ego sum Plato, nec Platonem videre merui. sufficit vobis: ipsum philosophiae fontem potastis, sed utinam adhuc sitiretis! rex post aurea pocula de vase bibit testeo. quid erubescitis? Platonem audistis, audiatis et Chrysippum.
in proverbio dicitur: Quod tu non nosti, fortassis novit Ofellus. nemo est cui omnia scire datum sit, neque quisquam rursum cui aliquid speciale a natura accepisse non contigerit. prudens igitur lector omnes libenter audit, omnia legit, non scripturam, non personam, non doctrinam spernit. indifferenter ab omnibus quod sibi deesse videt quaerit, nec quantum sciat, sed quantum ignoret, considerat. hinc illud Platonicum aiunt: Malo aliena verecunde discere, quam mea impudenter ingerere. cur enim discere erubescis, et nescire non verecundaris? pudor iste maior est illo. aut quid summa affectas cum tu iaceas in imo?
considera potius quid vires tuae ferre valeant. aptissime incedit, qui incedit ordinate. quidam dum magnum saltum facere volunt, praecipitium incidunt. noli ergo nimis festinare. hoc modo citius ad sapientiam pertinges. ab omnibus libenter disce quod tu nescis, quia humilitas commune tibi facere potest quod natura cuique proprium fecit. sapientior omnibus eris, si ab omnibus discere volueris. qui ab omnibus accipiunt, omnibus ditiores sunt.
nullam denique scientiam vilem teneas, quia omnis scientia bona est. nullam, si vacat, scripturam vel saltem legere contemnas. si nihil lucraris, nec perdis aliquid, maxime cum nulla scriptura sit, secundum meam aestimationem, quae aliquid expetendum non proponat, si convenienti loco et ordine tractetur; quae non aliquid etiam speciale habeat, quod diligens verbi scrutator alibi non inventum, quanto rarius, tanto gratius carpat. nihil tamen bonum est quod melius tollit. si omnia legere non potes, ea quae sunt utiliora lege. etiam si omnia legere potueris, non tamen idem omnibus labor impendendus est. sed quaedam ita legenda sunt ne sint incognita, quaedam vero ne sint inaudita, quia aliquando pluris esse credimus quod non audivimus, et facilius aestimatur res cuius fructus agnoscitur. videre nunc potes quam necessaria tibi sit haec humilitas, ut nullam scientiam vilipendas et ab omnibus libenter discas.
similiter tibi quoque expedit, ut, cum tu aliquid sapere coeperis, ceteros non contemnas. hoc autem tumoris vitium hinc quibusdam accidit, quod suam scientiam nimis diligenter inspiciunt, et cum sibi aliquid esse visi fuerint, alios, quos non noverunt, tales nec esse nec potuisse fieri putant. hinc etiam ebullit, quod nugigeruli nunc quidam, nescio unde, gloriantes, priores patres simplicitatis arguunt, et secum natam, secum morituram credunt sapientiam. in divinis eloquiis ita simplicem loquendi modum esse aiunt, ut in eis magistros audire non oporteat, posse satis quemque proprio ingenio veritatis arcana penetrare. corrugant nasum et valgium torquent in lectores divinitatis, et non intelligunt quod Deo iniuriam faciunt, cuius verba pulchro quidem vocabulo simplicia, sed sensu pravo insipida praedicant. non est mei consilii huiusmodi imitari. bonus enim lector humilis debet esse et mansuetus, a curis inanibus et voluptatum illecebris prorsus alienus, diligens et sedulus, ut ab omnibus libenter discat, numquam de scientia sua praesumat, perversi dogmatis auctores quasi venena fugiat, diu rem pertractare antequam iudicet discat, non videri doctus, sed esse quaerat, dicta sapientium intellecta diligat, et ea semper coram oculis quasi speculum vultus sui tenere studeat. et si qua forte obscuriora intellectum eius non admiserint, non statim in vituperium prorumpat, ut nihil bonum esse credat, nisi quod ipse intelligere potuit.
haec est humilitas disciplinae legentium.
Notes
- 1 ↩The form 'gioriamini' is uncertain and likely corrupt; it is rendered here as a first-person singular boast ('I glory'), which best fits the contrastive context. The source reading is doubtful.
- 2 ↩'testeo' is an uncertain or rare adjective meaning 'earthenware'; the source reading is doubtful.
- 3 ↩cum is ambiguous (temporal/causal/concessive); concessive reading ('when/although you lie in the lowest') best fits the rhetorical contrast.
- 4 ↩The long periodic sentence has been broken into two readable English sentences to preserve the causal and comparative logic (cum, quanto...tanto) without stiffness.
- 5 ↩The Latin is compressed: nihil tamen bonum est quod melius tollit. The sense is that nothing is genuinely good that a better disposition (or pride) removes; the rendering preserves the ambiguity of quod melius tollit while keeping the sentence readable.
- 6 ↩'tumoris vitium' (swelling fault) captures the metaphor of pride as a swelling; 'quod' is causal here, introducing the reason for the swelling.
- 7 ↩'nugigeruli' is a rare word meaning 'trifling fellows' or 'trivial men'; the tone is contemptuous. 'quod' here is causal conjunction introducing the content of what 'ebullit' (bubbles forth).
- 8 ↩'ut' here is purpose/result with 'oporteat'; the claim being reported is that the simplicity of Scripture means teachers are unnecessary and individual reason suffices for mysteries.
- 9 ↩'valgium' is a rare/uncertain form, likely from 'valgus' (squinting or bow-legged); rendered as 'squint' as a physical metaphor for disdainful distortion. 'quod' is complementizer introducing indirect statement after 'non intelligunt'.
- 10 ↩'enim' is postpositive explanatory/causal, grounding the preceding refusal to imitate in the positive portrait of the good reader. The long sentence is rendered as a single flowing English sentence with semicolon-like pacing to preserve the cumulative force.
- 11 ↩'ut' here is likely result ('so as to') rather than purpose; the sense is that the rush to blame leads to the conclusion that only what one understands is good. 'qua' is indefinite feminine (any things).
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