De ordine narrationis.
The Winding Path of Scripture's Narration
The divine pages often depart from natural sequence, placing later events before earlier ones and joining distant ideas as though they were immediate neighbors.
As far as the order of narration goes, there is one thing you should pay special attention to here: the texture of the divine pages does not always follow a natural or continuous sequence in how it speaks, because it often puts later things ahead of earlier ones — for instance, once it has listed certain points, the discourse suddenly jumps back to earlier matters, as though it were narrating things that follow in order; and often, too, it connects ideas that stand far apart in the text, as if they were coming one right after the other, so that it seems to have left no gap of time between things that the flow of speech does not distinguish as separate at all.
Read the original Latin
De ordine narrationis illud maxime hoc loco considerandum est, quod divinae paginae textus nec naturalem semper nec continuum loquendi ordinem servat, quia et saepe posteriora prioribus anteponit, sicut, cum aliqua enumeraverit, subito ad superiora, quasi subsequentia narrans, sermo recurrat; saepe etiam ea quae longo distant intervallo, quasi mox sibi succedentia, connectit, ut videatur nullum disiunxisse spatium temporis illa quae non discernit ullum intervallum sermonis.
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