103 speech about to whom one ought to attribute priority in theology: to him or to Aquinas? And where did he obtain such superhuman knowledge? In religious life. I pass by the learned Abbot Rupert;15 he attributed his uncommon knowledge to the Seat and Mother of Wisdom, to the most Holy Virgin, who was the one to impart it to him, when he lay in the solitude of the cloister. I do not refer here to Cornelius, the excellent, yielding to no one, exegete of Sacred Scripture, who in the Commentary to the Book of Wisdom, dedicated to the best and most Holy Virgin the most wonderful line: “The sea—he states —of wisdom and grace, you are, O Maria our Mother! To you therefore let the streams of wisdom, which you have poured upon us, return, so as to pour forth anew.”16 Thus, as the one who in a moment has again to draw forth from it, he directs to the Ocean of Wisdom all his knowledge. Who is capable of naming such unnumbered representatives of the religious life, who not only by the grace of God, but also, as it were, on account of their perfect morality, succeeded to place in themselves such infused knowledge, that not only people counted to the strict group of teachers, but almost the entire world admires, honors, and glorifies them. But so that someone not carry away the impression that I have passed over the most important argument, I ask you to look at these most bright luminaries of the Church: such as Augustine, 15 Saint Rupert of Deutz (1075-1135), Benedictine theologian in the spirit of the Cluniac tradition (1075-1135), abbot of the Benedictine monastery near Cologne, author of numerous exegetical and theological writings. Cf. Migne, PL, vol. 175; see H. de Lubac, Rupert de Deutz, in: Exégèse médievale, vol. I, part II, pp. 219-238; Rh. Haacke Rupert von Deutz, De victoria verbi Dei. Monumenta Germaniae historica, vol. 5, Weimar 1970. 16 Only the first line is from the commentary of Cornelius à Lapide, the rest was written by St. Stanislaus, who set the Latin verses in pentameter form: Mare inquit, Sapientiae et Gratiae es tu, O Maria, Mater nostra! Ad te ergo | flumina sapientiae, quae in nos effundisti, regrediantur, ut iterum fluant.
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