3. His teaching was drawn, almost exclusively, from the pages of Sacred Scripture and from the Fathers, which he had at hand day and night in his profound meditations: and not from the subtle reasonings of dialecticians and philosophers, which, on more than one occasion, he clearly held in low esteem. It should be remarked that he does not reject that human philosophy which is genuine philosophy, namely, that which leads to God, to right living, and to Christian wisdom. Rather does he repudiate that philosophy which, by recourse to empty wordiness and clever quibbling, is overweening enough to climb to divine heights and to delve into all the secrets of God, with the result that, as often happened in those days, it did harm to the integrity of faith and, sad to say, fell into heresy.
4. “Do you see . . .” he wrote, “how St. Paul the Apostle (I Cor. viii, 2), makes the fruit and the utility of knowledge consist in the way we know? What is meant by ‘the way we know’? Is it not simply this, that you should recognize in what order, with what application, for what purpose and what things you should know? In what order – that you may first learn what is more conducive to salvation; with what zeal – that you may learn with deeper conviction what moves you to more ardent love; for what purpose – that you may not learn for vain glory, curiosity, or anything of the kind, but only for your own edification and that of your neighbor. For there are some who want knowledge for the sole purpose of knowing, and this is unseemly curiosity. And there are some who seek knowledge in order to be known themselves; and this is unseemly vanity . . . and there are also those who seek knowledge in order to sell their knowledge, for example, for money or for honors; and this is unseemly quest for gain. But there are also those who seek knowledge in order to edify, and this is charity. And there are those who seek knowledge in order to be edified, and this is prudence.”
I think it worth mentioning that St. Bernard de Clairvaux was renowned for aggressively preaching down the heresies of particular philosophical innovators against sound teaching, and lived well before the renewal of Christian philosophy by St. Dominic and St. Thomas Aquinas. Opposing Abelard alone would make St. Bernard a hero of the faith, but that he also embraced Peter Lombard, whose Sentences became the de facto standard theology work for generations, and opposed Arnold of Brescia, Peter de Bruys, and Henry de Lausanne–this makes him an almost epochal anticipation of everything that would be so badly damaged in the next five centuries, and an anticipation of what is most fundamental in the sacra doctrina of Aquinas among the Dominicans.