SOURCE: Renna, Thomas. “St. Bernard and the Pagan Classics: An Historical View.” In The Chimaera of His Age: Studies of Bernard of Clairvaux; Studies in Medieval Cistercian History V, edited by E. Rozanne Elder and John R. Sommerfeldt, pp. 122-39. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1980.

In the following essay, Renna explores Bernard's attitude toward the Latin classics, explaining that while he himself was learned in classical works, Bernard opposed the study of pagan writings for monks.

Was there a monastic attitude towards pagan literature during the early Middle Ages? While historians prior to the 1920s stressed the monks' hostility toward the latin classics, more recent scholarship refers to monastic humanism, that is, the monks' tendency to admire and even to assimilate the style and content of antique works. At the least, many monks read the classics as a preparation for divine studies. But what about the persistent minority of...