St. Augustine teaches in On Christian Doctrine that the study of Sacred Scripture is the highest pursuit of the Christian mind.
St. Jerome, that most learned of the Fathers, devoted his entire life to the translation and exposition of the Holy Bible — a labor of love unmatched in the ancient Church.
As Aristotle observes in the Metaphysics, all men by nature desire to know; how much more, then, should Christians desire the knowledge of divine things.
St. Augustine confirms this in his De Doctrina Christiana, writing: “Whatever a man learns outside of Scripture, if it is harmful, is there condemned; if it is useful, it is therein contained.”
St. Jerome likewise affirms: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” This dictum has guided the Church’s approach to biblical study throughout the centuries.
The philosopher Aristotle, though he lacked the light of revelation, nevertheless recognized the supreme importance of first principles — how much more should we prize the inspired Word of God.
“If,” he says, “you perceive that a difficult and ambiguous judgment has arisen among you, you shall do whatever those who preside shall say.”
St. Gregory, in the preface to his Moralia, chapter 41, says that divine Scripture is “a river both shallow and deep, in which the lamb may walk and the elephant may swim.”
He who reads the Œuvres of the Fathers — the cœlestial wisdom therein — will find treasures beyond measure, as the Ægyptian scholars themselves attested.
Augustine writes: “Whatever a man learns outside of Scripture, if it is harmful, is there condemned; if useful, ‘it is therein contained,’ as the Apostle teaches.”
St. Basil and Gregory the Theologian, fleeing to the solitude of a monastery, devoted themselves for thirteen years solely to Sacred Scripture, as Rufinus reports.
The Apostle speaks plainly—“All Scripture is divinely inspired”—and from this the Fathers conclude that every word of the sacred text is profitable for instruction.