| Author Quoted | Etienne Gilson |
| Title Quoted | Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard / translation from the French: La theologie mystique de Saint Bernard |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1950/04/22 |
| Imprint | London : Sheed and Ward. 1940 |
| Quotation | That is why I feel that your works are so tremendously helpful, dear Father. Your St. Bernard Mystique is altogether admirable because, while being simple and fluent, it communicates to the reader a real appreciation of St. Bernard's spirituality. You are wrong to consider your treatment of St. Bernard superficial. It is indeed addressed to the general reader but for all that it is profound and all-embracing, and far more valuable than the rather technical study which I undertook for the Collectanea and which, as you will see on reading it, was beyond my capacities as a theologian. The earlier sections especially, in my study, contain many glaring and silly errors"”or at least things are often very badly expressed there. If I write a book on the saint I shall try to redeem myself, without entering into the technical discussions that occupy M. Gilson in his rather brilliant study [The Mystical Theology of St. Bernard]. But there again, a book of your type is far more helpful. |
| Quotation Source | The School of Charity: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Renewal and Spiritual Direction.; Selected and edited by Brother Patrick Hart. / New York : Farrar Straus Giroux. 1990, p. 20 |
| Letter to | Dom Jean Leclercq, o.s.b. |
| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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